Key points:
- Reconciling Ministries Network saw success at last year’s General Conference after decades of advocacy for LGBTQ United Methodists.
- The United Methodist assembly eliminated longtime bans on gay clergy and same-sex marriage as well as other provisions against LGBTQ people.
- Now the group, which is independent of The United Methodist Church, has unveiled a new strategic plan with the goal of helping the denomination build a more inclusive future.
After decades of passionate advocacy followed by heartbreaking votes, supporters of LGBTQ inclusion in The United Methodist Church finally achieved their goals at last year’s General Conference.
With the advocates’ persistent organizing and prayer, the international lawmaking assembly voted — in some cases overwhelmingly — to remove all language condemning homosexuality from the denomination’s Book of Discipline. Actions included eliminating denomination-wide bans on gay clergy and same-sex marriage as well as erasing an anti-gay stance that dated back more than 50 years.
So what happens when at long last you have met your goals?
You set new ones.
That’s what Reconciling Ministries Network has been doing after more than 40 years at the forefront of working to end the Discipline’s restrictions against LGBTQ people.
The advocacy group started this year with a new structure for its six-member staff and a new “2528 Strategic Plan” developed in the months since General Conference concluded on May 3.
“This is a moment that Reconciling United Methodists have dreamed of for decades,” said Jan Lawrence, the advocacy group’s executive director.
“Even all these months later, I occasionally have to remind myself that we really achieved what we set out to do at this General Conference,” she added. “I love being a part of this movement. I cannot wait to see the fruits of the hard work the board and staff did to reshape the organization for the time we find ourselves in today.”
The strategic plan’s name refers to the years 2025-2028, between General Conference sessions. The name is missing a hyphen because the hashtag #2528 will make the plan easier to search on social media.
The Rev. David Meredith, Reconciling Ministry Network’s board chair, said he first had doubts about the lack of hyphen.
“Then I smiled,” he said. “It’s missing the dividing line! RMN and The UMC have entered a new era of relationship. The official dividing line is gone, and the work of being perfected in love is continual. No break needed.”
The group remains independent of The United Methodist Church. Reconciling Ministries Network does not receive funding through the church-giving system of apportionments that support official United Methodist ministries around the globe.
What about regionalization?
Reconciling Ministries Network is among the groups advocating for regionalization as a way to preserve United Methodist unity while allowing different church policies with regard to marriage and ordination around the globe.
Regionalization requires a package of amendments to the denomination’s constitution that are up for ratification this year. Under the amendments, the U.S. and central conferences — church regions in Africa, Europe and the Philippines — would each become regional conferences with equal decision-making authority. Among other things, each region would be able to set its own rites for marriage and standards for ordination in line with local laws and culture.
The Rev. Israel “Izzy” Alvaran, Reconciling Ministries Network’s director of UM connections, described regionalization as a compromise that creates a way for all parts of the church — even those with very different perspectives on LGBTQ inclusion — to remain connected.
“The calling of the moment is for us to stay together,” he said. “One way I explain it to people who are more conservative or more progressive, it allows the conversations to continue.”
His hope is that United Methodists around the world will begin the conversation around matters they already all agree are important like mission and how to support each other.However, Reconciling Ministries Network has long worked within The United Methodist Church. Staff hope changes made at last year’s General Conference will allow the group to work even more closely with United Methodist ministries as the denomination resets after decades of rancor over the place of LGBTQ people in church life.
In the years leading up to the recent General Conference, about a quarter of the denomination’s U.S. congregations left under a now-expired policy that allowed disaffiliations for “reasons of conscience” related to homosexuality.” The United Methodist Church is now in a rebuilding phase, and Reconciling Ministries Network hopes to play a role in the denomination’s revival.
“We may have accomplished part of our reason for being,” the Reconciling Ministries Network plan says. “But responding with love and authority to General Conference decisions is a whole other matter.”
The 2528 plan’s four goals are:
- Position Reconciling Ministries Network to be the LGBTQ+ Resource Development and Congregational Engagement Center to equip and nurture congregations and faith communities on the path toward intersectional justice within The United Methodist Church and beyond.
