Religion · Dallas-Fort Worth, TX Metro · October 16, 2026
Highland Park UMC Council Recommends Leaving United Methodist Church
What Alinsky tactic is being used
3 of the thirteen rules are in play here — campaigns rarely run just one.
Rule 4
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
The whole dispute is literally a fight over a book of rules: the Horizon Texas Conference's public statement frames the matter as governance — that Highland Park's Church Council altered its governing documents and corporate name, stripping references to The United Methodist Church and the Book of Discipline — and insists the congregation be held to United Methodist polity. The congregation, in turn, points to its own charter, Texas corporate law and civil court. Each side is working to make the other live up to its own written commitments, and the tactic bites because document changes were made quietly enough that the two sides now offer competing accounts.
Counter-Rule 4 · Radical Integrity
Close the gap between stated values and actual practice before anyone else finds it. This tactic only works where the gap is real.
Close your own gap before someone else finds it. This month, get your congregation's articles of incorporation, bylaws and the last five years of board minutes, and check whether every amendment was made in an open meeting with a recorded tally; if one was not, say so plainly rather than defending it. Read the paragraph of your denomination's governing document that your church is accused of violating, in full, before repeating anyone's summary of it.
Rule 3
“Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.”
The argument members prepared for was theological — biblical authority, marriage, ordination. The ground it is actually being fought on is corporate: a 'doing business as' name, amendments to governing documents, a trust clause on the property, and a civil lawsuit filed in August. UM News notes bluntly that leaving with property is not as simple as a congregational vote, which is exactly the terrain where most members have no expertise and must defer to whoever speaks first and most confidently.
Counter-Rule 3 · Preparation and Width
Prepare the unfamiliar ground before you are dragged onto it. "I don't know, I'll find out and come back" beats an improvised answer.
Prepare the unfamiliar ground now. Ask the trustees in writing who holds title to your building and whether a trust clause in favor of the denomination appears in the deed or bylaws; read umc.org's own page on ¶2553, which records that the disaffiliation window expired December 31, 2023 and that the 2024 General Conference deleted the paragraph. When asked a property or polity question you cannot answer, say 'I will find out and come back' instead of improvising.
Rule 9
“The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
Much of the urgency comes from an unpriced fear: that a wrong move costs the congregation its campus. The council moved from a town hall on October 11 to a congregational vote scheduled October 25-26 — about two weeks — while litigation is pending and while the denomination's top court has already voided alternative exit routes used by other conferences. An unnamed worst case is doing more work than any number anyone has published.
Counter-Rule 9 · Courageous Realism
Name the worst case out loud and cost it honestly. Fear of the unnamed is doing most of the work.
Name and cost it out loud before you vote. Ask the trustees, in writing, for three figures: the appraised value of the property at issue, the legal fees authorized to date and who is paying them, and what the church would owe in pension liability or apportionments under any settlement being discussed. Refuse to vote on a timeline that will not produce those numbers in writing first.
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
Know where you stand
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