[00:00:34.240] - Speaker 3
Welcome to Episode 215 of The Non-Anxious Leader Podcast. I'm Jack Shitama. Today's episode is the first segment from an interview I did on the Future Christian podcast with Reverend Lauren Richmond. Lauren has shown an interest in family systems theory. In fact, he had me on his podcast back in 2020. I will put a link to his podcast in that particular episode in the Show Notes. He is ordained in the Christian Church Disciples of Christ, but is now serving in a United Methodist Church. He asked me to come on the podcast to talk about a family systems take on the current conflict within the United Methodist Church. This episode is a little longer than my typical episodes. It begins with Lauren doing his introduction, and I talk a little bit about my background. Then it goes to some background on how we got here as a denomination. If you want to skip it here, there were those. I'll put marks in the show notes as to where you can go to hear what I am thinking in terms of a macro level family systems take on the United Methodist Church's denominational conflict.

[00:01:49.480] - Speaker 1
So Without further ado, here is Episode 215, What is going on with the United methodist Church .

[00:01:59.350] - Speaker 2
All. Right, welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. This is Lauren Richmond, Jr. I'm pleased to be joined today by Jack Shatama. Jack, thanks so much for being here.

[00:02:09.600] - Speaker 1
Great to be here.

[00:02:11.300] - Speaker 2
Jack has actually been a guest before, but way back in my early days. We'll go through some similar questions. If folks are really dedicated listeners, they might have heard these before, but I wanted to share for folks who may not be familiar with you or perhaps forgot from way back in that episode, but share a little bit about yourself, about your faith journey, what it looked like in the past and what that looks like today.

[00:02:37.120] - Speaker 1
Sure. I didn't grow up in a church going family. My parents are not Christians. They were They are... Well, my dad passed away, but they were good, hard working, secular middle class people. It wasn't until my latter part of my 20s that I really started searching spiritually. I ran into a couple of people who really got me thinking about Jesus through their own testimony. It was through that that I prayed this prayer one day. This was the beginning of my faith, I think, where I just prayed, Jesus, if you are who you say, they say you are, show me. He did. I actually went home and I said to my wife, I think I want to start going to church. God was working on her. She said, Me too. She had grown up in the United Methodist Church. We started going to the church in which we were married, her home church. After about a year, I think I got into a Bible study and that's really what opened up my life and felt a call to ministry. I was baptized in January of 1988, and I was in a pulpit serving as a United Methodist pastor in July of 1991.

[00:03:53.680] - Speaker 1
So it was like a whirlwind.

[00:03:55.620] - Speaker 2
Yeah, it's a whirlwind for sure.

[00:03:57.980] - Speaker 1
And then as you know, family systems theory is a huge part of what I like to share. It's been my focus in terms of leadership development. I encountered that in my first year of seminary in 1991 and have been studying it ever since.

[00:04:18.720] - Speaker 2
What would you say is different or more expanded about your faith versus 30 some years ago?

[00:04:28.720] - Speaker 1
I think now I've really learned to live with uncertainty in a much healthier way, I think, than I did 30 years ago. What I've come to discover for myself is that that's really what faith is. Faith is trusting in God to lead the way and to provide the strength. One of my favorite concepts in Christian theology is the understanding that we can do no good apart from the Grace of God. That's our concept of free will. We only have the free will to say no to God. We can't even really say yes. But if we just open ourselves up to God, then it's God's grace that leads us, that guides us, that gives us what we need. Then when we see good things happening, especially in terms of doing God's work in the world, we get to give God the credit, give God the glory. I think that's how my faith has matured.

[00:05:34.650] - Speaker 2
Awesome. Excuse me. What are some spiritual practices that you'd recommend others or have been meaningful for you?

