Rocky Mountain Conference Leadership Will Disband Boulder Church if It Accepts a Gay Member
18 April 2024 |
This report was written with the help of Mark Johnson and Dave Ferguson
Dave Ferguson started his life as a pastor—in fact, he served as an assistant pastor in the church in Boulder, Colorado, early in his career. Later Dave came out as gay, and is now married to a man.
Recently he and his spouse moved to Colorado, where Dave grew up and where he had inherited some property. Dave had been active in several ministries in the Glendale City Church in California before moving to Boulder. In January, Dave met with board chair Mark Johnson and Boulder’s pastor, Geoff Patterson, and asked if he would be welcomed in the church if he transferred his membership from the LGBTQ-accepting Glendale City Church in California.
Mark and Geoff felt that the board and church members would be open to the transfer, though Mark suggested that the pastor alert the Rocky Mountain Conference (RMC) president Mic Thurber. Boulder church got a nice letter of response from RMC, essentially asking them to find a way to fellowship with Dave without accepting him into membership.
What followed were several meetings of the church board and the board of elders, at the end of which the church board recommended to a church business session that they accept Dave into membership.
The conference president, Mic Thurber, suggested that Boulder’s board rescind their recommendation to accept Dave Ferguson, and to send the transfer request back to Glendale rather than taking it to the church in business session.
The church in business session
Church leaders decided instead to follow the Church Manual process and trust the people. So after the first reading of the recommendation for acceptance of the membership transfer from Glendale, with a clear explanation of the unique nature of the request by Patterson, the church called a special business meeting.
At the business meeting the pastor read a letter he had received from Mic Thurber outlining his concerns and highlighting the potential consequences to the Boulder church if the congregation moved forward with the membership transfer. The pastor also clearly reviewed the process as described in the Church Manual, to show that congregational leaders had followed the process to the letter.
Boulder’s board chair Mark Johnson recounted Dave’s history and current situation. He outlined the church policies and guidelines—why members might choose to vote against the recommendation (the concern was Fundamental Belief #23), and then why they might choose to vote for the recommendation.
At the end, a secret ballot vote was 60-40 to accept Dave into membership by transfer. Pastor Patterson alerted Elder Thurber to the action.
Thurber’s response was that the RMC executive committee would have to take disciplinary action against the Boulder church if it went ahead with accepting Dave into membership.
The RMC executive committee
Subsequently, Pastor Patterson and Mark Johnson were invited to attend the RMC executive committee to give a report on the church’s actions. They again outlined the process they had taken, which they felt was in keeping with the Church Manual. After about two hours of discussion with the committee it became clear, from the questions and comments, that the executive committee would not leave it to the local level to make this decision.
The decision made by the executive committee was that the Boulder church must call another business session, at which the church must reverse the vote of membership acceptance and return Dave’s membership to Glendale. If the congregation did not, the RMC would call a constituency meeting of the conference, at which disbanding of the Boulder church and disfellowshipping Dave Ferguson would be the main items on the agenda.
Geoff Patterson wrote in a letter to Dave Ferguson,
Should we fail to [rescind our recommendation], the [RMC executive] committee will revisit the issue at their June 18 meeting, at which time they will vote to initiate the church manual-established process for disbanding a rebellious church. It is not a question of if they will do this. They made it clear that they will if we have not by then rescinded our action.
It appeared to the congregation leaders that they had three painful and regrettable options:
- A long and divisive fight with the local conference and union, with the ultimate disbanding of the church and disfellowshipping of many members.
- A quick and divisive recantation of the vote of the majority of the members with the loss of membership for the recently accepted member.
- The withdrawal of the request for membership transfer by the recently accepted member, and his retaining denominational membership in Glendale—but with lingering division among the congregation.
After discussing the situation with Dave, he chose to move his membership back to Glendale City.
In a letter to Dave Ferguson, Geoff Patterson wrote,
I do not think it was wrong for you to test this issue, and you were fully in your right to request transfer. In addition, the church was fully within its rights to accept your membership, though the action was a direct violation of membership policy and the specific language of Fundamental Belief 23. And based upon this reality, the RMC Executive Committee was within their authority to call us on this action. They could have chosen to ignore it, as Southern California has chosen to do with Glendale City and perhaps others, but they did not choose to do so. And as I said, it was their right to so choose. Colorado is not California.
You can read the rest of Geoff Patterson’s letter to Dave Ferguson here.
Dave Ferguson told Adventist Today,
The church board chairman and the Sabbath School class I have attended [at Boulder SDA] have been super supportive. But since I don’t want to cause problems for the Boulder church, I have requested my membership remain at Glendale City.
Pastor Geoff’s son came out as gay about two years ago, but he doesn’t appear to consider himself an ally.
My husband, Peter, was brought up as Episcopalian, and the local Episcopal church in Loveland is delighted to have us attend there.
