This past Wednesday evening, St Luke’s UMC in Oklahoma City held a final “Information Meeting” to clarify any last questions for the congregation before the vote to disaffiliate from the Oklahoma United Methodist Church (Spoiler alert - the vote passed to leave by over 90%). The Executive Pastor of St Luke’s, Wendy Lambert, was one of the speakers designated to answer questions from the congregation. This has been the standard procedure for most meetings like this across Oklahoma.
When Lambert was asked a question relating to how they will find church leaders without the conference pool to pull from, this was her response:
“...one of the parts of the United Methodist denomination that has really fallen by the wayside over the past many years [is the] leaders coming forth. Right now you have over 75% of the churches in Oklahoma that have been in decline, and so I would say that the leadership model that [has been] developed and followed in recent years hasn’t been successful.”
Shortly after the meeting was over, I noticed that many of my friends started posting the same image with the same statement:
“I am a product of effective UMC leadership”
Now I’ve grown up in the Methodist Church my entire life, and have served under the Cross and Flame for 14 years through Music Ministry, Youth Ministry, Young Adult Ministries and some others. I try to serve however I can. I’ve done mission projects, led my own teams and even started my own projects. I try to lead my family well, and I try to be good to my friends and enemies alike. Don’t me wrong, I’m an absolute mess. But I’m a faithful mess that knows I need Jesus and I’m doing everything I can to show Him to people that don’t know Him. I have a long way to go, but I’m learning.
So I find myself sitting here wondering if I’d be the man I am today without UMC leadership and my initial reaction is… Absolutely not.
So much of who I am, I learned from leaders involved in the UMC. I was blessed to be born into an effective UMC family, for pete’s sake. I know I’m biased, but if you’ve spent any time with my father, you know he’s an effective UMC leader. My mother as well. I also had great mentors in the church growing up. I gleaned from my United Methodist leaders in youth and confirmation, at summer camps and winter retreats (even when I was being a little punk and no one thought I was paying attention).
I learned who Jesus is from effective UMC leaders.
So… am I the product of effective UMC leaders?
Yes.
Am I the product of effective UMC leadership?
No. or at least, that season in the denomination is gone.
What’s the difference though Ross, you big idiot.
Well, I can speak to the UMC leaders in my life that have a profound impact on me. These men and women are/were a cut above the rest in terms of leadership ability and wisdom. They guided me when I was being led astray, they rooted for me in my battles, and they always pointed me to Christ when I needed to be humbled. They were, and are, effective UMC leaders.
But let’s look at the UMC leadership model that Lambert was referring to in her speech last Wednesday.
One of the ways I have served in the UMC in past years has been as the worship leader (WL Magazine, can I even say that anymore?) of the conference wide LEADERSHIP camp called L.E.A.D., formerly known as C.Y.M.E.. It was a huge blessing to be a part of. Seeing kids learn and grow into tomorrow’s leaders…. I mean who doesn’t want to see that?
But then COVID-19 happened. and upon returning to camp in 2021, things were… different to say the least.
My first red flag was the pronoun pins by the nametags and the way they were being utilized. Our leadership actually let these kids take multiple pins, and they would change them throughout the week. I witnessed one encounter where a leader referred to a camper as the pronoun they had claimed the day before. When this kid very rudely snapped back and corrected him, this adult responded with “OMG I’m so sorry” and walked off.
No “do you think its right to respond that way?” or “Weren’t you a she/her yesterday?”
Wednesday included a “freedom march” to the cross at Crosspoint Camp, one of the OKUMC Conference-owned camps. There was social justice “Liturgy” being yelled over a megaphone during the march and some of it, if I'm not mistaken, taken from the Black Lives Matter movement1.
The entire camp had more of a social justice camp vibe and you wouldn’t recognize it as a leadership camp. And certainly not a Christian leadership camp, given that the most disturbing observation of the week was how little Jesus was mentioned.
All of the weeks messages, with the exception of an opening word from Matt Patrick, Pastor at University UMC2 in Tulsa (which only leaders were present for) and a Wednesday message from Michael Long, who was a church planter for the OKUMC3 at the time, were oriented around social justice. not Jesus.
Is social justice important? Yes. Does God care? Of course He does! But you have to look at it through a Biblical lens of faith.
The moment the TASK becomes a greater focus than the PURPOSE, you’re going to have problems.
By Thursday night of L.E.A.D. 2021, the climate was tense. There were kids there that were coming from homes that believed Trump was cheated out of the 2020 election, and there were kids coming from a place of social hurt and homes that supported the LGBTQ+ community. Nothing had been done through out the week to teach them how to effectively navigate ministry with people that you don’t agree with. Nothing was taught as far as systems you can use when you can’t reach a consensus.
