And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.

Kahlil Gibran

I invite you to travel with me briefly into a hard but important portion of denominational Christianity.

Last evening, in the Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church (the spiritual home from which I come and to which my heart is always joined), the lay and clergy members of the conference approved the disaffiliation of 298 (approximately 39.1%) of that conference’s United Methodist churches. 

If you are not familiar with the narrative of what is transpiring in the United Methodist Church, you may be inclined to ask, “Why are United Methodist churches disaffiliating from the denomination?” There is much researchable information about the matter, although the various responses to the inquiry will differ in tone and substance depending upon the theological and practical vantage point of the one offering the response. To provide a bit of context, I will simply say that, from this writer’s perspective, the reasons for disaffiliation are complex and cover acres of important territory, the navigation of which has generated divergent visions for the honoring of ecclesiastical accountability, the content of the denomination’s missional priorities, the viability of unity amid theological diversity, and, perhaps most significantly, the nature of what the United Methodist Church will teach, permit, and prohibit concerning the stewardship and practice of human sexuality. The various responses to these issues, as one might expect, hinge on one’s hermeneutical approach to Scripture—the methodology by which Scripture’s content is both interpreted and applied, and the manner in which Scripture’s authority is both understood and honored.

I am not debating any of these matters in this post, and I ask you to respect my earnest request to avoid such debate here. My heart today is not combative but prayerful; not truculent, but tender; not resentful, but heavy over the reality of what has transpired in my home conference—a conference I love, in whose ministry I was raised, and where I spent the last three decades of ministry prior to our move to New York.

Even as I type these words, I am praying fervently for the Western Pennsylvania laity and clergy who are disaffiliating, many of whom figured prominently in my spiritual formation and vocational ministry. May the Holy Spirit fall upon them with power, that they might experience healing in their pain; that the best portions of their ministry might flourish; that their most Christ-honoring impulses will intensify; that their sanctification in Christ will expand; that their witness to the Gospel might shine brightly in every portion of their continuing discipleship; and that their hearts will be tender toward the denomination they are leaving.

I am praying with equal fervency for those Western Pennsylvania laity and clergy who are remaining United Methodist, many of whom have shaped my faith and my theological understanding. May the Holy Spirit fall upon them with power, that they might experience healing in their pain; that the best portions of their ministry might flourish; that their most Christ-honoring impulses will intensify; that their sanctification in Christ will expand; that their witness to the Gospel might shine brightly in every portion of their continuing discipleship; that their hearts will be tender toward those who have disaffiliated; and that their vision for the United Methodist Church’s ministry in Western Pennsylvania will lead to an even grander incarnation of the priorities of God.

May the conference leadership in Western Pennsylvania experience a healing rest in the days ahead (including a Bishop, Cabinet, and Conference Staff I dearly love; a Conference Board of Trustees I hold deeply in my heart; and all the lay and clergy leaders who have long devoted the best of their time and energy to the stewardship of these difficult matters).

May repentance and forgiveness be plentiful in Western Pennsylvania and throughout the United Methodist Connection.

May hurt give way to healing.

May resentment give way to transformational love. 

May Wesleyan Christ-followers rediscover the urgency of doing no harm, accomplishing what is good, and attending upon all the ordinances of God.

Finally, may the love, grace, holiness, and truth of Jesus Christ be so dynamically present in the lives of the people called “Methodists” that there will be little if any inconsistency between who they are in their sanctuaries and who they are in every other place.