What next for Methodist churches after major change to LGBTQ+ stance?

This is the second half of a two-day look at liberalizing changes to United Methodist Church (UMC) policy and positions surrounding human sexuality and LGBTQ+ issues that were approved at the church’s just-concluded General Conference. It features analysis and opinion from two Northeast Tennessee delegates and longtime UMC leaders — one theologically conservative and one theologically liberal, but both intent on remaining committed to the denomination. It began with a look at the issues that led up to the General Conference, what happened there, and how the leaders view it — and concludes here with a nuts and bolts look at how the changes could impact local churches in the months and years ahead.

KINGSPORT, Tenn. (WJHL) — Randy Frye is glad the just-concluded 2024 United Methodist Church (UMC) General Conference was largely conflict-free, but the UMC pastor harbors no illusions about the difficult path ahead after major changes to policies that have created plenty of conflict in the past.

PART ONE: Local leaders discuss Methodists’ changes to LGBTQ+ stance

“I know there are some people that have indicated, ‘I can’t stay here anymore,’ and I understand that, I fully understand that,” Frye, who’s been a UMC pastor for 43 years, told News Channel 11 Wednesday as light poured through the windows of First Broad Street UMC. “I don’t like it, because I hate to see them leave.”

They’ll leave Frye’s church of 750 because the UMC has done what most people expected it to do after a denominational split last year — albeit perhaps sooner than expected — by liberalizing its doctrine and policies on same-sex marriage, ordination of LGBTQ clergy and human sexuality in general.

That leaves First Broad Street and other UMC congregations everywhere, including in the largely conservative Holston Conference of East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, free to host and preside over same-sex weddings. Openly LGBTQ pastors can be ordained and serve congregations throughout the denomination. Same-sex couples can come to church together knowing that the UMC no longer deems their personal lives “incompatible with church teaching.”

The changes now leave lots of pastors, leaders and especially laypeople with important questions that could impact the church further in the coming weeks and months, such as:

• Will UMC churches be required to marry any LGBTQ couple that requests it?

• Will entire churches that didn’t “disaffiliate” during a process that wrapped up in 2023 have a chance to leave the denomination, or has that ship sailed?

• What if my pastor comes out as openly LGBTQ or an openly LGBTQ minister is assigned to my church?

Frye was headed to an important Holston Conference meeting Thursday, where many of those questions and details would be further explained.

Lauri Jo Cranford, who left UMC ministry last year after 26 years to enter the counseling profession but worships at First Broad Street, was the Johnson City District Superintendent when several dozen churches in that district disaffiliated.

She told News Channel 11 she expects the changes to be “something we have to learn to live into and figure out what it looks like in our context and also in our conference and beyond.”

Frye, who like Cranford was a delegate at the general conference in Charlotte, N.C., said he’s been preparing.

“I didn’t feel, I knew coming back there would be some kind of reaction,” said Frye, who himself is theologically conservative on the issue of LGBTQ. The church is in the middle of a sermon series that “focuses on the realities of the general conference,” he said. It’s titled, “God Provides a Way When There is No Way.”

He said he’s also visiting Sunday School classes to, “just have a time to talk to them about the General Conference, let them ask questions, and if some need to vent, make space for that to happen too.”

First Broad Street elected to stay UMC in 2023 instead of joining nearly a third of Holston Conference churches that “disaffiliated” from the denomination. More than 5,000 churches left last year UMC-wide using a process that was developed during the highly contentious 2019 general conference in St. Louis.

Frye conducted several dozen “parlor chats” during that time, answering questions about the process. The church ultimately issued a survey asking whether First should enter the “discernment process” that would lead to an up or down vote on whether to leave.

More than 450 people responded, with 19% saying “yes,” 52% “no” and 29% “not at this time.” First elected not to enter the discernment process, which required a two-thirds vote at the end for churches to disaffiliate. But the vote was a sign that plenty of people in a church Frye describes as “all over the board theologically, ideologically” didn’t hold progressive theological views on human sexuality.

He said about 20 members left last year after the church chose to stay within the denomination. He’s not sure what to expect numbers-wise now that the doctrinal die has been cast.

“I’ve talked – spoken to very few, but even the ones that have said ‘I’m gonna have to leave’ had been very gracious in that,” Frye said.

So is it too late for a church to leave? (And other questions)

Tim Jones is communications director for the Holston Conference and said the conference’s trustees made a formal decision last fall to give churches that hadn’t already disaffiliated an additional out. If changes to the Book of Discipline, which governs nearly all church affairs, “cause it to be untenable for them to continue in ministry,” the conference would work on “a way for churches to have a fair and gracious exit.”

He said conference trustees are awaiting some final details from the denomination’s judicial council regarding any further full church exits, after which they’ll “work within those parameters to put something together.”

Jones said some churches have already inquired. He’s not sure how many of the Holston Conference’s nearly 600 remaining churches might seriously consider leaving the fold.

Even prior to the Charlotte conference, UMC pastors and churches already had the autonomy to decide whether or not to marry a couple — unless it was a same-sex couple, in which case marrying them in a UMC church would have violated the Book of Discipline.

The change to language about marriage did not change that previous autonomy, Jones said. Rather, it put same-sex couples in the same category as all others — a church and a pastor have the authority to marry them, but they aren’t obligated to do so any more than they would be with any other couple.

Jones said that’s part of an effort at making the human sexuality-related language that was changed “neutral,” not coercive.

“It still lies with the church leadership and the pastor on whether they feel like they can perform, officiate and host those,” Jones said.

Cranford said the decision won’t always be easy.

“What I think will be challenging for pastors to negotiate is, the pastor decides to do a same-sex wedding, but their congregation is opposed to it,” she said.

“I think that’s going to be a balancing act, and pastors will have to prayerfully decide in that situation and the church’s will as well. And I think that’ll be part of the negotiation that pastors have to make.

The same holds for LGBTQ clergy who essentially hid their sexual orientation in order to be ordained in a UMC that prohibited openly gay pastors. They’re now free to be public about their sexual orientation.

“For clergy that do come out, there will be no penalty,” Jones said.

While the lack of an even more explicitly affirming change in the Book of Discipline may have disappointed some of the church’s most progressive advocates, Frye said even the neutral language is going to have an impact in the Bible Belt.

“Nobody likes turbulence on flight,” Frye said. “Well, we’re going to have some turbulence. I don’t know if it’s going to be for a few weeks, few months. So we’re going to put on our seat belts a little tighter and we’re going to trust the one that’s flying the plane, and we’re going to get through this.”

He said he’s confident that the vast majority of lay members at First Broad Street have a more central focus that will pull the church through.

“The majority of our people, I believe, and time will tell, love their family of faith at First Broad Street more than they’re worried about, you know, general church issues.

“What are the kids experiencing in Sunday school? What are the adults experiencing? What do you find in Bible studies or your life groups? How was worship impacting you, and your life? I try to keep that broader picture in front of people.”

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