Highland Park Methodist’s story is not a first

To close observers of The United Methodist Church, the current legal wranglings over Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas might sound familiar.

A similar story played out four years ago in Arkansas, in what was then the second-largest UMC church in the state. A primary difference is that the attempt by First United Methodist Church of Jonesboro to disaffiliate from the denomination happened during a special window created for disaffiliation. Even then, the final court ruling did not go the way of those wanting to exit.

Since 2019, more than 7,600 congregations have disaffiliated with the UMC, largely in disagreements over LGBTQ inclusion and ordination. Most of those churches left smoothly, using provisions of a short-term provision that made it possible for them to exit with their properties and assets at reduced cost. However, a few hundred churches remain locked in legal battles over their desire to disaffiliate and keep their properties and names.

Because the UMC operates through regional “annual conferences,” these lawsuits do not involve the larger denomination. Such is the case at the Dallas church, which has been sued in county court by the Horizon Texas Conference of the UMC.

While the Dallas case is complicated because it began with unilateral changes to the church’s governing documents, the heart of the issue here is the same as nationwide: Adherence to the UMC’s “trust clause,” which says all local church property is held in trust for the benefit of the entire denomination.

“In Dallas as in Jonesboro, the name of the church also matters.”

In Dallas as in Jonesboro, the name of the church also matters. After Highland Park United Methodist Church changed it legal name to Highland Park Methodist Church, Dallas Bishop Ruben Saenz created a church in exile using the “United” name and claiming it is the true successor the 110-year-old church.

At this point, all this is headed to court — assuming the judge will hear the case and rule on it next year.

The Arkansas story

In Arkansas, a court ruling settled a similar dispute between First United Methodist Church of Jonesboro and First Methodist Church of Jonesboro.

In July 2022, First United Methodist Church voted to disaffiliate with the UMC. The vote was 944 to 412 in favor. This was done in accordance with the temporary disaffiliation process that required a two-thirds vote in a congregation wishing to leave the UMC.

However, those disaffiliation votes had to be ratified by a simple majority vote of the regional governing body, in this case the Arkansas Annual Conference. On Nov. 19, 2022, the regional body voted 335 to 254 to reject the Jonesboro church’s request to disaffiliate.

That meant First United Methodist Church remained a UMC congregation bound to the Book of Discipline and the “trust clause.”

About a month later, on Dec. 15, 2022, despite explicit warnings from conference officials, Senior Pastor John Miles held an unsanctioned church meeting where attendees voted 629 to 9 to break away regardless. They adopted new bylaws and elected an independent leadership team.

The next day, the bishop suspended Miles from his pastoral duties immediately. But rather than stepping down, Miles and the breakaway board filed a lawsuit in Craighead County Circuit Court, claiming the UMC conference had no legal right to the physical campus.

Thus began a two-year property fight that pushed the majority group off the historic campus.

On Aug. 28, 2024, Judge Gary Arnold ruled in favor of the UMC conference and the loyal members of the original church, determining the property belonged to the church under the UMC’s trust clause. Both parties entered mediation and agreed to a settlement that gave the smaller group — the one loyal to the UMC — full legal title to the property at 801 S. Main Street, held in trust for the United Methodist Church.

Also, the larger breakaway group, First Methodist Church of Jonesboro, agreed to pay a $1.1 million cash settlement to First United Methodist Church and the conference, relinquish all claims to First United Methodist’s name, Employer Identification Number, website domain and estate/trust funds.

Today, the congregation loyal to the UMC continues to operate out of the historic downtown campus and remains aligned with the Arkansas Conference of the United Methodist Church. Its pastor is Jacob Lynn.

The group that left the UMC operates as an independent Methodist church. While currently meeting at Arkansas State University’s Fowler Center, the church purchased a 55,000-square-foot facility at 2908 S. Caraway Road for $6.35 million and is renovating it for move-in next year.  John Miles continues to lead the congregation.

Compared to Dallas

While the stories are similar, the Dallas congregation is operating on a much larger scale, being the second-largest church in the UMC by weekly attendance. By the church’s report, 90% of members voted to disaffiliate from the UMC.

And in this case, the congregation carrying on the traditional name, the congregation loyal to the UMC, is meeting elsewhere while the disaffiliating group has kept the extremely valuable property.

And there’s a whole lot more to the backstory on that property.

Paul Miller, a former UMC pastor, has been detailing this journey on his blog at Anselm. The story is complicated and involves Southern Methodist University, which at one point in the past gave the property Highland Park United Methodist — now Highland Park. Methodist — sits on.

SMU has had its own recent legal battles with the UMC related to seeking independence from the denomination.

In July 2025, the Texas Supreme Court said the South Central Jurisdiction of The United Methodist Church had legal standing to sue SMU over changed bylaws that deprived the regional body of its right to govern the church-owned university located in the heart of Dallas.

