Religion · Dallas-Fort Worth, TX Metro · August 12, 2026
North Texas UMC Conference Sues Highland Park UMC in Property/Governance Dispute
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.”
This is Rule 4 in its most literal form: the conference is not arguing theology in court, it is asking a judge to hold Highland Park to the denomination's own book of rules and to the congregation's own charter. The petition's complaint is procedural — that the church council amended the articles of incorporation and bylaws in 2022-23, and filed a Restated Certificate of Formation in November 2022 dropping references to the UMC, the conference and the Book of Discipline, without the approvals those documents and the Discipline require. Highland Park's reply is also in Rule 4 terms: its senior minister answers that the congregation has been faithful United Methodists all along.
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 this month before anyone finds it: ask your trustees for the deed, the current articles of incorporation and the bylaws, and check whether the deed carries the trust clause language the Discipline requires (¶2501, ¶2503). Then check that every amendment since 2020 was adopted by the body your bylaws say must adopt it, with the vote in the minutes. If your church's practice and its paperwork have drifted apart, fix it in a properly called meeting now rather than in a courtroom later.
Rule 9
“The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
The alert itself is the evidence: the headline is all that is confirmed, and the vacuum is filling with the worst thing readers can imagine — the trust clause, seized buildings, the fights other congregations lost. The actual filing reported so far is a petition for declaratory judgment asking a court to affirm the church's pre-2022 governing documents, which is a narrower and duller thing than the fear it has already produced.
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 the worst case out loud and price it: pull the petition from the Dallas County District Clerk's free online civil records and read what relief is actually requested before repeating anyone's summary of it. Write down the two or three sentences that state the claim, and when someone at coffee hour says the denomination is taking the building, answer with the sentence rather than the rumor. Refuse to forward what you have not read.
Rule 3
“Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.”
The fight has been moved off ground church members know. Congregants understand charge conferences, pastors and pledges; this dispute turns on a Restated Certificate of Formation, an Assumed Name Certificate filed in December 2022, and a declaratory-judgment petition in Texas district court. Whichever side chose that ground, an ordinary member is now expected to have an opinion about corporate filings they have never seen.
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 before you are asked about it: get your own congregation's certificate of formation and bylaws in hand, learn who under your bylaws may amend them and what the Discipline requires of a charge conference, and keep a one-page note of what you found. When someone asks you a legal question at a church meeting, say "I don't know — I'll find out and come back," then come back with the document.
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
The free 4-minute assessment identifies your mountain and your institution’s capture phase — so alerts like this one arrive matched to where you actually stand.
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