Mt. Bethel UMC lawyers seek documents sent to former pastor

Steven Usry, appointed Mt. Bethel pastor — *Rev. Dr. Steven Usry, appointed Mt. Bethel senior pastor*

Former Mt. Bethel UMC senior pastor Randy Mickler is among the church and denominational leaders named in a request for documents in the congregation’s legal battle with the North Georgia Conference.

So is Rev. Dr. Steven Usry, whom the Conference appointed to serve as Mt. Bethel’s senior pastor nearly a year ago, touching off a dispute that has landed in Cobb Superior Court.

A filing there on Wednesday by Mt. Bethel is requesting that the North Georgia Conference provide unspecified documents sent to them and other individuals as the discovery process continues.

The North Georgia Conference sued Mt. Bethel last September after months of conflict over reassigning its top clergy and a failed attempt at mediation.

Mt. Bethel is seeking an expedited vote to disaffiliate from the UMC in its countersuit, as well as recovering church assets and properties claimed by the Conference.

As East Cobb News reported last week, Judge Mary Staley Clark has scheduled a hearing on March 15 to consider motions in both suits. Both sides are seeking injunctions to be considered the week of April 25, according to court filings.

Mt. Bethel claims that the Conference engaged in a “fraudulent conspiracy” to strip the church of its properties, valued at nearly $35 million.

The documents request also seeks Conference documents sent to Mt. Bethel member Donna LaChance.

She’s part of the Friends of Mt. Bethel, a group of church members opposed to the actions by the congregation’s leadership.

LaChance has been outspoken on the topic, telling East Cobb News in an interview last June that the rift has “torn apart” a church community of nearly 10,000 members.

All of those named in the documents request are non-party individuals, meaning that they’re not part of either lawsuit. So is another church member who has retained an attorney after being issued a subpoena by Mt. Bethel lawyers to appear at a deposition.

That deposition, which seeks communications between the member and Conference officials as well as Usry, has been delayed to March 16.

Mickler was Mt. Bethel’s senior pastor for 28 years, and was succeeded in 2016 by Rev. Dr. Jody Ray.

Last April, Ray refused a reassignment from the Conference and turned in his UMC ministerial credentials. Mt. Bethel hired him as a CEO and lead pastor, moves the Conference says violate the UMC’s Book of Discipline governance procedures.

As East Cobb News has previously reported, Mt. Bethel is declining to provide office space and a fall salary to Usry. He’s also had the support of Mickler and has met with Mt. Bethel members off campus.

Usry also is considered a theological conservative, which is among the sticking points in the dispute.

Mt. Bethel is a conservative congregation and a founding member of the Wesleyan Covenant Association. Its leader, Keith Boyette, is a member of Mt. Bethel’s legal team.

The WCA was formed in 2016 as theological differences in the UMC began to widen.

They center in particular on ordaining gay and lesbian clergy and performing same-sex marriages, both currently forbidden by the UMC.

But conservatives anticipate that changing, and also formed a more conservative denomination, the Global Methodist Church.

On Thursday, the Global Methodist Church announced it was formally launching on May 1. That follows the decision by the UMC to postpone its General Conference to 2024 due to continuing travel issues related to COVID-19.

That conference was to have been held in 2020, with a vote likely on allowing conservative churches to leave.

(You can read the Mt. Bethel documents by clicking here and entering case number 21106801.)

Despite Mr. Clark’s hysterical handwaving, his statement “The bishop sued Mt. Bethel., Mt. Bethel did not sue her or anyone else”, like so much of the smokescreen of orchestrated lies and propaganda that has issued from the group around Mr. Ray since April of last year, is simply straight-up false. Both halves of his sentence are dead wrong.

As the fourth paragraph of the article accurate states, and as the public records of Cobb Superior Court show, “The North Georgia Conference sued Mt. Bethel last September.” This was the Conference itself by *unanimous* action of the entire Cabinet, including every one of the District Superintendants, not the bishop individually.

But the more serious (and deliberate?) of Clark’s falsehoods is in the second part of the sentence. The Mt. Bethel group has in fact sued Bishop Haupert-Johnson for money damages personally, as well as against District Superintendant Terrell. In the Court’s records online, the index of the parties shows that Mt. Bethel UMC is Plaintiff in claims where Sue Haupert-Johnson and Jessica E. Terrell are individual Defendants.

Furthermore, Mt. Bethel’s third-party claim filings show that it intends to sue any number of additional personal Defendants going forward. How many? 5? A dozen? A hundred? Any church member who dares breathe the least dissent?

One wonders about Mr. Clark’s ability to parse reality from fantasy

Your comments that Steven Usry is a “theological conservative” and that that is a sticking point is not correct. The “sticking point” is the unwarranted and illegal attempt by the bishop to remove our pastor. Protocols that have been in place for over a hundred years, as clearly defined in the Book of Discipline, were violared by her and her district superintendent.
Also, you are again misstating the origins of the WCA. The center of our theological differences is not gay marriage. The center is rejection of progressive theology that has destroyed many churches throughout America.
Finally, the fact that Mr. Usry, whom I have met and like, has the support of “friends” and our former pastor, Randy Mickler has no import in this issue.
The only thing that matters is that the Truth of what has happened will see the light of day.
Two points you never make- The bishop sued Mt. Bethel., Mt. Bethel did not sue her or anyone else. Finally, all of this can end if the bishop allowed Mt. Bethel to vote.

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