The Tallis Scholars, conducted by director Peter Phillips, perform a concert at Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas on March 31, 2019.
Ben Torres/Dallas Morning News
The senior minister of Highland Park United Methodist Church, addressing two Sunday services, told his congregation that a lawsuit by the church’s denomination has caused grief among church members.
He said the church’s former leader called the development “a betrayal.”
Speaking at least twice during different Sunday services, the Rev. Matt Tuggle continued to dispute the accusations of misconduct related to the church’s governance.
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“I cannot express to you the grief this has caused,” Tuggle said.
Related: Highland Park UMC senior minister responds to lawsuit brought by regional United Methodist Church
The Horizon Texas Annual Conference, the regional governing body of the United Methodist Church, announced last week that it had filed a lawsuit against one of its largest and most prominent churches, accusing Highland Park UMC leadership of quietly trying to sever its connection with the denomination.
A spokesperson for the conference declined to comment on Tuggle’s sermon and referred The Dallas Morning News to previous statements from the conference.
“In recent months, I have become aware of changes made in 2022 to the church’s governing documents — changes that were not approved through the process required by The United Methodist Church and that limited the voice members have long had in the life of their own church,” Bishop Ruben Saenz, leader of the conference that oversees North Texas churches, said last week.
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Tuggle has said the church was blindsided by the lawsuit, something he emphasized Sunday from the pulpit. The church has repeatedly denied the accusations and said the civil action is meritless.
The conference said in its lawsuit that the church changed its governing documents in 2022 and 2023 to remove all references to the United Methodist Church, the conference and the Book of Discipline, the UMC’s governing text. These documents, the conference said, included the church’s bylaws and its articles of incorporation.
Documents obtained from the office of the Texas Secretary of State show that the church in November 2022 changed its name in state filings to Highland Park Methodist Church. In December 2022, the church filed a document with the office for its “doing business as” name to remain Highland Park United Methodist Church.
The conference alleged in the lawsuit that the church did not follow conference procedures or the Book of Discipline when it made changes to its organizing documents. The conference said the church did not notify the congregation or conference of the changes.
Saenz has said that the conference has tried to resolve the disagreement and that Highland Park UMC has not cooperated.
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Tuggle disputed this claim, saying that church leaders have met with the bishop twice in recent weeks and offered proposals of “how to move forward together.”
The lawsuit asked the court to affirm the original governing documents before they were changed.
Related: Regional body of United Methodist Church sues Highland Park UMC
Minister addresses claims from the pulpit
Speaking to the congregation Sunday, Tuggle said the church does not plan to address the matter regularly on Sundays going forward.
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“We now know that when we met with the Bishop on Monday, he had already filed the lawsuit,” Tuggle said.
Tuggle became senior minister after Rev. Paul Rasmussen, who was previously diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, stepped down earlier this year. Rasmussen had served as lead pastor since 2013 and is now minister-in-residence at Highland Park UMC.
Tuggle said he has spoken often with Rasmussen.
“One thing he said, and gave me permission to pass on to you, is that ‘This is among the more unnecessary and egregious betrayals of a loyal ministry partner I’ve witnessed in 26 years as a United Methodist pastor,” Tuggle said.
Rasmussen did not respond to a phone call and email seeking comment.
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The amendments at issue in the lawsuit were made during the time of disaffiliations in the United Methodist Church, when more than 7,600 churches left the denomination, Tuggle said.
“Although we very well could have taken that step, we did not. We remained in the denomination,” he said.
In 2024, the General Conference of the UMC, its overarching governing body, voted to remove bans on gay clergy and same-sex marriages. The change prompted mostly conservative churches to preemptively disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church.
From about 2019 through 2023, there was a process that allowed for churches to disaffiliate, or leave the denomination, and keep their property. In general, congregations had to reach a two-thirds majority vote to leave and had to pay a certain amount of money to their annual conference, according to the Book of Discipline.
“We updated our corporate documents to ensure that we could remain who we are as a church,” Tuggle said in his sermon. He said the pending litigation prevented him from sharing other details.
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In early 2025, the North Texas, Central Texas and Northwest Texas Conferences merged to form the Horizon Texas Annual Conference after dozens of churches disaffiliated from the UMC, particularly in west Texas. The region now stretches from the Texas Panhandle to Sherman to nearly Austin.
“It grieves me for you, but it grieves me even more for the non-Christians in the city of Dallas watching this play out in the public square as further evidence that we Jesus followers are hypocrites or worse,” Tuggle said.
The minister, whose congregation includes about 15,000 members, led the church in prayer for all involved in the litigation, including the bishop and conference staff.
“We will make it through this,” he said. “We will be stronger.”
The congregation later applauded as he concluded his sermon.
HPUMC said conference knew of corporate name change
On its website, the church has posted information about the lawsuit in an FAQ format, in which Highland Park UMC said that it worked with the conference to change its corporate name in 2022.
The conference maintains that the church did not submit changes to its governing documents to the conference as required by UMC processes, a conference spokesperson said.
Highland Park UMC has said that in 2020, Texas courts “gave important guidance on managing church affairs under neutral principles of Texas law,” which prompted it to revise its corporate documents.
A spokesperson for Highland Park UMC told The News last week that guidance was an opinion from the Texas Supreme Court in 2020 in a case between the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and the Episcopal Church. The spokesperson, Ann King, declined to respond to questions Monday seeking clarity on how this opinion influenced the church’s actions.
King referred The News to Tuggle’s previous comments and the church’s FAQ website.
“The revised documents maintain the same goals and aspirations that have guided us over the years, but in non-religious terms as Texas law advised,” the church said on its website.