- Communicate effectively with RMN’s audiences and develop diverse, further-reaching communication channels.
- Boldly influence the emerging shape and nature of The UMC with RMN as the key leader on LGBTQ+ matters and as an active, mutual partner with other organizations that share commitments to intersectional justice in The UMC.
- Refine the organization and infrastructure of RMN to fulfill its focus, mission and vision.
Lawrence said Reconciling Ministries Network is increasingly acting as a partner to United Methodist institutional organizations.
In the weeks after General Conference, she said, annual conferences — regional bodies consisting of multiple churches — and other ministries reached out with requests for trainings, educational resources and guidance.
Since General Conference, RMN also has welcomed 35 new Reconciling ministries. Altogether, 1,439 churches and other ministries are now part of the Reconciling movement.
United Methodists who work with Reconciling Ministries Network have already seen strides toward inclusion in the immediate aftermath of General Conference.
Among them is the Rev. Angie Cox, pastor of Livingston United Methodist Church in Columbus, Ohio.
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Cox, a graduate of Methodist Theological Seminary in Ohio, tried six times over five years to enter the process to become an ordained elder. Each time, members of the West Ohio Conference Board of Ordained Ministry told her she had the gifts to be a pastor, but church law against “self-avowed practicing” gay clergy prevented them from moving her forward. Cox and her wife have been married since 2016.
It was only on her sixth attempt after General Conference ended the gay clergy ban that the board approved her to become a provisional elder.
Unlike most legislation passed at General Conference that took effect on Jan. 1, the removal of the clergy ban took effect immediately upon General Conference’s adjournment. That enabled Cox to appeal the board’s rejection of her candidacy earlier in 2024. She sailed through the process to be commissioned a provisional elder at last year’s annual conference.
Throughout the long and often disappointing process, she said she could count on the support from the Reconciling Ministries Network. Livingston United Methodist Church voted to become a Reconciling church years before her appointment there.
For her congregation, she said, General Conference’s decisions serve as validation of the difficult decision to join the Reconciling movement in the first place.
“We keep believing that God works through folks that the church has tried to tell us God doesn’t want,” she said. “When you see that work in action, I think that’s really affirming and it gives or renews a sense of purpose in times where it’s kind of difficult to hold onto one.”
She added that she has seen new faces in her church since General Conference’s headline-making actions. Among Livingston United Methodist’s new members is a woman who tracked down the church after receiving a free “pastor hug” from Cox at a local pride parade.
The Rev. Greg Neal, senior pastor of Grace United Methodist Church in Des Moines, Iowa, also has seen his Reconciling church grow since General Conference last year. With help from the Reconciling Ministries Network, he was able to transfer to the Iowa Conference after his marriage to his husband led to his suspension in the North Texas Conference, where he had served as a pastor for 31 years.
Now Neal not only serves as pastor but also as the first gay married elder on the Iowa Conference Board of Ordained Ministry.
Cox and Neal celebrate Reconciling Ministries Network’s achievements. But both agree that more work for inclusion is needed and that the advocacy group is in a position to help with that work.
“The 2528 strategic plan, I think, is absolutely where RMN needs to be going,” Neal said. “Just because we’ve obtained the wiping of the negative language of the Discipline, in no way, shape or form does that mean that we’re done.”
Practically speaking, he said what needs to be done right now is informing bishops, conference leaders, boards of ordained ministry and congregations what LGBTQ clergy and clergy candidates have to offer the church.
“Rather than being viewed as problems or somebody we have to take care of,” Neal said, “we are assets to our conferences and to our congregations, not in any way shape or form problems.”
Meredith, Reconciling Ministries Network’s board chair, sees his role as helping RMN and The United Methodist Church move forward “as the best version of Wesleyan faith that we can be.”
He added that he and his fellow board members are “deeply engaged in the work of coaching RMN as an organization and movement within The UMC until every LGBTQ+ beloved child of God everywhere within reach of a United Methodist disciple will experience the grace, love and justice of Christ Jesus, our Lord!”
Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News. Contact her at (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umnews.org. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digest.