[00:05:45.760] - Speaker 1
Well, certainly having a prayer life is really critical. I struggled with that off and on until probably until about 2007. That really coincided with my youngest child being in high school. Mourning's God were not quite so hectic because I could get up early and I didn't have a bunch of kids running around. We have four children, they're all grown now, of course. I think having that prayer life where our focus is on God is really important. One of the practices that's been really meaningful to me in the last few years has been just keeping a real brief gratitude journal. It's a form of the Ignatious Nation Exam. Usually you do that at the end of the day where you reflect on the day and ask what you're grateful for and what you learned and what you can do better, that type of thing. But I do it first thing in the morning and think about the previous day. I write down the names of the people that I encountered and even the ones maybe that I had difficult encounters, I feel like all of those are people to be grateful for. There's a lots of research that people who express gratitude are happier.

[00:07:17.130] - Speaker 1
I think it gives us a sense of grounding. It starts first with gratitude for God, but then gratitude for all of the other aspects of life, especially people. I think that's the one that's most meaningful to me these days.

[00:07:32.360] - Speaker 2
Yeah, simple but helpful for sure.

[00:07:36.500] - Speaker 1
I was going to say it only takes me... I spent maybe five minutes on it, five or 10 minutes on it.

[00:07:43.340] - Speaker 2
Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing that. I'm doing this backwards. Anything else you want to share about yourself that makes you you?

[00:07:53.380] - Speaker 1
No, I think I'm just another guy, really. Well, you probably know this isn't really... This is plugging a book. I wrote a book on habit formation because for many years I felt like I just was grinding at life. And then it really started with starting a prayer life in 2007, where I started doing things out of habit, good things out of habit. First it was prayer, then it was exercise, and it was writing. I wish I would have known that when I was younger. I don't know. I probably wouldn't have listened. Maybe somebody did try to tell me. But I think that learning that it's not so much about willpower and self discipline, it's about being able to focus on developing the right habits has been certainly almost as life changing as Jesus Christ has been for me.

[00:08:52.080] - Speaker 2
Well, thanks for sharing that. I've been thinking a lot about your tips about micro habits and micro goals, trying to think of where's the micro goals I can start to get to my bigger goals, so that's helpful. Folks, Jack has his own podcast, the Nonanxious Leader podcast. Highly recommend it. I've been listening to it for some time. I don't want to remember how I found it, but it's all things family systems theory, leadership, habit formation, highly recommend it. He has a couple of books, well, three books, I think, Al, right? Yeah. The one I finished reading a few months ago, Anxious Church, Anxious People, How to Lead Change in an Age of Anxiety. Really, I think I've read a lot of family systems theory books, Jack, and I really think this is one of the best books of just laying it out in a simple, understandable way. So for listeners who are trying to get an understanding, I would highly recommend it just as a primer for Family systems theory. But the reason I have Jack on here is Jack serves in the United Methodist Church. As a clergy person, I am fortunate enough to be serving in a U MCAP Church now myself.

[00:10:16.480] - Speaker 2
And there's a lot of drama, I guess, maybe that's the wrong word, a lot of stuff happening nationally, globally within the denomination. And Jack has shared some things and perspectives on his own podcast around the denomination and possible splitting and disruption. So I thought it'd be interesting to have you talk about that from a family systems perspective. But maybe before we dive into that, I thought it might be helpful for our listeners who are not familiar with what's going on in the EMC, maybe talk about just the broader background and the back story. Sure.

[00:10:57.370] - Speaker 1
So I'll start in, I believe it's 1972, that my dates might not be quite accurate, but somewhere around that time, our general conference, which is our legislative body that meets only once every four years, passed a part of its book of discipline that says, which is our church law, that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. So prior to that, there was nothing even in our church law. It was only as I think people became more aware of LGBTQ persons and probably not even the transgender is mainly just LGBT persons that the church felt like they had to speak out. And that began four decades of conflict. It wasn't as intense early on, but as with our country, as progressives and conservatives started to become more polarized, so our church did as well. This is not new to mainline protestant Christianity. The Episcopal Church, United Church of Christ, the Lutheran Church, the Presbyterian Church, they've all been through this already and had denominational splits where I'm pretty sure in every case, the progressive wing kept the name of the denomination and the Conservatives started a new denomination. We're just the last ones to do it. We thought there was supposed to be a special general conference in 2019, and we thought there was going to be a way that we could live together in which we would come to an agreement that every church got to decide whether they would be willing to host same sex weddings.

