Today is the Day: Please Stay UMC!

Another of my mentors at Trinity UMC was Burnita Burton (on the right).  This picture is from 1969.

To my fellow members of Trinity United Methodist Church:

Today is the day.

Will Trinity United Methodist Church be voted out of existence today?

Please no! We can continue to have a "big umbrella" church, where we all accept the fact that no two of us will ever agree on every single thing. But if we can agree on the basics: God is love and we are called by the Great Commandment to love God and each other, then we can find ways to work together and accomplish good things. We don't have to agree on everything else.

So I am simply begging my friends, please don't disband Trinity United Methodist Church. Yes, it will be a smaller congregation no matter which way the vote goes, but if we stay UMC no one is forced out.

On the other hand if we vote to disband (with hopes to later attract part of the current Trinity UMC to form a new independent church) then all those who remain United Methodist will in actual undeniable fact lose their church home and be forced to find a new UMC congregation or be churchless. And those who choose to join the new as yet undefined church will have to start from scratch to do everything from apply for 501-c3 status to finding a pastor, creating a governing structure, and do without or gradually build some sort of denomination programs, missions, youth programs/camps, etc. etc  etc. I truly do not believe that those who say they want to leave the UMC realize that what would be left will be a very different church. All of the resources, programs, missions, support we are used to from our wonderful Methodist connectional system will be gone from the newly organized group.

Please don't do that. Please vote NO. Please vote to allow Trinity United Methodist Church to continue to serve God and our neighbors here in Rome, in Georgia, and in the world through the worldwide United Methodist Church with all its resources and programs and missions and seminaries and children homes and camps and retreat centers and relief committee and so much more.

If my membership in Trinity UMC is voted out of existence, I will try to be kind. I will still be a United Methodist even though my congregation is gone. I would have no local church when Trinity UMC disbands. I would be be forced to find a new church home. 

How terribly sad that would be for me and those others who remain United Methodists.

BUT if we stay UMC, even though some will choose to move to one of the many other protestant churches in Rome, our congregation will already have its structure, its membership roll, its UMCOR resources in emergencies, its youth programs and camps, its itinerancy, just all those programs missions and resources we are used to in our United Methodist connectional system. We will be able to move on and begin to rebuild. 

Please vote no. Please do not dissolve our Trinity United Methodist Church.