Message from HPUMC Lay Leaders
September 21, 2026
Dear Church Family,
We write to you as lay leaders of HPUMC who have been deeply involved in the current challenges facing our Church as a result of the lawsuit filed by the Horizon Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church. We want to give you an update on the lawsuit and to let you know about a second upcoming Town Hall.
The Church Council, the Pastoral Relations Committee, the staff, and the multiple administrative committees of our Church, not to mention our legal counsel and other advisors, have worked tirelessly to continue to respond to the actions by the conference against our Church to date. Today, our legal counsel filed a response to the lawsuit, as is necessary and appropriate in these circumstances, asking the court to dismiss the case on the grounds that the conference's claims are contrary to clear, repeated, and wholly settled issues of Texas law. In addition to the response, our legal counsel filed a counterclaim seeking a ruling that HPUMC properly adopted and amended its bylaws to date under neutral principles of law and may govern itself under those bylaws under Texas law. The filing also corrected the record, because the conference’s public posts, both inside and outside the lawsuit, contained critical errors, including denying that the Church notified the conference of the corporate updates at the time, when in reality the conference acknowledged and helped to implement them. Finally, today’s filing requested that the court award the Church its legal fees for responding to this unnecessary and legally unsupported lawsuit. The filed response can be viewed here.
This situation that we are now responding to was not an unfortunate event that we happened upon. This was a carefully planned three-pronged attack on our ability to maintain our ministry through self-governance: (1) legally—via the lawsuit challenging the validity of our governing documents, (2) ecclesiastically—via the charges brought against Rev. Matt Tuggle and the divisive messaging to our clergy, and (3) publicly—via the negative attention this has brought to our Church. That is not right, and we can’t ignore the emotional, spiritual, and psychological toll this attack has taken on our current and former lay leaders, clergy, staff, and their families.
Our desire is to continue the dialogue with you with the goal of transparency and authenticity. The next Town Hall will be held on Sunday, October 11 at 5:00 pm. This will be an opportunity to hear directly from our Church Council and members of our lay leadership. We will talk about where these matters stand and where we believe we are headed from here. We will share more details soon, but the Town Hall will be livestreamed and recorded so you can watch it at a time that works for you.
Please know that our Church's lay leadership is committed to continuing our response—with care, discernment, unity, and a deep commitment to the future of Highland Park United Methodist Church and its mission.
With gratitude,