[00:13:06.540] - Speaker 1
A church couldn't be forced to do it, but a church could be allowed to do it. Every pastor could decide whether they would be willing to officiate a same sex wedding. And each annual conference, which is each of our judicatories, like regions, each of our regions would be able to decide whether they would ordain LGBTQ person. So we thought, this is a way we could remain a big tent. It didn't happen. And in fact, actually, the traditional conservative wing actually gained a little bit of some strength on that. T hings actually moved in the opposite direction. There was a lot of turmoil from there. But then a group of, I'm going to say, about a dozen people total, maybe 16 from each side, total from half from each side got together and they were led by the negotiator who administered the 911 Victims Fund. I want to say his name is Ken Feinberg, but I might be wrong about that. Anyway, they came to an agreement about how we might amicably separate. I won't go into all the details, but the idea was that we were going to agree to disagree and the United Methodist Church would remain a church and be able to eliminate the language about homosexuality being incompatible with Christian teaching, and that the conservative wing of the church would leave and form its own denomination called the Global Methodist Church.

[00:14:50.860] - Speaker 1
We were all really hopeful at that point in time, and that was going to be codified in the 2020 General Conference, which was to happen in I believe September of 2020, but it might have been May. Anyway, we know what happened in 2020. There were going to be no gatherings like that. They pushed it off to 2021. They pushed it off again to 2022. Then they decided that, really, it didn't make sense to do it. We would just meet again in 2024. Well, that created a lot of disruption and uncertainty. Churches that wanted to leave were feeling anxious. Clergy and Church members that wanted to leave were feeling anxious. The coalition that had formed this amicable separation broke down. Now, in the 2019 General Conference, there was something that was passed called a disaffiliation clause, where a Church could leave the denomination and take their property with them if they went through a certain process and paid a certain amount of their missional giving that they have to give to the denomination. T hat's what we're seeing now. We're seeing a lot of churches that are going through this disaffiliate disaffiliation process. Interestingly, not all of them are going to the global Methodist Church.

[00:16:16.420] - Speaker 1
Many of them are just they just want out. They want out of the franchise. They want out from having to be a part of the bigger connectional church. T hat's what's creating the chaos. I know that's a long answer, but.

[00:16:31.080] - Speaker 2
No, it's helpful. One quick thing. I had heard somewhere on a YouTube video about this topic that that window, so to speak, that you mentioned was closing, would be closing soon? Or what was it? Maybe that it's being forced closed. I can't remember.

[00:16:53.600] - Speaker 1
It was passed as a temporary measure in 2019. Ironically, it was passed to give progressive churches a chance to leave if they wanted. It was really passed with more traditional conservative support. But because of the change in circumstances, it's now the opposite. But yeah, that window is closing 2023. They are going to have to have made their decision, which requires a two thirds vote of all their church members. The approval of the annual conference, they have to pay. It varies from conference to conference because each conference gets to set the rules. But on average, a couple of years worth of what we call apportionments, which is our giving to the denomination, which can be pretty significant. And that all has to be paid by the end of 2023. So the window, yes, is closing.

[00:17:49.780] - Speaker 2
Okay. I think what it was is there was a conference that was basically saying we're not going to let anyone else out.

[00:17:55.980] - Speaker 1
Okay.

[00:17:57.240] - Speaker 2
So I can't remember what that conference was. Anyway, so a lot happening. I don't want to get into the nitty gritty of policies and procedures and stuff. What I want to hear that I think at least would be helpful for me, and I'm hoping would help for our listeners, is you've alluded to, when I've been listening to some of your podcast episodes, of how you think this process has not been healthy from a family systems perspective. I'd like to hear more from there.

