Re: JCM 1112

http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1197&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1100&EN=1118

This matter was held over from the 2008 Fall session of the Council and was given a very brief review in the Memorandum: the bishop ruled the presenter of the question was not a member of the conference and thus could not raise the question, which the Council upheld and therefore felt it could not take jurisdiction..

The story behind the questioning comes out in the concurring opinions.

The superintendent and pastor changed the locks on the church so the congregation could no longer meet.

The local church was summarily discontinued (P 2548.2) by the superintendent and then was called an abandonment (P 2548.3) when the Annual Conference met to vote on it. The process for each is different in the Discipline.

Besides the obvious lack of proper procedure for discontinuing the church reported in the concurring opinions, I wonder if the Council checked to see if the questioner was still a proper delegate since the abandonment was not final until after the conclusion of the conference. I also wonder if they could have taken jurisdiction despite the bishop’s ruling because the conference did have before it the matter of the closing of that church, thus making the question(s) germane to the actions of the conference.

I confess it is odd that a conference would consider closing a church with an average attendance of 40 worshippers. If the issue was theological, as I suspect, I wonder how those with a different theological stance would accept superintendents’ actions like this one.

This could be one of those things the Council missed in its learning curve.

As the ruling stands, superintendents can pull this same stunt with impunity in the future because of the precedent of this ruling.