Changes made to the governing documents of Highland Park United Methodist Church in 2022 were to “ensure that if the church maintained its ecclesiastical connection with the UMC, it was legally insulated from the ecclesiastical and doctrinal strife within UMC,” according to a new court filing.
Leaders of the Dallas megachurch filed a response Sept. 21 with the Dallas County District Court where the Horizon Texas Conference of The United Methodist Church has sued to make the church return to its previous relationship with the denomination.
In a separate posting on the church’s website, congregational leaders continue to maintain they are the ones seeking “truth, transparency and integrity” while accusing the Horizon Texas Conference and its bishop of lying about what has happened.
Congregational leaders continue to maintain they are the ones seeking “truth, transparency and integrity.”
“We made administrative updates to our corporate documents to ensure that our legal and governance structure was consistent with applicable Texas law,” the website statement says. “These changes were made under the corporate governance procedures established in our existing documents and with the guidance of corporate counsel.
“As part of those updates, the conference was notified of HPUMC’s corporate name change and amendments. The conference received copies of our as-filed Restated Certificate of Formation, which included both a detailed summary of the changes we made and the amended articles. The conference confirmed receipt and shared the materials, at our request, with its parent body — the General Council on Finance and Administration of the United Methodist Church. The GCFA subsequently sent back written confirmation that HPUMC remained included in the United Methodist Church’s tax umbrella under our updated corporate form.”
One of the bishop’s claims is that the church changed it governing documents secretly and without informing denominational leaders or church members.
“HPUMC continued to participate fully in the life of the conference and denomination after these changes,” the church statement says. “The conference did not raise concerns about our governance structure until October 2025. We responded to requests for conversation and participated in multiple meetings in an effort to address those concerns.”
The latest court filing states the church’s claim that all it has done was legal and proper and necessary.
“The conference’s petition dresses up a dispute over a nonprofit’s articles of incorporation and bylaws in ecclesiastical garb.”
“This case is about corporate governance,” the new filing begins. “The conference’s petition dresses up a dispute over a nonprofit’s articles of incorporation and bylaws in ecclesiastical garb, but the actual issues it raises are entirely secular and fully resolvable under neutral principles of Texas law. The Texas Supreme Court has mandated exactly how such disputes must be resolved, and that precedent forecloses the relief plaintiff seeks.”
That statement is a nod to recent court precedent in Texas and elsewhere where courts have refused to rule on internal church disputes due to the ecclesial abstention doctrine.
The church claims its Church Council had full authority to change the governing documents and “exercised its lawful authority under the Texas Business Organizations Code to amend the church’s certificate of formation and adopt amended bylaws and articles of incorporation.”
The bishop contends the UMC’s Book of Discipline requires all congregations to include language in governing documents acknowledging the connectional nature of Methodism. HPUMC’s changes ignore that mandate.
The new church filing says the bishop seeks “a civil judicial declaration that (its) ecclesiastical authority overrides the plain dictates of Texas corporate law.”
Therefore, the lawsuit against the church is “frivolous,” the church says.
HPUMC leaders accuse the bishop and the conference of telling the court three things “that are not true”:
- That the church hid these 2022 corporate amendments from the conference. “After receiving confirmation of its corporate filings in December 2022, the church alerted plaintiff on Jan. 3, 2023, informing plaintiff of the corporate name change and providing plaintiff as-filed copies of both the Assumed Name Certificate and the Restated Certificate of Formation, which contained a detailed description of the amendments, plus the full text of the Amended Articles.”
- That the corporate amendments “effectively represented a silent disaffiliation from (the conference) and the UMC.” While contending that is not true, the church says such a claim is irrelevant to the legal dispute.
- That the bishop and the conference are lying when claiming they “did everything possible to avoid suing a church, and … did so as a last resort with a heavy heart.” Instead, the church contends, “this lawsuit was part of a carefully coordinated, preemptive attack on the church, planned over months, involving simultaneous legal, public relations and church disciplinary strategies.”
Church leaders also announced a second town hall meeting for members to be held Sunday, Oct. 11, at 5 p.m.
Related:
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