Protecting my immediate interests before investing in the renewal of the church might seem prudent, but prudence is not a listed fruit of the Holy Spirit. My own life and my closest friends might turn out to be fine, but that never was the point of being the church anyway.

At stake are the souls of the retreating bulwark of traditionalist leaders, the bully allowed to reign, and the vast innocents exposed to the dangers of the bully. This battle is not about one human “side” “winning” over the other. God uses conflict for growth on both sides, but retreat on the part of God’s people fuels death on both sides. Were you not placed here to testify to the reality of the Gospel in this generation?

It is God’s role to strategize, and our part to stand. The current leadership landscape in the UMC is full of “traditionalist” fruitless strategizers and “progressive” faithful standers. When people stand, unified and persistent enough, in increasing numbers, they can achieve outcomes for good or evil they never thought possible, and it was always wrought by events and timing neither side predicted. Our duty is not to own the exhausting politics of wrestling for human dominion, but to each individually and together corporately stand up for the Lord’s interests as the Holy Spirit leads.

A salvific response to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the crisis of the church in our day demands a verbal declaration of the following principles from all of us leaders at all levels, whether privately with accountability and/or publicly with culpability, as the Spirit leads… [Application of declarations made from 1 and 2 Peter]

The following ideas obtained from prayer are a sample and a standard of what God might prompt you to do both individually and corporately. When each of us rebuilds the part of the wall we occupy, we will together be amazed at what God accomplishes in a short time.

Asking God how it is possible to “stand strong in You and in Your mighty power,” I heard Him say, “Put Me on!”

We think that so long as the battles for our own souls are won, we can leave everyone else to God’s hands. But God has called His church to lay down our lives for those who don’t know Him yet. If our lives are truly secure as we say we believe they are, we can give up comforts and even our lives here on Earth so that others can come to God for themselves. That’s love.

We must be mustered. God must accomplish something different in each of us to know there is a war and to be called to enlist. Have you heard from God what is the next act of obedience He needs to finish this process in you?

Jesus accepts you and loves you just as you are. You won’t stay the same in His presence, but He loves everyone right where they are. Read Romans 5:6. The question for the whole world riled up about LGBTQ is not whether Jesus accepts you for who you are, but whether you accept Him for who He is.