I own a book called Taking Back the Methodist Church.  It's not a bad book, but the title oversells the book.  That's because taking back the United Methodist Church is something so many people in the pews would love to figure out a way to do.

The Church's Book of Discipline prohibits same-sex marriages from being conducted in the Church and prohibits homosexuals from serving as clergy.  But recently, some within the Church have successfully circumvented those rules.  Most notably, Amy DeLong, a lesbian pastor who officiated a same-sex union, was brought to trial, and barely got a slap on the wrist.

The direction that the Church has been heading in is very concerning to many Methodists and many have been frustrated because there didn't seem to be a way to turn the ship around.

Now there is.

A group of pastors created a website called faithfulumc.com to collect "signatures" urging the Council of Bishops to uphold the Book of Discipline.  If you are a Methodist concerned about the Church, I urge you go to faithfulumc.com, read the statement, and add your name to the list.

The statement includes language such as:

• No institution that values its health and its integrity can allow those who represent that institution to willfully, publicly, and repeatedly undermine its policies
• We do not want monies that we give to the church to fund any board or organization within The United Methodist Church that advocates against the current position in the Book of Discipline
• We sincerely believe that the future of The United Methodist Church is at stake

It's hard not to agree.  We don't need new rules; we need the enforcement for the rules we have.

I was reading Max Lucado's (excellent) book On the Anvil the other night.  There was one passage that really resonated with me.  It said, "Satan's best tools of destruction are not from outside the church; they are within the church.  A church will never die from the immorality in Hollywood or the corruption in Washington.  But it will die from corrosion within".

We know that the secular world is very broken and has been for a long time, but when United Methodist pastors take a vow before God to "be loyal to The United Methodist Church accepting its order, liturgy, doctrine, and discipline" and then deliberately break that vow, Houston we have a problem.

When we let them get away with it, it is nobody's fault but our own.

I encourage Methodists to go to faithfulumc.com and add your name to the list.  Let's take back the Methodist Church.