WHO WE ARE
"In 1983, several United Methodist pastors met quite by accident at a hearing of the denomination's Judicial Council. They felt an immediate kinship because they were there seeking justice for clergy colleagues.
"They began preparations for changing the complaint processes within the denomination at the next General Conference and collaborated to get several major changes into church law.
"They also made it a point to meet other pastors and laity who were working as advocates. A loose association developed which was finally chartered in 1996.
"AIA has contacts in all five jurisdictions of the United Methodist Church. Many are able to gather for an annual meeting and occasionally a second meeting on a national level each year."
This brief statement was used to introduce Associates in Advocacy when we re-opened our website first at http://aiateam.blogspot.com (which is now our blog site) and then a week or so later at www.aiateam.org when we found some of our old articles and started a serious rebuilding.
In 1978, my bishop left me without appointment. After 48 days, they finally put me into interim ministries until the conference year ended. But because they thought they could get away with it with me, I felt I needed to stop it so others would not get zapped that way. I did a lot of research into the Discipline and Judiicial Council rulings over the next two years.
I tried talking with the Cabinet but they didn't want to review it at all. I tried to find a group under the Board of Ordained Ministry to deal with it but no one wanted to touch it except one retired pastor, Winslow Wilson. He had always been an activist, a conscientious objector who went to jail during WW II. He had been put on leave of absence during that time and was given an appointment the minute he was out of jail. Twenty years later, he was a District Superintendent.
When I needed him, he was retired and traveling around the country and around the world. He suggested we ask questions of law of the bishop and let the Judicial Council decide. He offered to do it because he knew it was better for him to do it than for a nervous anxious person, as I definitely was!
My research had already shown that an advocate was a precious commodity. I had discovered Rev. Earl Black through reading Judicial Council Decisions (JCDs) and how effective he had been in helping Dr. Joseph Evers.
With warmth and good humor, Winslow asked the bishop questions of law that did get to the Judicial Council. A lawyer wrote a brief on my behalf. Then I appeared before the Council the following October, 1980. The Council ruled in my favor (JCD 492).
The following year, Dr. Samuel Little called me from Central New York Conference because he had been left without appointment. He had a solid case and presented it himself at the Judicial Council. A member of the Judicial Council told me later that Sam nearly had a heart attack when the DS defending the bishop's action told lies at the hearing. The DS was believed and Sam lost out.
I got another call soon after that from Rev. Lloyd Hutchison. Lloyd didn't know what he was being accused of but the bishop had forced him out of ministry and though seeking relief via the Judicial Council as Sam and I had, he was turned down there. However, he invited me to go to a hearing of the Council so that he could seek reconsideration. He wanted me to meet his advocate.
The Council president, Tom Matheny, had picked Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia for their meeting. So it was handy to Lloyd because his family farm was there. And so was Rev. L. E. Crowson. L. E. was the kind of person that bishops both hated and loved.
He knew the Discipline and he never failed to stand on the conference floor when anyone, including a bishop, was making a serious mistake. L. E. knew paragraph and line of the Discipline so that his words always had authority. He was not the cheerful soul Winslow had been for me. But he had been before the Council before.
The moment Judge Matheny said, "Before we reconvene for our executive session, is there anyone else seeking to be heard before this Council?" L. E. was on his feet. I had the impression that the Council would be back in a few minutes to continue the open hearing but L. E. knew that was not the case.
Matheny had to acknowledge him, based on how he had offered the opportunity. L. E. then launched into a tight, clear, cogent statement on Lloyd's behalf. He was the perfect advocate. (The Council later ruled they would not reconsider.)
I discovered there were others while we were at Greenbrier. Speaking on behalf of Dr. Thomas Lane Butts were the Revs. Andrew and Spencer Turnipseed, father and son clergy from Alabama-West Florida. I learned about Star Chamber proceedings and a number of other basic legal concepts from them.
Afterward, we met and I learned that Tom had also spent years helping pastors during the Civil Rights era. Both Andrew and Tom had become DSs during their ministries.
I realized that many conferences had their Earl Black or L. E. Crowson who, like Tom and Andrew were helping pastors in trouble.
I began writing to everyone I ran across who had been an advocate and sending out word about what I was hearing in the area of actions against clergy.
Andrew and a group of his retired colleagues prepared petitions to General Conference in 1984 and I joined them in lobbying for their petitions and mine. Theirs were all passed. Mine were referred to General Board of Higher Education and Ministry for consideration and report at the 1988 General Conference but no one there seemed to know whatever happened to them!
In 1985, I met Dr. Frank Williams, the dean of the African American clergy of the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference.
My list of contacts was growing year by year, primarily through observing at Judicial Council when I could and lobbying at General Conference.
By 1993, it was clear we had to sort out some important issues related to advocacy (one was "What made anyone an advocate?"). The other major issue had to do with care-giving, providing emotional support for pastors and their families in trouble. We held a workshop on those issues at Scarritt-Bennett College in Nashville.
We named ourselves "United Methodist Associates in Advocacy" but were told by General Council on Finance and Administration that since the General Conference had not authorized our group, we could not infringe on the copyright. We have been AIA ever since.
By 1996, we knew we had to incorporate and finally signed the papers in 1997.
While our primary purpose was working with clergy in trouble, and while most of the key participants were clergy, some former victims of the system, one of our most helpful members has been Dr. Leigh Roberts, a teaching and practicing psychiatrist from the University of Wisconsin. Leigh had come through fires of his own. We had lots to talk about. We had known each other since the late 1960s. His experience in our denomination at all levels of our system became a complementing base for our organization. Leigh has been chair of the association and its board for most of the years of our existence.
The length of this telling of our history has been on purpose. Whatever value to the clergy and denomination we have had arose from the value of those like Andrew Turnipseed, L. E. Crowson, and Frank Williams, those who readily stepped forward to help a colleague in trouble. There are others we have come to know and there are even more of whom we are yet to know.
With our deepest gratitude to those upon whose shoulders we stand,
we dedicate this website.
Jerry Eckert
10/1/07