The Texas high court issued a mostly unanimous opinion upholding the regional body’s right to governance over SMU, which South Central’s predecessor founded in 1911. The jurisdiction also legally holds title to 133 acres of the university 234-acre Dallas campus.

The South Central Jurisdiction is a larger body that encompasses Horizon Texas Conference. The jurisdiction includes churches in Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

On March 18, 2026, a court settlement was reached by which SMU updated its articles of incorporation to explicitly maintain its historic relationship with the UMC, and both sides agreed to drop all active litigation. Leadership from both SMU and the UMC issued a joint statement pledging to strengthen their future collaboration.

According to Miller, leaders of the Highland Park congregation were afraid to leave the UMC because they knew there was a historic legal connection between their land the denomination, just as SMU encountered.

What they didn’t know until later, Miller says, is that on Nov. 30, 1926, SMU’s trustees signed a quitclaim deed regarding the church property. “They gave the Highland Park trustees, ‘their successors and assigns, forever,’ every interest SMU held in the land, and they bound SMU, its successors, and ‘any person or persons claiming under us’ never to ‘claim or demand any right, or title’ to it again. The reversion to SMU was gone. The deed says nothing about the Discipline or the denomination.”

“Discovering that long-forgotten quitclaim changed everything, Miller contends.”

Discovering that long-forgotten quitclaim changed everything, Miller contends. And it gave leaders of HPUMC the courage to do what they didn’t think they could do before.

What else is at play?

Leaders at the now-renamed HPMC have been coy about their real motivations for the changes made to governing documents. They also have contended all along that they didn’t want to leave the UMC but were forced to do so when the bishop sued them and began an investigation into their pastor.

The extremely affluent congregation forms the epitome of a “purple” church politically. While steeped in Wesleyan social justice traditions, the church is full of both Republicans and Democrats.

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, a leading Democrat, is a member of the church. So are George and Laura Bush, former Republican president and First Lady. Many of Dallas’ business elite attend the church.

As the UMC fought over same-sex marriage, HPUMC sought to thread the needle carefully and allows its ministers to officiate same-sex marriages anywhere except on church grounds. The only weddings allowed in the Gothic-style chapel and sanctuary are heterosexual.

Because of this and the enormous size of the church, HPMC’s decision to disaffiliate has not been received well with other UMC clergy in the area. In fact, the HPMC clergy appear to stand alone among their peers in supporting the shift.

Right after the Highland Park vote to disaffiliate, First United Methodist Church of Dallas purchased a full-page ad in the Dallas Morning News for an open letter written by Senior Pastor Mitchell Boone.

“The UMC is not perfect, and neither is our church,” he wrote. “… In an anxious age, perhaps the most hopeful thing a church can do is refuse to retreat. We would rather help write the next chapter of the UMC than watch it from a distance.”

Boone took his concern with the Highland Park folks a step further in a post on his Substack, where he wrote about the Parable of the Prodigal Son from the perspective of the older brother. And then he compared the actions of the Highland Park church to the actions of Highland Park citizens, who recently voted to exit the region’s mass transit system called DART.

Highland Park leaders maintained they were not getting what they paid for in the regional transit system. That’s essentially the same concern Highland Park Methodist had with the UMC, he claims.

The title of his piece, “When Accountability Feels Like Persecution: On the rise of victimhood, Luke 15, and HPUMC.”

He wrote: “One of the largest and most resourced congregations in American Methodism has fallen over backwards claiming they are the victim. A familiar song is being sung. A request for accountability is received as an assault. The one who made the request is reassigned as the offender. And the leaders of HPUMC who were asked to answer for their behavior are relieved by flipping the script and are under no obligation (at least not in the court of congregational opinion) to do so.”

While there is precedent for nearly every individual aspect of the battle between HPMC and the Horizon Texas Conference of the UMC, the combination of factors has not been duplicated.

This dispute involves a very large church, a very affluent church, a lot of members who are more loyal to the church than to the denomination, complicated property legalities, headstrong personalities and a subtext no one wants to talk about: How much of this is about property and assets, and how much is about standing against the UMC’s new openness to LGBTQ weddings and clergy?

 

Mark Wingfield serves as executive director and publisher of Baptist News Globa and is based in Dallas.

 

Related:

Today’s UMC has only 3 megachurches | Analysis by Mark Wingfield

In Dallas, Methodist bishop creates a church in exile

Highland Park Methodist and the death of denominationalism | Analysis by Mark Wingfield

3 reasons all churches should pay attention to HPUMC right now | Analysis by Mark Wingfield

Dallas megachurch overwhelmingly votes to leave UMC

The nondenominationalizing of American Christianity | Opinion by Bill Leonard

UMC can sue SMU over governance, Texas high court says