For 110 years, the people of Highland Park United Methodist Church have worshiped beside the campus of Southern Methodist University, most of that time in the sanctuary they moved into in 1927. This weekend, they walk into that sanctuary to decide whether their church still belongs to the denomination it grew up in.
Highland Park United Methodist Church, the Dallas-area megachurch whose members include former President George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush, opens in-person voting Sunday morning on a resolution to cut every tie with The United Methodist Church. Polls run from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Sunday and 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday, according to UM News, the denomination’s official news service. A third party is running the electronic ballot, and only verified professing members can vote.
The vote comes at the end of a bruising fall. The regional Horizon Texas Conference sued the church in August. Church leaders said they had lost faith in Bishop Rubén Saenz Jr. Thirty-five clergy with ties to the church publicly urged members to vote no. And three weeks ago, a Maryland appeals court handed the denomination a major legal win over departing churches.
Whatever the count shows Monday afternoon, the question at the center of this fight will not be settled at the ballot box. It will be settled in a Dallas County courtroom, and possibly in courts beyond it.
What Highland Park United Methodist Church Members Are Voting On
The ballot question is short. It asks whether “Highland Park Methodist Church, doing business as Highland Park United Methodist Church,” should sever “all of its ties, affiliations, and connections to The United Methodist Church,” according to People Newspapers, which covers the Park Cities.
The church council adopted that resolution unanimously on Oct. 15 and recommended a “yes” vote. In its statement, the council said the conference and its bishop have “irrevocably broken the bond of trust.” It also said the church’s Methodist identity, theology and mission will continue no matter how the vote turns out.
The threshold is lower than the denomination’s own past standard. Under the rules the church announced, a simple majority of votes cast by eligible members voting in person is enough to pass. The denomination’s exit process from 2019 to 2023 required a two-thirds vote of the congregation.
Church leaders also warned members that voting “no” is not a pause button. The church’s statement said a “no” vote “does not guarantee additional time, conversations or another opportunity to vote,” according to UM News.
How a Governance Dispute Became a Lawsuit
This is not, at least on paper, a fight over sexuality or doctrine. It is a fight over corporate paperwork and who gets to run the church.
In 2022, Highland Park filed new incorporation documents with the Texas Secretary of State. The legal name changed from Highland Park United Methodist Church to Highland Park Methodist Church, though the congregation kept using the longer name publicly. The revised bylaws removed references to the denomination’s rulebook, the Book of Discipline.
Church leaders say they made those changes to protect the congregation and its property under Texas law, relying on a 2020 Texas Supreme Court decision in a dispute between breakaway Fort Worth churches and the Episcopal Church. They also say they told the conference about the changes at the time and did not intend to leave.
The conference sees it differently. In its lawsuit, filed Aug. 10 in Dallas County District Court, it alleges the 2022 and 2023 changes stripped out oversight by the denomination and removed members’ rights to take part in choosing church leaders. On Oct. 15, the conference amended the suit to add a breach of contract claim, argue the 2022 changes are void, and ask for a permanent injunction, according to UM News.
Saenz, who also serves as president of the denomination’s Council of Bishops, has framed the case as a matter of accountability rather than control. In an August message reported by the Christian Post, he told the congregation, “None of us owns Highland Park United Methodist Church.” He said conference leaders spent nine months trying to avoid litigation before filing.
He has asked the church to restore its pre-2022 governance: the “United” in its legal name, references to the Discipline, and member participation in electing leaders. On Oct. 16, the conference said the Book of Discipline “does not authorize a local church to unilaterally sever this covenantal relationship.”
Church leaders say they were blindsided. Pastor-in-residence Paul Rasmussen said in an Oct. 21 video that the conference sued the church and never offered mediation. Judge Bridgett Whitmore has set a non-jury trial for Oct. 12, 2027.
The Trust Clause, Explained
To understand why a church that wants to leave cannot simply walk out the door with its building, you have to go back more than two centuries.
Paragraph 2501 of the United Methodist Book of Discipline says all local church property is held “in trust, for the benefit of the entire denomination.” The requirement has been part of the Methodist Discipline since 1797. The current text calls the trust irrevocable and says it applies even when the words are missing from a property deed.
The idea traces to John Wesley and the earliest days of the Methodist movement. In practical terms, it means members can leave whenever they want. The building, the land and the endowment stay with the denomination unless the church’s own rules allow a release.
For a short window, those rules did allow it. From 2019 through 2023, a temporary policy known as Paragraph 2553 let congregations leave with their property if they met financial and procedural conditions, including the two-thirds vote and payment of unfunded clergy pension liabilities. More than 7,600 churches, about a quarter of all U.S. United Methodist congregations, took that exit, many of them amid the denomination’s long debate over sexuality.
That window closed on Dec. 31, 2023. The 2024 General Conference removed the policy from the Discipline, and the denomination’s top court, the Judicial Council, later ruled the trust clause is back in full force. Highland Park did not use the window.
Maryland Ruling Shows How Courts Have Treated Departing Churches
The timing of Highland Park’s vote matters, because the strongest recent court signal points in the denomination’s favor.
On Oct. 5, a three-judge panel of the Appellate Court of Maryland affirmed a lower court ruling against 37 congregations in Methodist Church of Cape St. Claire v. Baltimore Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church. Those churches had sued in March 2023, arguing the conference invented unfair exit penalties. On top of pension payments, the Baltimore-Washington Conference required departing churches to pay 50 percent of the assessed value of any real property they wanted to keep.
