At the end of February at the United Methodist’s Church special session conference, 438 delegates voted to potentially adopt what’s called the Traditional Plan. The church would add layers of oversight to the ordination of LGBTQ clergy and penalties for clergy who officiate same-sex marriages.

Advocates for this plan say it keeps the church in line with the Bible’s teachings, while opponents say it is dividing the global church network.

The Rev. Derek Hansen, pastor of the Adirondack Community Church in Lake Placid, said the plan simply reaffirms the denomination’s stance on same-sex marriage and LGBTQ clergy.

“United Methodist pastors have never been authorized by the denomination to officiate same-sex weddings,” Hansen wrote in an email. “United Methodist regional bodies and bishops have never been authorized by the denomination to ordain openly gay clergy.

The Adirondack Community Church in Lake Placid is part of the Upper New York Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. (Enterprise photo — George Earl)

“These policies have been in place since 1972 (the first General Conference of the United Methodist Church) and are debated and voted on at every General Conference.”

Beyond that, Hansen declined to comment for his church, saying it is too early.

“I realized it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to speak publicly while we as a congregation continue to dialogue together in the aftermath of this General Conference,” Hansen wrote in an email Tuesday. “It’s only been a week and we need time to process, listen, and pray with each other.”

The Enterprise also reached out to six members of local United Methodist churches as well as higher-up, conference-level clergy, but none of them wanted to comment on the issue publicly.

The next regularly scheduled conference is in May 2020. This February’s conference was not regularly scheduled. It was specifically called to address this issue.

The Rev. Derek Hansen smiles inside the Adirondack Community Church in Lake Placid, of which he is pastor, in November 2017. (Enterprise photo — Griffin Kelly)

An alternative plan, known as the One Church Plan, would have allowed conferences to ordain LGBTQ clergy, and allow churches and clergy to decide whether they wanted to host and officiate same-sex marriages. It was voted down 449 to 374.

“Some people were thrilled; some people were really upset,” said the Rev. Eric Olsen, pastor of First United Methodist Church of Saranac Lake. “When they voted it down, it wasn’t with contempt, and that’s where I think part of the problem is. We just don’t think it’s necessarily our place to bless it.”

Olsen has spent his whole career as a Lutheran minister, and Lutherans allow gay marriage and clergy. Saranac Lake’s Lutheran congregation, which Olsen leads, worships in the Methodist church, and at one time when he was away serving as an Army National Guard chaplain, the Methodist pastor covered the Lutherans, too. Then when a Methodist minister left in 2017, that congregation brought Olsen on for double duty.

He can officiate a gay Lutheran wedding, but not a Methodist one.

When asked where that puts him, he replied, “wrestling.”

The Rev. Eric Olsen gives an interview in November 2017 at First United Methodist Church in Saranac Lake. He is pastor of that church as well as the Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity, which meets in the Methodist church. (Enterprise photo — Peter Crowley)

“I think there’s room for God to bless two people if they want to spend their lives together,” Olsen said. “Love is love, if the love is genuine, if the love is sincere, if it’s thinking more of the other person, if it’s trying to make things right.”

The Traditional Plan also offers a way out for conferences, individual churches, bishops and other clergy to leave the UMC if they do not want to abide by the standards.

A conference unwilling or unable to follow the rules would be encouraged to leave the UMC and establish a self-governing Methodist church. Churches would be allowed to keep their assets but could no longer use the UMC name or logo, or receive money from the organization.

The United Methodist Church is separated into conferences, which administrate the more than 12 million UMC members globally. Among the requirements of the Traditional Plan is that a conference vote yearly on whether it is willing to uphold the church’s stance on same-sex marriage and the ordination of homosexual people.

Olsen said he thought that many Methodists did not want to allow LGBTQ clergy because of fears about sexuality and identity taking precedence over the gospel.

“People are worried about an agenda that takes a louder voice than the Christian voice,” Olsen said. “Sometimes people’s agendas and themselves run roughshod over other people, and you see that all the time, and I think people are afraid of that.”

Olsen said he hasn’t officiated a gay marriage here in the village in his year-and-a-half as a Methodist pastor, and didn’t know of any gay clergy locally in the Methodist church. He said that doesn’t mean the church would exclude them, either.

“Would I register it? I could never register it in the Methodist church,” Olsen said. “There would be implications if I did that.”

Under the Traditional Plan, if a pastor is found to have officiated a same-sex wedding, he or she would get a minimum one-year suspension without pay for the first offense, with removal of clergy credentials for the second offense.

“I’m hoping that this gets revisited, but maybe for the Methodist church right now the Holy Spirit is saying no,” Olsen said. “Not right now. Because it takes time to adjust. It takes time to learn new things.”

What Olsen said is most important, is that anyone is welcome in the church — by which he meant more than just the United Methodists, including all Christian denominations.

“Gay couples are welcome in the church,” Olsen said. “If they wanted to join themselves, then we would help them to find a way to do that. … Because we’re not about to exclude anyone. We don’t exclude anyone.”

According to a Pew Research Center survey given to about 1,600 members of the UMC in 2014, 60 percent of respondents reported that homosexuals should be accepted into the church, while 32 percent said that should be discouraged. Four percent said it should not be encouraged or discouraged, and 3 percent said they did not know.

In the same survey, 49 percent of respondents supported same-sex marriage while 43 opposed it. Eight percent reported that they did not know.

At the 2019 General Conference, the Rev. Timothy Bruster of the Central Texas conference passed a motion to address the constitutionality of the Traditional Plan by the UMC’s Judicial Council.

The council will address the plan at it’s next meeting April 23-25 in Evanston, Illinois. If the council declares the plan unconstitutional, the plan would not be included in the Book of Discipline, the UMC’s policy book.