Trinity: The Best Path Forward?

Martha King, one of my mentors at Trinity and a leader at the local, district, conference and general conference levels. Martha died 23 years ago.

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I just received a sad note from another Trinity member who (with her husband) would vote against the proposal to dissolve Trinity United Methodist Church but cannot be in town to vote in person as required tomorrow. I have real problems with this whole process. The General Conference was mistaken to change the Book of Discipline to allow a portion of a congregation to exclude a different portion of the congregation and dissolve a UMC congregation in order to create a rump congregation that might at some point join a different denomination. There are MANY protestant congregations in Rome, including those of other Methodist denominations. Those who no longer consider themselves United Methodists have no shortage of other potential home churches. Why force the United Methodists at Trinity out? it just boggles the mind and breaks the heart.

Whatever congregation exists on that block of Turner McCall a year from now, it will be a much smaller congregation than the current 814 "active" members listed on the roll of Trinity UMC today. There will be a group of current members who will stay/join with whatever church is in those buildings. There is another portion that will continue to worship elsewhere or nowhere regardless of the vote because they are sick of the division. There are two large portions one or the other of which will find a new church if the vote goes against them.

If there is a new church in this buildings it will begin from scratch -- finding a pastor, creating a governing covenant, establishing 501-c3 status, deciding whether to align with some denomination or stay independent, etc. etc. etc. They will have no summer camp program for their youth; no seminary or pastoral training program, no itinerancy system for their pastors; no emergency relief program for disasters, etc. etc. etc.

If we manage to save Trinity, we will be a smaller church with debts to deal with and big decisions on how to be effective in the short term (at least) as a smaller congregation. We'll have to sell some of our property and make other tough decisions. But we'll have the support of a worldwide denomination with a long and storied history of overcoming. We'll have our structure as always -- our seminaries and children homes and youth camps and UMCOR (relief agency) for disasters, etc. etc. etc.

The options are all disappointing, but staying UMC offers the best path out of this sad time in my opinion.