3 Steps to Divide Your Church Without Pain

7,000 churches have left the United Methodist Church over lgbtq acceptance we've been talking about it since early 2022 and it's still ongoing leaving a trail of Carnage for everyone to witness it didn't have to be this way and in this video we'll be giving you three steps to keep division in your church from dividing the church this is Church's

Lan 7,000 Church have left the United Methodist Church the most commented video in the history of our channel is a 30 second short on the breakup of the United Methodist Church so this story has presented us with a good opportunity to revisit it I was literally stunned by the number like how did we already get to 7,000 never in my wildest dreams that I think we're going to get there yeah and I had looked up and like UMC has like 40,000 plus churches so 7 th000 is a really significant number yeah it's not just a it's not just a rounding error yeah and and it's like all these folks it's like I don't know what your problem with like just being you know nice to LGBT people is um but just like like just it's a hate is really what it is and like you know like they can take the coward's way out if they want to you know but it's like it's sad that they're doing it but like I I don't feel like they're doing it gracefully either it's like just just your little letter you know you maybe spray some perfume on it um you know put put like you put some lipstick kisses on there and then just and and be done with it you know yeah I think you're absolutely right this was a painful process they went through all the debates and the letters authored and the fighting through their you know denominational journals and through the Christian Post and Christian headlines.com it was a really long and awful process that that was done before the whole world and they finally settled it like okay churches that that don't want to be lgbtq affirming are going to go their own way so now that the decision's been made let them you know don't don't make them justify it in another paper and then go through another trial to see if disaffiliation is warranted yes it's warranted you've already made the decision so just let them go this has been an awful process absolutely awful and it's been public so what Mark and I want to do this week is give you three steps to ensure that any sort of division that happens in your church doesn't lead to division in the church the first thing I want to talk about is battling the fear of the unknown anytime we start talking about church splits it's a complicated process that has lots of real questions and those questions aren't just intellectual trivia it's not just maybe things could happen like there are immediate real world concerns that come up when churches split or denomination split who's going to pay health insurance what about retirement benefits what if loss of money from the denomination means that I've got to fire staff these are real people who've got to keep a roof over their heads right so there are real questions that need to be answered in real time and one of the worst things that you can do in a situation like this is hold your cards close to the vest because you're afraid of the pr blowback from from making it known like yeah you're disaffiliating from the denomination you are on your own don't let the door hit you on the way out you know that may be cold-hearted but at least that answers some questions and people can start to plan a lot of denominations like they have denomination level things like Mission organizations and things like that and like so like you're you're talking about like a very real works of the church that could be threatened by this process absolutely yeah you have missions overseas uh you know you've got staff and you've got real estate and resources if you're doing things like food banks when money dries up food dries up so yeah you're absolutely right like this really affects real missions out in the field in a real way you you you got to really take these issues with the utmost level of seriousness and I I'm not saying that anybody in the UMC did not yeah you know when you're looking at your own church body it's like you got to take that like I said like a divorce like you know it's not like you watching mommy and daddy breaking up you are Mommy and Daddy exactly and I agree with you they definit L lost the forest through the trees M number two anytime you see a church in crisis management mode which is which is what this is this is a denomination in crisis management mode they seem to lull themselves into this feeling like oh this is just happening in house and the rest of the world doesn't really care and they're not noticing you could not be more wrong step two deal with your issues in full view of the public because guess what it is in full View of the public yeah like this this is a far cry from you know any like the headlines that we look at where it's just like you know you know youth pastor inappropriately touches goat or something like that um you can't escape it I mean in the world of the internet right like like you can't do anything privately just about anymore I mean it's like I mean especially when it's it's if it's at the level of of a denomination yeah like you know like every Christian and and non-Christian and Muslim Buddhist whatever religion you are like every news agency can get that information and and and will it'll be there yeah and you make a good point that that we make all the time information travels at the speed of light in our modern world there's no stopping it um but just to just to kind of make sure that we understand some of the stakes again there are other denominations splitting right the SBC is splitting so there are other churches denominations looking at the UMC saying what are they doing right what are they doing wrong how can we learn from this so that we can get the people people we hate out of our denomination without losing too much money you know and I I hate to be that cynical but so much of this comes down to money it it's so unfortunate so I don't want to sugarcoat that and pretend that that's not a concern because it really is at the Forefront of many of the concerns we live in a siloed world now I have my Silo you have your Silo and we are always looking for people to to confirm our biases hence the term confirmation bias right right so the UMC depending on which side you're on if you are somebody who like well I read the Bible and the Bible says that being gay is wrong and I believe the Bible regardless if you're on that side or if you're on the side of like look I can't really love you and hate you at the same time so I choose to