Texas megachurch may leave UMC amid ongoing legal battle with conference
A Texas megachurch will consider leaving the United Methodist Church amid an ongoing legal battle over changes it made to its governing documents.
Highland Park United Methodist Church (HPUMC) in Dallas held a town hall meeting Sunday to discuss the possibility of leaving the mainline Protestant denomination.
The meeting came as the church fights a lawsuit from the UMC’s Horizon Texas Conference over changes church leaders made to HPUMC’s governing documents.
Caroline Nowlin, chair of the HPUMC Church Council and a longtime member of the congregation, gave opening remarks at the gathering, which drew about 800 people.
“Knowing what we know now, should our church remain part of The United Methodist Church?” she asked. “The church council has not decided on that question, though many of us can’t help but have strong opinions.”
“As we’ve told you, we won’t make this decision alone. We make it with you,” Nowlin continued. “If the church council recommends severing our ties with The United Methodist Church, the decision to do so would come to a vote to you.”
Nowlin said leaving the UMC would be “a congregational decision,” not a church council decision, adding that “your vote will determine our church’s future.”
David McAtee, another church council member who moderated the town hall, said the dispute comes down to two issues: “the say that we have in selecting our clergy” and “whether this church has the right to leave the denomination if the membership votes to do so.”
Several church council members spoke about the legal situation and what they described as the conference’s mistreatment of Highland Park.
The agenda also included time for questions from attendees, but that portion was not livestreamed to protect individuals’ privacy.
Founded in 1916 as University Church, HPUMC is the largest congregation in the Horizon Texas Conference. Former President George W. Bush periodically attends services there.
According to UMData, as of 2024, HPUMC had about 15,000 professing members, average weekly worship attendance of more than 4,000 and total income of more than $22 million.
In August, the conference sued HPUMC in Dallas County District Court, alleging that the church “appears to be attempting to unilaterally sever” its ties to the denomination.
According to the lawsuit, HPUMC leaders filed a Restated Certificate of Formation in November 2022. That document is an updated version of the church’s founding corporate charter under Texas law. The filing changed “the corporation’s name to Highland Park Methodist Church” and removed “all references to The United Methodist Church, the Conference, and the [UMC Book of Discipline] from its governing documents.”
The suit also says HPUMC “adopted amended bylaws” that eliminated all references to the UMC. The suit says the bylaws also removed “the rights of HP Church members to participate in any matter ‘affecting or involving the Church’” and “the members’ right to participate in determining the denomination of HP Church, including selection of the Church Council, which would be chosen only by itself and answerable only to itself.”
In an Aug. 26 video message to HPUMC members, Horizon Texas Conference Bishop Ruben Saenz Jr. said he was “grieved” by the situation and that it had come to this point.
“None of us owns Highland Park United Methodist Church,” Saenz said. “Jesus Christ is the head of the church. Not the bishop, not the senior pastor, not the church council.”
In September, HPUMC filed a formal response and counterclaim. In the filing, the church argued that the 2022 changes were valid under Texas law and asked the court to dismiss the suit.
The church also argued that it has continued to participate fully in the UMC since the changes. It said this includes paying its annual financial contributions to the conference.
In a pastoral letter Tuesday, Saenz responded the HPUMC meeting. As Saenz noted, UMC church properties are held in a trust for the benefit of the denomination, not owned outright by the local church.
"My concern has always been about governance, never about Highland Park's faith, its ministry, or its people. Changes were made to the church's governing documents in 2022, and the conference believes those changes don't fit with the covenant every United Methodist congregation shares," he wrote. "For many months, we sought to resolve this through conversation. When the concerns remained unresolved, the conference asked a civil court to help clarify the questions involved."
"What we have asked for is narrow," the bishop continued. "We have asked that Highland Park restore the governance in place before 2022: reinstate 'United' in the church's legal name, restore references to the [UMC] Book of Discipline in its governing documents and restore members' participation in the governance of their church."
In a statement issued before the town hall, HPUMC Senior Minister Matt Tuggle and two former senior ministers accused the conference of turning an "about-face that would disrupt 27 years of thriving."
"For 27 years, our Church has thrived under our governance structure and remained faithful to the denomination. Our now much-maligned Church Council structure was ratified in 1998, with the knowledge of the conference," the statement reads. "Our 2022 bylaws, far from disassociating us with the UMC, kept us within the denomination when more than 7,600 United Methodist churches left. Despite knowing about these changes since January 2023 and helping enact them (a fact well documented), the conference did not raise concerns until October 2025."
"The governance decisions made in 1998 and 2022 were right then, and we believe strongly it is right to stand by them now," the HPUMC statement adds.
