UMC Disaffiliation

Enon UMC UMC Updates

This page provides UMC updates and Pastor Heather updates on the topic of “Disaffiliation” within the UMC.

On 10/2/2022, Pastor Heather addressed Disaffiliation during worship, and she sent a follow-up email to the congregation on 10/3/2022 (below). Within the email are two linked documents. The Pastor Response document includes many references and videos. Pastor Heather encourages anyone with questions to talk with her.

Good Morning Church Family!

I invite you to take some time and read these documents and check out the resources I’m sharing. Start with the document entitled: Pastoral Response to Misinformation then move on to What We Believe. 

If you have any questions, please let me know. I know that asking questions can feel intimidating but we need to ask each other questions. This is how we hold one another accountable and how you hold your pastor accountable. If you weren’t able to be in church yesterday, watch the service on our Facebook page — it provides some context you can’t get from just reading the documents.

We may not agree but that doesn’t mean we can’t love one another well. As I quoted John Wesley saying yesterday: “You may not think as I think but if your heart is as my heart, take my hand.”

Blessings, Pastor Heather

At the 4/26/2022 Administrative Council (AdCon) meeting, AdCon unanimously approved Pastor Heather’s recommendations for Enon UMC’s path forward, which is comprised of the steps listed below.

  • Step 1, Prayer
    • Pastor Heather says: We will seek the best possible solution for Enon UMC’s future through prayer. I am asking that the people of Enon UMC commit one hour a week to pray for this process. That hour can be in one sitting or broken out into several days. I ask that we pray that we discern God’s will and treat one another in grace, love, and compassion.
  • Step 2, Bible Study
    • Pastor Heather says: We will seek the best possible solution for Enon UMC’s future through Bible Study. Before we study any one passage, we will go through a study about studying scripture through the lenses of original context, language, and literary genres. (We began with a 10-week study of the book, “Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again” by Rachel Held Evans. In this book, the author “… hopes to show how the Bible can be captivating and true when taken on its own terms, avoiding strict literalism on the one hand and safe, disinterested liberalism on the other.”) After that, I will offer in-depth studies on what scripture says about homosexuality and different ways we hold in tension the words on the page that seem to present black and white judgments about what is right and wrong with Jesus’ call for us to love one another and work to minister to the marginalized and silence din our world.
  • Step 3, Discernment
    • Pastor Heather says: We will seek the best possible solution for Enon UMC’s future through healthy dialogue and creating spaces of healing and reconciliation. Following the Church meeting on 4/24/2022, one person approached me and asked the courageous question, “How will these spaces be made safe for members of the LGBTQ community?” John Wesley said that Holy Conferencing is to be a means of grace. By means of grace, he meant that this is a way through which we encounter God’s grace. These conversations in which we discuss the issues surrounding whether or not to disaffiliate will be a means of grace. That means when people leave the meeting, if they have not experienced the grace of God, we are doing it wrong. Leadership will create guidelines and expectations for how these dialogues will take place. No one has the right to demand another person believe the same thing as they do. However, we as a Christian community in covenant with one another have every right to hold one another accountable to love, respect, compassion, and understanding. As your pastor, I can’t tell you what you what to think or what to believe; but, I can and will demand that every person in these conversations treat one another with dignity, respect, honor, grace, and compassion. In the spirit of 1 Corinthians 13, these spaces will be spaces where we love one another well. A design team will be put together to put forth guidelines so that clear expectations will be set as to what it looks like to love one another well in conversations that will probably expose and highlight differences in opinion and belief. These guidelines will be presented to AdCon before any dialogues are scheduled.

Pastor Heather provides the following resources to increase corporate understanding of the issues.

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Enon UMC is part of the Western Lakes District of the West Ohio Conference of the UMC
Page current as of 2/19/2024