Judge Douglas Nazarian, writing for the panel, said deciding the churches’ claims “would require a trial court to examine the UMC’s religious doctrine” in a way the First Amendment does not allow, according to UM News coverage of the ruling. The court also noted that Maryland law presumes trusts are irrevocable unless the right to revoke was reserved.
The fees the 37 churches refused to pay reportedly would have totaled about $10.8 million, according to Baptist News Global. Twenty-five other Maryland churches did pay and left during the window. Courts in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina and Pennsylvania have reached similar results, the outlet reported.
The 37 churches now have four options: appeal to the Supreme Court of Maryland, stay in the denomination, leave and give up their buildings, or negotiate a settlement. As of Oct. 25, none had publicly announced its choice.
Why Texas Could Be Different, and Why It Might Not Be
Highland Park’s leaders are betting that Texas is not Maryland. The Rev. Chip Robertson, a former chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court, has argued, in remarks reported by UM News, that Texas law gives the congregation pre-existing rights to exit, comparing the situation to a marriage.
The church’s key precedent is the 2020 Texas Supreme Court ruling that put a breakaway Anglican group in control of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth’s real estate, a portfolio worth roughly $100 million, according to D Magazine. Texas courts apply “neutral principles of law,” reading deeds and corporate documents the way they would for any nonprofit.
The catch, as both UM News and D Magazine have noted, is that the Episcopal Church’s governing documents are built differently from the United Methodist Discipline. The Methodist trust language is explicit and long-standing. A neutral reading of that language may still favor the denomination.
That is why both sides agree on one thing: a “yes” vote does not end the lawsuit. The Rev. Susan Gorham Robb, a former senior associate minister at the church, has urged members to treat a “no” as a “not yet” and to bring in a third-party mediator.
A Church Divided Over How to Leave, Not Just Whether
The emotional weight of this vote is hard to overstate. About 800 people packed an Oct. 11 town hall, according to UM News. Senior minister Matt Tuggle has told members that, if they leave, the church would stay Methodist and could form a network with like-minded congregations. Tuggle himself faces a church-law complaint for not working to restore the bylaws, church leaders said.
On the other side, 35 clergy and clergy family members who grew up in, were called from, or served at Highland Park signed an Oct. 23 letter urging a no vote. “There is no reason to vote at all right now,” they wrote, according to Baptist News Global, arguing that church law and the civil courts should run their course first.
The stakes for the denomination are not small either. Highland Park is the largest congregation in the Horizon Texas Conference, with about 15,000 professing members, more than 4,000 weekly worshipers and annual income in the $20 million to $29 million range. Over its history it has helped launch 41 churches.
Why It Matters
For most Americans, a church bylaw fight in a wealthy Dallas suburb sounds like someone else’s business. It is not, for three reasons.
First, it tests how far a congregation’s own members can go in deciding their future. Thousands of families gave money, time and in many cases generations of loyalty to buildings like this one. The trust clause says those gifts were made to the whole church, not just the local one. Members on both sides believe they are protecting what their parents and grandparents built.
Second, it is a live case study in religious liberty. Courts are supposed to stay out of church doctrine. The Maryland ruling shows judges leaning hard on that principle and deferring to a denomination’s internal rules. Texas courts lean on neutral property law instead. How those two approaches collide will shape church property fights for every denomination, not just Methodists. Stucci Media has covered similar pressure points on faith institutions, including a federal regulator’s report on banks denying service over faith and politics.
Third, it is a reminder that the hardest church splits are rarely about a single vote. They are about trust between pastors, bishops and the people in the pews. Communities that have rebuilt after real loss, like the congregation behind the restoration of First Baptist Church in Williamsburg, show that a church is its people first. Whatever happens Monday, roughly 15,000 of them will still have to sit next to each other on Sunday.
What Happens Next
Polls close Monday at 3 p.m. Central. If the resolution passes, the church will claim it has left the denomination, and the conference has already said it does not recognize a unilateral exit. Expect the lawsuit to continue, possibly with new filings over the vote itself.
If it fails, the church remains in the denomination, the lawsuit continues, and the pressure shifts back to negotiation over bylaws and leadership. Either way, the 2027 trial date stands unless the two sides settle. More coverage of religious freedom and church life is on Stucci Media’s Faith page.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is the Highland Park United Methodist Church vote?
In-person voting runs Sunday, Oct. 25, from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Monday, Oct. 26, from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Central at the church in Dallas.
How many votes does the resolution need to pass?
A simple majority of votes cast by eligible professing members voting in person. The denomination’s former exit policy required two-thirds.
Can Highland Park keep its building if members vote to leave?
That is the central legal question. The denomination’s trust clause says church property is held for the whole denomination. The church argues Texas law and its 2022 governing documents protect its property. A Dallas County judge has set trial for Oct. 12, 2027.
What is the United Methodist trust clause?
Paragraph 2501 of the Book of Discipline says local church property is held in trust for the entire denomination. It has been part of Methodist rules since 1797 and applies even when not written into a deed.
What did the Maryland appeals court decide?
On Oct. 5, the Appellate Court of Maryland ruled against 37 churches seeking to leave with their property, finding the First Amendment bars civil courts from resolving the disputes over church doctrine and rules.
Rocci J. Stucci is the founder and CEO of Stucci Media and host of The Rocci Stucci Show.
