Bishop Ruben Saenz Jr. of the Horizon Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church addressed the regional governing body’s lawsuit against Highland Park United Methodist Church over changes to the church’s governing documents in a video message Aug. 26.
In the message, shared ahead of a congregational town hall meeting scheduled at Highland Park United Methodist Church on Aug. 26, Saenz said, “the conference and the congregation are not adversaries. The governance decisions that have been made are what now stand between us. And those decisions can still be corrected. My hope remains restoration.”
“You have helped seed and strengthen churches across Dallas. You’ve given generously and carried out extraordinary ministry. None of that is in dispute,” Saenz said in the message before discussing what he said led to the lawsuit. “In 2022, Highland Park’s governing documents were changed in ways that removed important United Methodist accountability, shifted significant authority to the church council, and changed how decisions about the future of this church could be made.”
Saenz said conference leaders met with HPUMC senior pastoral leadership and church council members in October and December of 2025, and again in March of this year about their concerns regarding HPUMC’s governing documents before the filing of the lawsuit.
“While many of you in the congregation may understandably have felt blindsided when the lawsuit was filed, Highland Park’s senior pastoral leadership and church council knew of the conference’s serious concerns for nine months,” Saenz said. “Those were not months spent planning a lawsuit. They were spent working to avoid one.”
He said the conference sought a resolution, but the council in March “made it clear that the governing documents would not be restored.”
As People Newspapers has previously reported, the lawsuit alleges HPUMC filed a restated certificate of formation in 2022 which “changed the corporation’s name to Highland Park Methodist Church and removed all references to The United Methodist Church, the Conference, and the Discipline from its governing documents.” The lawsuit further alleges that HPUMC adopted amended bylaws that year, which “i) remove all references to The United Methodist Church, the Conference, and the Discipline; ii) remove the rights of HP Church members to participate in any matter ‘affecting or involving the Church’; and iii) remove the members’ right to participate in determining the denomination of HP Church, including selection of the Church Council.”
In December of 2022, the lawsuit alleges “HP Corporation filed an Assumed Name Certificate listing Highland Park United Methodist Church as its assumed name.”
HPUMC said in a statement on its website responding to the allegations that the church changed its corporate documents in accordance with guidance in 2020 from Texas courts “on managing church affairs under neutral principles of Texas law,” and that HPUMC worked with the conference on the corporate name change. HPUMC further stated that the church’s Charge Conference voted unanimously to delegate governance to the Church Council in 1998.
HPUMC senior minister Rev. Matt Tuggle previously said in a message on the church’s website that the conference’s allegations are “without merit” and that church leadership had met with the Bishop “offering proposals on how to move forward together” shortly before the lawsuit was announced, but the pending litigation wasn’t discussed.
“Myself, our clergy, our staff, and lay leadership were caught completely off guard by the filing of this lawsuit. We’re all disappointed and bewildered that the conference has taken this action,” Tuggle said in the previous video message. “We have been a faithful United Methodist Church and have always supported United Methodist leadership.”
He said that the church had also continued to make payments to the conference.
“Everything we did was by the book and in the best interests of our church,” Tuggle said in the video. “Simply put, this lawsuit is an unwarranted overreach.”
Following statements from Tuggle and minister-in-residence Paul Rasmussen on the issue, HPUMC on Aug. 20 posted a resolution by its church council, in which it called the litigation “unfair” and “unjust” and said it “no longer recognizes ecclesiastical authority of the bishop and conference to direct the Church or its Clergy, foremost in taking any further punitive actions against the Church or its beloved Clergy.”
The Aug. 26 town hall meeting will, according to the church “review the current resolutions adopted by the Church Council with Chair Caroline Nowlin” and offer the congregation an opportunity to ask questions.
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