I had the mic at the beginning of evening worship. I was praying a prayer of invocation when I began asking God to to help us put our banners down. I asked God to help us put our Trump flags down. I also asked God to help us lower our pride flags. after a couple minutes, I closed with a simple request…
“God, help us to trade every banner we’re waving for the white flag of surrender as we come before you with an attitude of worship.”
Upon closing, Valerie Steele, Pastor at Quail Springs UMC got up to give the message, and within the first 5 minutes, the phrase “raise your banners high” came out of her mouth4.
That was it for me. The straw that broke the camel’s back. The conference-wide leadership camp that we were sending our best leader kids to from all across Oklahoma had lost all credibility in my eyes.
I felt my heart break for those kids in that chapel that evening.
On March 5, the UMC conference held an “information meeting” at FUMC Claremore. I was so happy when Derrek Belase, the Director of Connectional Ministry in the OKUMC and a man I admire, admitted before everyone that L.E.A.D. had “reached a tipping point” and that changes were being made. I thanked God that the conference was finally taking responsibility for the massive blunder of a leadership camp that L.E.A.D. was that year.
Then you peep the Board of Ordained Ministry and wonder how on earth candidates that don’t believe some of the most basic core Christian beliefs were ordained in the first place. But not today. I’m working on a piece on that right now. Should be ready next month.
Anyway, you look at the way we’ve been training young leaders in the OKUMC and the lack of accountability for the camp overall… There’s no denying that the model for leadership in the UMC is failing right now.
Does that mean you’re not a product of effective UMC leaders? No. But even the idea that people’s egos were bruised by this concept of ineffective UMC leadership… red flag.
Again… what’s the purpose of UMC leadership models? To raise up Christian leaders and make sure Quality leaders that share our biblical beliefs are being appointed.
What’s the task to accomplish it? L.E.A.D., Seminary, Pastoral mentors, Board of Ordained Ministry to name a few.
Are the tasks accomplishing the purpose? No. And it’s scary to think that anyone can look at what has happened and say it’s effective. What may have once been flourishing is now… surviving.
Things Change.
“But what about the covenant you made to the denomination?”
“It’s a covenant issue.”
You’re right, it is a covenant issue. We are the Bride of Christ. Bride’s are to be faithful, just as the Groom. We’re talking a marriage. As a husband striving to be faithful to my wife, I can say that if I was ever tempted to be unfaithful, I would want to cut ties with whatever that was. Even a denomination. So if a Pastor believes that in order to stay faithful to THE Covenant then they must leave, doesn’t it make sense? I mean it’s just Paul and Barnabas all over again. Although I hope they handled it with more dignity than both sides of this equation.
Yesterday, Claremore UMC voted to leave the UMC denomination. This is the church I grew up in. The church that grew up and fostered so many effective UMC leaders. And by the way, I want to say that even those of us that are for disaffiliation are crying about this at night. Leaving is hard. Change is hard. Especially when you’ve dedicated your life to an institution you thought shared the same Biblical values as you.
To put it plainly, this sucks for everyone.
But as I stood outside of Claremore’s sanctuary yesterday and listened to one of our UMC leaders5 say that he didn’t care for the book of Proverbs because they just “don’t work”, I knew that leaving was the right choice for Claremore. and I felt at peace.
So there is hope. I’m praying for the UMC. I’m praying for those that are leaving. I plan to keep my UMC friends as far as it’s on me. I love them. If you’re one of them, I hope you know I love you.
Anyway, I’m hanging with StingRay before heading to Coachella Valley Wednesday. Leaving Him is harder now that he understands I’m gone. All part of the journey.
I’ll most likely write again while I’m there. I’m going there for Theos Leader’s Retreat, so I’ll have plenty to write about. Or maybe not cuz pretty sure Chris Palmer just wants to play golf the whole time. We’ll see.
This was from a credible adult leader that was also at the camp. I never saw the liturgy myself.
This originally said “University FUMC” and I’ve corrected it to “University UMC”
This originally said “FUMC” and people confused it for FUMC Tulsa. I’ve corrected it.
I want to clarify two things. First, I don’t think Valerie is the type of person to listen to someone’s prayer and then use the pulpit to contradict it on purpose. I also should have expressed my hurt to her much sooner, and have apologized to her for not bringing this to her first.
Terry Koehn, Green Country District Superintendent. To be fair, he was processing a huge loss (the church) and there’s a chance he didn’t mean what he said. I don’t know Terry well, but my father admires him and that speaks in my super-duper biased opinion.