Follow-Up: Bishop Rules Highland Park UMC Split Vote Invalid, Appoints a New Senior Pastor as Members Who Stay Move Their Worship to University Park
The dispute over Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas, Dallas County, Texas, took a new turn on October 29: Bishop Rubén Saenz Jr. of the Horizon Texas Conference announced that the congregation's October 25-26 vote to sever ties with The United Methodist Church is invalid under church law.
Saenz, who also serves as president of the denomination's Council of Bishops, said the church, chartered in 1916 and counting about 15,000 members, remains United Methodist. He appointed the Rev. Andy Lewis, his assistant and chief of staff, as the church's senior pastor, and removed the Rev. Matt Tuggle, its senior pastor, and the Rev. Paul Rasmussen, its pastor emeritus.
Members who wish to remain United Methodist will worship on November 1 at 10 a.m. CT at University Park United Methodist Church, about three miles away.
The church council, for its part, said its pastors are staying and that worship will continue at the church's Mockingbird and Hillcrest site under the name 'Highland Park Methodist Church,' calling the bishop's move retaliatory.
The fight centers on bylaws and the denomination's trust clause. The conference sued in Dallas County civil court in August over bylaw changes the church made in 2022; more than 7,600 churches left the denomination through a disaffiliation path that ran from 2019 until it expired on December 31, 2023. An amended suit filed October 15 adds a breach-of-contract claim, and a non-jury trial is set for October 12, 2027. Of 4,775 votes cast in the congregational vote, 90.35 percent favored leaving.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 高地公园联合卫理公会礼拜堂内部（资料图）。CC BY-SA 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Inside the sanctuary of Highland Park United Methodist Church (file photo). CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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- 2026-10-30Follow-Up: Bishop Rules Highland Park UMC Split Vote Invalid, Appoints a New Senior Pastor as Members Who Stay Move Their Worship to University ParkThis story
