The leadership of Highland Park United Methodist Church, which faces a civil lawsuit over its governing documents, floated the possibility of a vote on whether it should remain part of the United Methodist Church during an Oct. 11 Town Hall meeting.
A presentation portion of the meeting was livestreamed, while a Q&A with the congregation was not.
Church council chair Caroline Nowlin began the discussion, telling the crowd that she was baptized, confirmed and married in the church.
“No one on the church council ever dreamed we would face the events of the last three months. We’re here tonight to talk about the ecclesiastical issues our church faces,” Nowlin said. “We’re here to invite all of you into questions we have asked ourselves personally since August 10. That question is, knowing what we know now, should our church remain part of the United Methodist Church. The church council has not decided on that question, though many of us can’t help but have strong opinions.”
Nowlin said whether remain part of the United Methodist Church or disaffilate would be a “congregational decision.”
“If the church council recommends severing our ties with the United Methodist Church, the decision to do so would come to a vote to you,” she continued. “The church council will not vote to sever our ties with the United Methodist Church. That decision is a congregational decision. If that vote occurs, your vote will determine our church’s future.”
She said the church council is set to meet this week to prepare a recommendation on the issue. No timeline for a potential congregational vote was set.
HPUMC Senior Minister Matt Tuggle, who became senior minister earlier this year and was one of eight church leaders to speak during the livestreamed presentation portion of the town hall meeting, argued that “were we to step outside of the United Methodist Church, we would continue to be a Methodist Church.”
“From a theological perspective, this church would remain exactly as it is,” Tuggle said. “Our mission, our commitment to local churches, it would remain exactly the same.”
He also said he envisions the church forming a network of “like-minded” churches if the congregation opts to disaffilate with the United Methodist Church.
Still, Tuggle said the denomination “formed my grandparents. It’s the denomination that formed my parents, it’s. the denomination that formed me.”
“I owe the mentors in my life, by and large, to the United Methodist Church. I owe the oppurtunity to serve at this church to the United Methodist Church, I owe much of my own faith to the United Methodist Church. The United Methodist Church has done incredible work,” he said.
HPUMC has been a congregation of the United Methodist Church or its predecessors for 110 years.
The church council’s meeting and potential vote on whether or not to remain part of the United Methodist Church come after the Horizon Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church filed a lawsuit Aug. 10.
The lawsuit by the conference, a regional governing body which covers North Texas, stems from changes the 100-plus-year-old church’s leadership made to its governing documents in 2022 and 2023.
Among the changes specifically at issue is HPUMC’s changing its corporate name filed with the Office of the Secretary of State from “Highland Park United Methodist Church” to “Highland Park Methodist Church” in 2022.
The lawsuit further alleges that HPUMC also 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.”
“The specific restoration includes the reinstatement of “United” in the church’s full legal name, the reinstatement of references to the Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church in the governing documents, and the restoration of members’ participation in the governance and leadership of their church. These are not simply issues of corporate structure, they protect the voices of Highland Park’s members in the decisions of its leadership and reflect the congregation’s place within the wider United Methodist connection,” Bishop Ruben Saenz Jr. of the Horizon Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church has said in a letter to church leadership. “I make this request not as a matter of episcopal preference or institutional convenience. I make it because the covenants of order and accountability we share are part of what it means to be United Methodist. The restoration I am asking for is not a submission to authority; it is a return to the covenants Highland Park has long shared with thousands of other United Methodist congregations across our Conference and connection.”
HPUMC has said in a statement on its website 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.
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