The president of the United Methodist Council of Bishops called his sibling episcopal leaders to “craft a narrative of hope” in the coming months before the 12-million-member worldwide denomination gathers next spring for its first legislative assembly since the UMC began to splinter apart in 2022 through a process called “disaffiliation.”
“We cannot afford to go into General Conference where the narrative is about our arguments, our disagreements and our division,” said Thomas Bickerton, council president and resident bishop of the New York episcopal area.
Bickerton delivered his presidential address Nov. 7 during the bishops’ meeting at UMC-owned Lake Junaluska Conference and Retreat Center about 27 miles west of Asheville, N.C. The council’s morning session, including the president’s address, was livestreamed over Facebook and is available on video.
A service of healing based on the “United Methodist Book of Worship” framed this year’s presidential address. The service opened with bishops, their spouses and observers singing familiar hymns of hope and healing, including “Morning Has Broken,” “Because He Lives,” and “There is a Balm in Gilead.”
The hymns set the tone for Bickerton’s address, in which the New York bishop repeatedly referred to The United Methodist Church’s pain caused by the disaffiliation movement. Although some churches had left the denomination previously, disaffiliations gained momentum after the traditionalist Global Methodist Church was formed by dissident United Methodists in May 2022. Since then, 7,000 local churches, mostly white, rural, small-membership churches led by non-seminary-trained pastors, have left the denomination, which had about 30,000 local churches prior to 2022.
The pain of parting has been compounded by propaganda that inflamed local churches’ fears of being forced to give up historic Christian beliefs or to accept a gay pastor, even though United Methodist law officially forbids ordaining LGBTQ people. The UMC also upholds traditional Christian beliefs enshrined in church law that its constitution states can’t be changed or removed.
Bickerton organized his talk around three “enlivening” venues: a September meeting in Cambodia of more than 200 United Methodist global mission workers; the June 2023 session of the Houston-based Texas Annual (regional) Conference; and the experience of Methodism’s founder John Wesley when he challenged the Anglican Church’s ministry system.
The council president emphasized that United Methodist bishops confront a denomination demoralized by its splintering, with remaining churches in various states of grieving and renewal.
“We can’t afford to walk into Charlotte (North Carolina, where General Conference is scheduled) to talk about disaffiliation and separation; that narrative has to change before we get there,” Bickerton said. “We must create a narrative about our sole aim to love God and neighbor so that people will notice it and be transformed by it.”
In addition to describing his September visit in Cambodia with United Methodist mission workers, Bickerton used the June 2023 session of the Houston-based Texas Annual Conference to describe both the UMC’s hurt and potential healing. Texas Conference lost more than half of its 600 local churches to disaffiliation in 2022 and 2023.
“The 47% of people who had remained United Methodist wanted to be there,” Bickerton said. “There was applause every single time Bishop (Cynthia Fierro) Harvey or I said, ‘United Methodist.'”
Bickerton described how a group of young Texas United Methodists — “progressive, centrist and traditionalist” — submitted a unity proposal, “Resolution for Our New Life Together,” in which they pledged to get along and work together. The annual conference unanimously adopted the resolution.
“In that action was nothing less than the work of the Holy Spirit,” Bickerton said. “In that action the Texas Conference decided to be the body of Christ. There was not a dry eye in the house.”
“There was not a person there who was not hurt by divisive words.”
“How were these people able to generate such resolve to find a path to resurrection?” the bishop asked. “There was not a person there who was not hurt by divisive words. There was not a person there who hadn’t said goodbye to colleagues and friends who disaffiliated. There was not a person there who was not called to lead out of their pain to a possibility of hope.”
Bickerton then used Henri Nouwen’s renowned book The Wounded Healer to frame the attitudes and actions he said were necessary for United Methodist bishops to lead the denomination to a more hopeful future.
“We bishops are part of the company of the wounded ones,” Bickerton said, drawing verbal affirmations from his audience. “Our district superintendents have worked hard (to manage the disaffiliation process) in the face of deep feelings of anger and resentment. Those of us in this room are absolutely exhausted, deeply hurt by the words and actions of others. We’re scarred and worn, and we all have days when we wonder if we can continue on the path we’re following.”
Harking back to Nouwen’s book, Bickerton urged his colleagues to envision “how to create and promote a narrative of hope and possibility in the midst of such pain and wounding.
“We’re here to learn from one another and to lean on one another for the next steps. We’re here to strategize how to lead in [the] next few months heading to General Conference, to find in [the] midst of circumstances the way God is calling us to lead.”
In the same way Nouwen ended The Wounded Healer, Bickerton closed his address with Psalm 95, which he called “a psalm of reality that signals hope and desire.”
“May we carefully and keenly listen for the voice of God in our midst more than we listen to our own voices,” the council president said. “I pray we won’t harden our hearts and instead find meaningful ways to sing a joyful song that acknowledges that in the midst of all we are facing, God will provide a way.”