Clergy Response to Northern Illinois Conference
UMC Conference Lay Leader Letter, September 2003

September 10, 2003

Hello Roger,

I do not know if you know me, but I have heard of you.  I am an Elder of the Northern Illinois Conference, recently moved from the new church start in Bolingbrook, Crossroads of Faith UMC, to serve a rural community in western Illinois.  I serve as of August 1, 2003 Walnut United Methodist Church in the DeKalb district.

I read your fax pertaining to sharing the actions of our most recent annual conference session with particular interest in the wording about celebrating the wonderful responses received.

I feel compelled to share with you some other types of responses to the actions of our annual conference.  I came to the new church to find many faithful, longtime United Methodists hurt and angry at some of the actions.

Currently I have on my desk withdrawal statements from 3 families, including the family of the current Staff Parish Relations Committee Chair and the Trustees Chair.  It is not a celebration to arrive at a church to find that several significant members find the actions of our annual conference such that they can no longer in good conscience be a part of such an organization. 

I also found that the church had interrupted its apportioned giving for the same reason.  I have attempted to explain to each of these people, as well as a consistent stream of other faithful lay people that these actions, pertaining to the striking of the language in the Discipline that states that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching, and furthermore that this dissenting opinion should be taught from pulpits and in education programs of the church, is not the position of the United Methodist Church as a whole, but rather the majority of the voting representatives to the Northern Illinois Annual Conference.  They have decided, however, that our bishop's theological stands, again dissenting from the Disciplinary language, and the legislation proposed by our annual conference makes it such that they can not continue their membership and affiliation.

So, I hope you can see that we do not all celebrate the responses received from our reports on the actions from our annual conference session.  I only prayerfully hope that the loss of membership and participation will slow and that our General Conference will once again prove to discard our annual conference's dissenting views to the Discipline.

Please feel free to respond if you would like.

In Christ,

Paul Nolden

Note: The above memo originated as an individual email and was not intended as an editorial for NIC VOICE.  It is published at the request of  NIC VOICE and with the permission of Paul Nolden

<<back