We (The UMC) HAVE to talk about Bruno

Part 1 on the Necessity of the Protocol

There is a recent article by Jessica Vittorio making the rounds agonizing and mourning the loss of her church. Not just her local church where she is a lay person which recently laid off staff and the senior pastor who is leaving, but also the loss of The United Methodist Church. Much of this letter resonates with me as well. The United Methodist Church wasn’t my church of birth, but it was my adopted home. It is where I rediscovered my faith, and has spiritually undergirded me for many years. My mentors are all from The United Methodist Church. I went to seminary at an official United Methodist seminary. I am ordained in The United Methodist Church. It is understandable to mourn these things. It is truly tragic what is happening to the denomination.

However, I want to pause here and offer some important background from my own personal perspective.

My children’s favorite movie right now is Encanto. It is a brilliant movie that shows this perfect picture of this perfect family with perfect lives in a perfect village. However, what the viewer begins to see is that all this perfection has a price. Things start coming apart. Little things at first. A broken chalice here. A frustration there. The family does all they can to maintain this perfect image (Perfectly captured in the song: “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”). Until the climax of the movie when the whole thing falls apart. (Encanto really is a perfect movie, so you should definitely watch it and start singing “We Don’t Talk About Bruno.”)

My disillusionment with the UMC didn’t begin in St Louis, MO at General Conference 2019, or in Portland, OR at General Conference 2016. It begin in Tampa Bay, FL with General Conference 2012. This is when my spiritual bubble begin to crack because I realized something was wrong just under the surface. The foundations of agreement begin cracking with the failure of Plan UMC. Let me offer a little history of this. The United Methodist Church hired teams of consultants, formed committees, met for years, and produced the first major revision of the denomination in decades. It would have seen the entire institution modernized, restructured, and hopefully set us on a different trajectory than today. Emphasis was put into church planting, church revitalization, fresh starts at Annual Conferences all over the denomination. Guaranteed appointments would be done away with. More emphasis would be placed on carefully matching pastors and appointments. There was a hope that churches would sustain longer pastorates and maybe a hope that we might alter the ordination system and orders to have flexibility for the future.

While some of us have shorter memories, in my outside observer perspective was that General Conference 2012 was more contentious than General Conference 2019! There was more animosity over the possibility of losing bureaucratic agency jobs than any of the frustration over human sexuality in 2019. There was just as much finger pointing and name calling and deal making and accusing around a modernization attempt as there was over human sexuality. At this General Conference, Adam Hamilton was on the other side of Plan UMC with the Evangelicals. So you can see how these allegiances have shifted in the denomination. This isn’t as easy as left versus right or progressives versus traditionalists dichotomy. So any attempt to reduce The United Methodist Church’s problems to this false dichotomy is missing the point.

It is my contention that our primary issue today has more to do with the institution itself. This year will make 10 years since General Conference 2012 and we have had more emphasis on church plants, revitalizations, discipleship, and more every single year. We have had conferences, meetings, leadership development, etc… The numbers? Abysmal. The losses continue to mount with the latest figures pointing towards losing more and more people every year. Our congregations are aging. Money is drying up quickly. If you have been following the reports from the accounts the Episcopal Fund’s lifespan has been reduced multiple times in the past several years. Our insurance costs continue to grow. Our pension fund is unsustainable in all but the best of times. More local congregations are priced out of a full time elder every year.

The progressives say the institution must change or die. The traditionalists say the institution must change or die. Both sides agree that there is some type of radical reformation needed. Everyone understands this, but it cannot happen. We are stuck in a radical inertia of the institution. Locked into a perpetual embrace death hold. I have always loved this video from When God Left the Building talking about a Kodak Moment. As the film giant discovered, they couldn’t change because of fear of losing and they couldn’t stay the same because there was no future. So they were stuck. Everyone in The United Methodist Church today would tell you that the denomination has to change. However, the denomination as it is right now cannot change. We are stuck.

As a pastor who has experienced the pain of this change in a local congregation, I completely get it. Change is hard. We have to make the change and stick to it even when it feels completely wrong or out of place. It requires a lot of work to turn around and rebuild a church and it is painful. You lose people in the process. Not everyone makes it out of Egypt. People leave the church. This is why Jessica’s article struck a chord with me. She is bearing witness in her local congregation to this pain first hand. This is why so many of our congregations when faced with the choice of change or die so often choose to die. It is easier than the change.

Which brings me to my point. The protocol isn’t about the denomination splitting between the right and the left. So many people are looking at it the wrong way. They are looking at the protocol as dividing up of the UMC. They see a dichotomy. This is incorrect thinking and one of the reasons that many are squeamish to support the protocol. Remember change is hard? Not everyone makes it. You have to see the protocol as an opportunity for change. The denomination must change! This is why we must pass the protocol. As painful as it is. As much as we hate it. As bad as it is. The United Methodist Church needs a reboot, and by reboot I mean everything. From the local church to the general boards and agencies. It must be torn down to the foundations. The whole system has to be rebuilt from the ground up. The simple thing of hiding cracks and fissures isn’t an option anymore. We can no longer move forward in an institution designed for a different century. We can no longer pretend that our institution doesn’t need help. If you care about the future of your church and your denomination, think about what that might look like. (Please stop reading this article and go watch Encanto right now and you will see what I am trying to say.)

This is the first part on a series on the future of a people called Methodists. I hope these words are hopeful for the future instead of pessimistic. One of my missions this year is to share how I see great possibilities in the future if we are willing to begin the process of reformation. In part 2, entitled The UMC Lifecycle, I want to share more of the why The Protocol is the right way forward.