[00:18:25.540] - Speaker 1
Sure. I'll go to the macro first. The bigger picture, because what this conflict would be considered in family systems theory is a classic triangle. So a triangle occurs when two people are uncomfortable with each other, their own relationship, nd so to avoid having to deal with that discomfort, they focus on a third person or issue. And so a classic triangle might be in a couple, one of the partners, they're uncomfortable with each other. And so one of the partners just dives into their career, works a lot and focuses on that. That's a way of avoiding the discomfort. And then so the other partner complains about, Well, you're working too much. Oh, well, my boss says I have to. How come you're not home early? Well, I had to do this. The focus is on the work. They start arguing about the work instead of dealing with their own discomfort with each other. In the early 70s and into the 80s, as progressives and conservatives got more uncomfortable with each other, this became more and more a focus of their discomfort with each other. I will say that this is in family systems theory, there's this concept of generational transmission, things getting passed from generation to generation.

[00:19:59.540] - Speaker 1
At least in Christianity in the United States, there have been a series of things like this, slavery back in the 19th century, fundamentalism in the early 20th century that became focuses, a foci of the conflict between progressives and conservatives. This is something that we just keep doing. In my own denomination, not only do we have this history of these types of triangles, but we also have a history of schisms. We have a history of divorces. The first one occurred back in 1816. It was related to race. I don't think that's coincidental, and I'll tell you why in a minute. But in a church in Philadelphia, St. George's Church, it used to be that African Americans and Anglos would worship together. But in 1816, they told the African Americans they had to sit in the balcony. Richard Allen, who was actually one of the certified lay preachers in the church, led a movement and they walked out and they formed what is now the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1821, the same thing happened at John Street in New York. African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church came out of that. We had the Methodist Protestant Church that split away in 1830 because they didn't want bishops.

[00:21:44.760] - Speaker 1
T heir motto was a country without a king and a church without bishops. Just on and on. Of course, we split over slavery. This is in our DNA. Schism is in our DNA. The other part about that, and this is the even more macro in our culture and our country. Michael Kerr, who was studying under Murray Bowden, has a theory that the United States, part of what has propelled it from its beginning, was that we always had a scapegoat. Early on, you remember my podcast on that, huh? Early on, it was slaves and Indigenous Peoples, and we could always focus on them as the problem, the so called problem. That took us all the way up into the mid 20th century. But the civil rights movement, and you could say women also were considered a scapegoat. But this idea that all of a sudden through civil rights and women's rights, that all people were equal and we really shouldn't oppressed others and we shouldn't exploit others, this took away our scapegoat. I don't know if it was Kerr or somebody else said. What they really think it was a tipping point was the one thing that held us through that period was Communism.

[00:23:22.320] - Speaker 1
We still could blame Communism, but when the wall fell in I think the early 90s, that was it. And if you look at it since then, we've been fighting each other because our political world is the same. And even though some people still want to have immigrants as scapegoats, we're really using each other. We're focused on each other. What do we do? In the Church, we've triangled human sexuality, at least in our denomination, United Methodist Church, as a way to avoid other things. One more thing in terms of the Protestant Church. Protestant mainline churches have been declining since the 60s, steadily. Talk about denial. This is a way to deny that perhaps we got comfortable, we got complacent, we became middle class people who cared more about ourselves instead of reaching out in the name of Jesus and trying to change oppressive systems in the name of Jesus. What happened was, over time, we focused on that issue. You might hear people say, Well, if we just got back to the basics and got back to the Bible and traditional values, we would flourish as a church. Or if we just freed ourselves from these oppressive things and became a more open church, we'll reach more people.

[00:24:56.480] - Speaker 1
Well, neither of those is really true. I think you could do all the things that we need to do to reach people for Jesus and bring the reign of God into the world without dealing with that issue at all.

[00:25:13.820] - Speaker 2
So you think it's in some ways an anxiety response to the decline you're saying?

[00:25:18.730] - Speaker 1
Yeah, it is. Just as I think our political division in the country is an anxiety response to the shift away from a system where some people are privileged and we're trying to move to a system that's more egalitarian, even though we still have a long way to go.

[00:25:42.720] - Speaker 1
That's it for the first part of my conversation with Reverend Lauren Richmond Jr. o n his podcast, the Future Christian Podcast. The next segment will be next week, so stay tuned for that. Until then, you can find the show notes at thenonanxiousleader.com/215. You can sign up for my two for Tuesday atthenonanxiousleader.com and you can always email me at jack@christian-leaders. Com. Until next time, thanks and goodbye.