History: In 1972 the General Conference of UMC voted to add the statement “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching” to the Book of Discipline and in 1984 the document was again amended to state that “no self-avowed, practicing homosexual shall be ordained or appointed in the UMC”. Most United Methodists were pretty unaware of these changes until church trials resulted in the defrocking of some UMC pastors who admitted to their homosexuality. Most recently in 2006 the United Methodist Judicial Council declared that local pastors by current church law had a right to deny church membership to self-avowed practicing homosexuals. “A Pastoral Letter to the United Methodist Church from 75 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender UM Clergy” released in 2006 stated that there “has been a slow by steady course to exclude lgbt persons from the life of the church as a whole”. The Judicial Council ruling that persons could be denied membership because of their sexual orientation, got the attention of a group of FUMC members . These members of our own congregation were dismayed at the trend in the UMC which has been fueled by a majority representation of conservative Methodists in the denomination who are influenced by very literal interpretations of scripture. These members believe that the trend in UMC must be reversed; we believe that God made and loves us all and that the UMC should reflect Open Hearts, Open Hands, Open Doors, which is the current UMC motto. To do otherwise is contrary to scripture’s admonition to extend God’s acceptance to all.

This local group has named itself Reconciling Hearts. Since the fall of 2006, it has sponsored several informational events which have been open to and advertised to all. This is not a closed group; we believe that given a chance to examine and discuss information on the topic, more and more members of our church will recognize that it is time to take a stand, just as previous generations of Christians realized finally that slavery and the marginalization of women in the church was wrong both from a scriptural and ethical points of view.

There is a movement consisting of United Methodist Church congregations, groups, and ministries that began in 1982-83 which today is known as the Reconciling Ministries Network. It mirrors the development of similar networks in most mainline Protestant congregations. RMN, as of 2007, currently consists of 233 Reconciling Congregations, 29 Campus Ministries, and 49 United Methodist Communities. The United Methodist Campus Ministry of the University of Kansas is affiliated. Reconciling Hearts of FUMC Lawrence looks forward to the time when our congregation will affiliate as well. However, we have come to the conclusion that more members of our congregation must have a chance to dialogue about homosexuality in the United Methodist Church before the decision is made. Believe me, many of us are impatient to make an affiliation right now, but there is a strong consensus that our doing so would jeopardize progress in that direction.

What we are trying to do today is be sure that the Administrative Board of our local church is aware of our efforts, and we hope that you even believe in our goals. However, what we are asking you to do today is to begin to explore and dialogue with us, because we believe that nothing taking place in the church should be a surprise to the Ad Board of the church. We invite you to support our efforts to provide information and promote dialogue in our church and hope that you will give us that support tonight.

You will notice that we have the names of quite a large group of church members who have high hopes for the future overt inclusiveness to LGBT persons in Lawrence FUMC. We want to explore how our doors can be truly open to all of God’s children.