Kenton First UMC Disaffilation Info Page

Hello. Thanks for coming to my site. I am currently working on getting it all together, but I wanted to address a few things here immediately in case anyone attempts to come to this website tonight.

First of all I am sorry for the typos, I was working on this to the literal last possible minute, and I gave Lindsay 10 minutes to proof read, it will be corrected, before I post it here.

Second of all, there are many things I just did not have time to do or address. I work full time and have three kids, this has consumed the majority of my free time for a week and half. I plan on the PDF of the doc I shared to be a living document, I will continue to add to it and adjust it. Or possibly put out a part 2.

Third, though this site is accessible to anyone who finds their way here, I am not sharing it publicly and it will not show up in search engines. If someone makes it to this site, it is because they read my handout or because someone at Kenton First sent them here.

Last but not least, and I meant to put this in the hand out. I will not be voting. I do not attend the church, and though I felt a calling to share information and use the research and financial skills I have developed over the years, I genuinely do not feel it is my place to vote on this matter. All of you that attend this church need to search your heart for YOUR right answer. My right answer is this.

Michael Landsberg

I was told that if i did not take the video of the meeting down I would recieve a ceast and desist order, so I took it down. Here is my response to the the things said in the first meeting. https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1N3lg4eiEnX8755_LrkVxK7rPwWA7tjdM

Upadte 9/17/2022:

I wasn't sure if anyone had even made their way to this site or knew about it, and other than getting the PDF up I was undecided as to how I would utilize this site. For now its going to be akin to a blog. Here are some thoughts that did not make it into the PDF:

This was a unainmous recommendation from the lead team, however at both combined meetings we heard from only 3 total memebers of the lead team, and the Pastor spoke for about 80% of the total meeting and fielded all questions. The letter that was sent out didn't have one sinlge name attatched to it. If every member of the lead team is in favor of seperation, I think THEY not the pastor should be explaining why they have made that recommendation. Frankly I don't know why the pastor is talking at these things at all, its the congregation's decision, pastors come and go, we have had at least 5 since I was a kid.

I specifically did not address theological issues about wether being gay is a sin in the PDF, because I was operating on the premis that LGBTQ issues were not why the church is leaving, after my 22 minute phone call with a member of the lead team, I realize that was probably a mistake because after talking with this person, I am absolutely sure that this is about LGBTQ issues, they litterally told me being gay is a sin and goes against Jesus's teachings about marriage and family. Which considering I was told by a different member of the lead team that i was focusing "on one issue" only, now I just feel duped with a bait and switch.

What I hate and what breaks my brain to the point I have to do something, is when I feel a bait and switch happening. This is quite litterally the argument for it to not be about LGBTQ issues: "We do think being LGBTQ is a sin, but we actually want to break away becuase the church isn't following its rules, which also happen to pertain to LGBTQ issues, but we also have been part of the contingent that has blocked those rules from being changed, and protested by not paying apportionments when the gay CFO was hired, but its actually not really about LGBTQ at all". I said on this phone call "not one single thing was metioned or discussed about being gay being a sin" and I was told "that is part of the teaching within the Methodist church", as if I didn't go to that church my whole childhood, as if Im not confirmed in the church, or know what is in the bible.

So if I go to the Global Methodist "what we belive page" and I type in "Divorce" in the search, it brings up nothing. Now, I was told on the phone that being gay is a sin because of what "jesus taught about marriage and family", while Jesus never once actually says being gay is a sin, he does very clearly state that divorce is sin, and its not only in one gospel but two:

19 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan.² Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.

³ Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

⁴ “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’^{[a] 5} and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’^[b]? ⁶ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

⁷ “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

⁸ Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. ⁹ I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

¹⁰ The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”

¹¹ Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. ¹² For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

So since the global methodist church is going to adhere stricktly to the teachings of Jesus and family, then divorce is not allowed? Any remarried person that got divorced for ANY reason other than the woman cheating is living in sin. A woman can NEVER request a divorce. Unfortunatly the global methodit church doesn't seem to have a very strong stance on this. Can someone show me a passage where Jesus takes a similar, hard line stance on homosexuality? I'll wait.

Here is a picture I took from the road from a UMC in my nieghborhood in Columbus. When accepting people for who they are is what is at stake, the future is blazed with progress not regresion. When I looked around at the meeting I noticed a lot of families that have had LGBTQ children that attended the church are no longer active or attending. This will only continue as more and more families in your congregation are forced to reconcile the idea that these things are a sin, while also wanting their child or grandchild to be able to live a full life full of the kind of love us hetero married couples enjoy.