love you no matter what your sin is no matter what side of that you're on in this situation you're going to find a UMC church that's going to confirm your belief MH and so you have literally the entire Christian world that you can possibly reinforce or tear down their belief system through how well or how badly you choose to separate from each other you have to you know above all you know you have to do this respectfully you have to do it you know ironically if you want to use that that fancy word it's just like that's that simple thing of you know like I'm right and you're not going to convince me otherwise regardless of what the data says yeah it happens it happens we maybe need to be the bigger people but it's really hard to because you know like when you love your church and you see it being destroyed like you want to just kind of lash out or at least I do I mean like my my response is to get angry yeah and that's a very human thing right we shouldn't expect humans not to be human so it's just it's just a question of of having the maturity and the discipline to redirect that like after you do feel it right and let me just say this finally on this second point that there are non-christians looking at this right if you go to any town in America chances are you're going to find a Catholic Church you're probably going to find a Baptist Church you're probably going to find a Methodist Church right and then if you go the next town over you're going to find a Catholic church and a Baptist Church and a Methodist Church and all of a sudden all you have to do is Traverse one town and one town has an lgbtq affirming Methodist Church and the other town has a nonaffirming church and all of a sudden if you're a non-Christian you're like do these people even know what they believe and do I want to get involved with this if they can't even figure out what's going on in their own house so it has a real world impact on the very people that we are trying to shower with the love of Jesus your mission as the church is being affected by this you like your ability to reach out to you know a Fallen World whatever you think that means you're destroying that you know in the process of schism like this point number three that that we wanted to make you have to be able to rip the Band-Aid at the same time still control the bleeding okay so there's a little word picture for you you've got the denomination that's splitting the decision's already made so think of the churches that are leaving because they do not want to participate in the lgbtq affirming culture right they are leaving so think of them as a bleeding wound you just got to rip away the Band-Aid and let that blood out so you can get back to the business of healing right but on the other hand this needs to be done well so that you don't lose so much blood so fast that you die yeah like I I I was just watching a YouTube video on how to apply a tourniquet and so I've got that image going through my brain these churches um they they've only expressed the sentiment that they no longer want to be in the UMC right they are still part of the UMC yes um because it's not that simple you you don't just State your intention you need to leave because there's there's all these issues of the den ination owns the churches the denomination you know is in charge of what clergy goes to what church and when because they have itinerancy and and their leadership there like this one little thing um if it's not handled well you it's like you can bleed out or as I like to think of it is you're setting the house on fire while you're still inside of it you know it's like no you you have to set a fire like in the fireplace and then you have to put up your little you know screen guard thing so your Embers don't get out instead of just standing there like a maniac you know cackling and you know with a you know with a Bellows and Fanning the Flames which that's where this could go if things are handled poorly we are human and we have the whole spectrum of human feelings that includes love and happiness and and forgiveness but being human also means you are going to feel hate and anger you're going to feel hurt you are going to feel betrayal those are all feelings and there's nothing wrong with feeling them what makes a mature Christian what makes a disciplined follower of Christ is making the choice of how to act in spite of those feelings yeah right knowing those feelings are just that they're these internal things and I don't have to exist in the world purely based on those internal feelings and so who's ever mad on either side whether you're mad that your church is changing and you're not changing and you're feeling left behind or whether you're mad that that there's this generation that doesn't seem to be interested in in fulfilling the the the the duties of the Bible anymore whichever side you're on you can choose to live in Shalom with one another to accept each other and to prefer each other up until that point where you finally do split ties and go your own ways that's possible it's not you just so those are our three tis for making that division doesn't destroy your church battle the fear of the Unknown by answering all the questions as fast as you can deal with it in public because it is in public get through the problem as fast as you can without hurting anybody in the process if you can follow those three steps any kind of big uproar you have in the church you'll be able to handle well let's take a break and we'll wrap this all up you may have listened to this episode and you may think Mark and Scott really have it out for the church they have a lot of criticism and I want to let you know that nothing could be further from the truth Mark and I we love the church we serve in the church we want to see the church grow we want to see God be glorified but we definitely think that things happen in the world things happen in the world words is hard that make people go yeah if that's what the church is it's not for me and so this is where we document those kind of things so that when Church church leaders ask the question why is the church becoming less relevant here's your answer you're welcome if you have anything to say we'd love to hear from you by all means leave us a comment on YouTube or shoot us an email churches lame podcast gmail.com and remember be angry but do not sin and with that go in peace and serve the Lord amen if you got something out of this episode and you want to see more content just like this somewhere around me is going to be a car that I think is probably going to be our leadership lunacy card and that's going to lead you to a playlist of content just like this thanks a lot