Attorneys for Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church have issued a subpoena for a church member and may call others for depositions as lawsuits proceed involving the East Cobb congregation and the denomination’s North Georgia Conference.
A deposition with the church member that was scheduled for Wednesday has been delayed to next Tuesday after she retained a lawyer, according to filings in Cobb Superior Court.
(You can read the Mt. Bethel documents by clicking here and entering case number 21106801.)
The North Georgia Conference sued Mt. Bethel in September after months of conflict over reassigning its top clergy and a failed attempt at mediation (you can read the lawsuit here).
In addition to trying to recover church assets and properties claimed by the North Georgia Conference, Mt. Bethel is demanding in its countersuit (you can read that here) that it vote to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church before the denomination’s scheduled General Conference meeting in September.
The Mt. Bethel church member is addressed in the subpoena as a “non-party,” meaning she is not a defendant or other party in the suits.
She was ordered to appear at the offices of Mt. Bethel’s attorneys with communications between her and “any agent of the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church” regarding Mt. Bethel or the lawsuit.
The subpoena also ordered her to provide communications between her and Rev. Dr. Steven Usry, the appointed senior pastor at Mt. Bethel that the church has refused to accommodate, as well as Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson and superintendent Jessica Terrell of the North Georgia UMC.
The church member also was ordered to provide communications between her and members of the press and between “you and with any person since Jan. 1, 2018” regarding Mt. Bethel or the suit.
Cobb Superior Judge Mary Staley Clark has scheduled a March 15 hearing to consider motions in a lawsuit filed against Mt. Bethel by the North Georgia Conference, as well as Mt. Bethel’s countersuit. Both sides are seeking injunctions to be considered the week of April 25, according to court filings.
Mt. Bethel leadership has called a church administrative council meeting for Sunday at 4 p.m. in the sanctuary on the main campus (4385 Lower Roswell Road).
On Friday, Mt. Bethel’s lead attorney sent a congregation-wide e-mail explaining that the process of collecting documents and testimony from “from individuals and entities they believe may have knowledge of relevant facts” is part of every lawsuit, “and such requests are in no way accusatory, nor should assumptions be drawn based upon them.”
That message, written by Robert D. Ingram of the prominent Marietta law firm of Moore, Ingram, Johnson & Steele, added that “while the inconvenience and disruption caused by the discovery process is unfortunate, it is an important tool for developing and preserving relevant facts. It is in this way that the truth both comes to light and may then be presented in a court of law.”
‘What purpose is served by this?’
Mt. Bethel members who are against the actions by church leadership have formed a group called the Friends of Mt. Bethel, and on Tuesday sent out an e-mail denouncing the subpoena of the church member.
“Our church is using this legal process to go after some of its own members, people who are in no way responsible for any of the decisions at issue in this lawsuit,” said the Friends of Mt. Bethel e-mail.
The message acknowledged that while issuing subpoenas to its members is legal, “it should never have happened. These members are not parties to the lawsuit, and they had no involvement in the decisions at issue in the case. Their private messages should not have been requested by Mt. Bethel, nor should the Conference have shared them without a court order.
“Imagine the amazement, concern, and fear when people realize their own church has served them legal papers and that they must now obtain legal counsel. What purpose is served by this?”
Mt. Bethel, with nearly 10,000 members, is the largest of the 800 congregations comprising more than 300,000 members in the North Georgia Conference.
The Mt. Bethel dispute arose in April 2021, when Haupert-Johnson reassigned Rev. Dr. Jody Ray, Mt. Bethel’s senior pastor, to a non-pastoral post in the North Georgia Conference office.
Mt. Bethel refused the reassignment of Usry to replace him, alleging the church was not properly consulted. Ray turned in his UMC ministerial credentials and was hired by Mt. Bethel as a lead pastor and CEO.
The church also declined to provide Usry office space or pay his full salary. Although he has met with Mt. Bethel members elsewhere since his appointment, he said he is staying away from the Mt. Bethel premises during the legal dispute.
Mt. Bethel’s countersuit lists North Georgia UMC leadership as defendants, as well as five “John Doe” defendants it describes as “unknown individuals or entities who conspired with the other counterclaim and third-party claim defendants and engaged in the wrongful conduct described herein.”
According to Mt. Bethel, North Georgia UMC officials and other defendants in the Mt. Bethel countersuit “agreed, schemed, combined and aspired . . . to prevent Mt. Bethel’s disaffiliation vote and to take its property.”
After declaring it was not a church in good standing, the North Georgia Conference concluded that “exigent circumstances” prompted it to possess Mt. Bethel properties and assets, and ordered it closed.
Claims of ‘fraudulent conspiracy’
Mt. Bethel claims that’s part of a “fraudulent conspiracy” to strip the church of those properties, valued at nearly $35 million by the North Georgia Conference.
Activities at the main Mt. Bethel campus on Lower Roswell Road and another property on Post Oak Tritt Road are continuing, and Ray remains in the positions created for him.
The North Georgia UMC said those actions and others, including Mt. Bethel’s treatment of Usry, violate the denomination’s Book of Discipline governing procedures.
Nearly 200 UMC delegates are asking that the General Conference be delayed to 2024 due to continuing COVID-19 issues.
That policy-making body was originally scheduled to meet in 2020, but has been delayed by COVID-19 concerns.
The UMC—the second-largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.—has been roiled in recent years by conflicts over theological issues, particularly gay and lesbian clergy and performing same-sex marriages.
The UMC currently bans both, but conservative congregations, including Mt. Bethel, formed the Wesleyan Covenant Association in 2016, anticipating that would change.
The North Georgia Conference claims churches not in good standing are not eligible to have a disaffiliation vote.
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