By Rev. Luan-Vu “Lui” Tran, Ph.D.
I. Introduction: Trustees as Guardians of Sacred Trust
In The United Methodist Church, church trustees are not merely a facilities committee, a property-management board, or a group of persons who sign deeds and contracts. Trustees hold a spiritual and legal office. They are guardians of property that has been consecrated for worship, discipleship, mission, community witness, and connectional ministry. Their work involves roofs, insurance, leases, deeds, parsonages, safety policies, endowments, accessibility, archives, and financial prudence; but underneath all of that is a deeper theological claim: the Church’s property belongs to God’s mission before it belongs to any congregation, faction, generation, or board.
The Book of Discipline 2020/2024 (“Discipline”) frames the Church’s mission as making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, and it identifies the local church as a strategic base from which Christians move into the structures of society. The local church is to minister in its community, cooperate with other churches, defend God’s creation, and participate in the worldwide mission of the Church.
That means trustees do not serve property for property’s sake. They serve mission through property. Their work is legal, but it is not merely legal. It is administrative, but not merely administrative. It is spiritual stewardship under the discipline of the Church.
II. The Theology of Trusteeship: Property in Service to Grace
United Methodist theology does not treat material goods as evil or irrelevant. Article XXIV of the Articles of Religion rejects the idea that Christians’ goods are common as to right, title, and possession, but it immediately adds that every person ought, according to ability, to give liberally to the poor. This theological balance is crucial. Property may be legally held, but it is morally accountable. Ownership is real, but not absolute. Possession is permitted, but generosity and mission are required.
The membership covenant reinforces this point. Professing members promise loyalty to Christ through The United Methodist Church and faithful participation in its ministries by their prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. The Discipline further describes Christian discipleship as including systematic giving and the stewardship of property and accumulated resources.
Trusteeship is therefore one concrete expression of Christian discipleship. Trustees help the congregation ask whether its buildings, land, funds, endowments, archives, and equipment are being used to serve God’s mission or merely preserve institutional habit. A faithful trustee understands that the question is never simply, “Can we do this legally?” The deeper question is, “Does this use of property serve Christ, the community, the congregation, and the connection?”
III. The Discipline as Law: Trustees Serve Under Church Law
The Judicial Council has long held that the Discipline is a “Book of Law” governing the life and work of the Church, including its temporal economy and the ownership, use, and disposition of church property. Judicial Council Decisions (“JCD”) 96 remains a foundational statement for trustees because it confirms that property rules in the Discipline are not suggestions; they are church law.
Judicial Council Decision 1366 adds the constitutional principle of legality: all persons and entities are equally bound by Church law, and official decisions must be based on and limited by the Constitution and the Discipline. For trustees, this means that good intentions, local popularity, financial pressure, or even a congregational vote cannot authorize an action that the Discipline does not permit.
A trustee’s authority is therefore fiduciary and derivative. Trustees exercise real responsibilities, but they do so within the Constitution, the Discipline, Judicial Council decisions, civil law, charge conference direction, donor intent, trust obligations, and the mission of the Church.
IV. The Trust Clause: The Center of United Methodist Property Law
The legal and theological center of United Methodist trusteeship is the trust clause. Discipline, ¶ 2501 provides that all property of United Methodist local churches, agencies, and institutions is held in trust for the benefit of the entire denomination, and that ownership and usage are subject to the Discipline. The same paragraph describes the trust clause as an essential element of historic United Methodist polity, part of the Discipline since 1797, and a fundamental expression of connectionalism.
The trust is irrevocable except as provided in the Discipline. Property may be released from the trust, transferred free of trust, or subordinated to creditors only to the extent the Discipline authorizes. Local churches may acquire, hold, maintain, improve, and sell property only for purposes consistent with the Church’s mission and subject to disciplinary restrictions.
Discipline, ¶ 2503 supplies the required trust clauses for deeds and other conveyances. It also makes clear that the absence of trust-clause language in a deed does not relieve a local church, church agency, or board of trustees from connectional responsibilities or from accountability to hold property in trust for The United Methodist Church when the relevant disciplinary indicators are present.
Judicial Council Decision 1512 states the matter with contemporary clarity: connectionalism is a bedrock principle of United Methodist constitutional polity, the trust clause is a foundational element of that polity, and church property can be released from the trust clause only to the extent authorized by Church law.
V. Who Trustees Are: Qualification, Election, and Organization
Discipline, ¶ 2525 requires each pastoral charge consisting of one local church to have a board of trustees consisting of not fewer than three and not more than nine persons. Trustees must be of legal age, and at least two-thirds must be professing members of The United Methodist Church. The Discipline recommends that at least one-third be laywomen and at least one-third be laymen. The pastor is not a voting member of the board unless elected as a trustee.
Trustees are elected by the charge conference, normally in three classes serving three-year terms, although the charge conference may assign the responsibility for electing trustees to a church conference. In a multi-church charge, a church local conference is organized for local property matters, and it exercises authority over that local church’s real and personal property subject to the limitations of the Discipline.
The board must organize itself within thirty days after the beginning of the applicable calendar or conference year, electing a chairperson, vice chairperson, secretary, and, if needed, a treasurer. The chairperson must be a professing member of the local church.
The legal significance of these rules is important. Trustees are not self-perpetuating property owners. They are elected fiduciaries. Their authority comes through the disciplinary structure of the Church, not through personal title, seniority, wealth, family history, or influence.
VI. The Charge Conference: Trustees Are Subject to Its Direction
The most important structural rule for trustees appears in Discipline, ¶ 2529: the board of trustees is always subject to the direction of the charge conference. The charge conference may direct trustees regarding the purchase, sale, mortgage, encumbrance, construction, repair, remodeling, and maintenance of local church property. It may also direct trustees concerning the acceptance or rejection of conveyances, grants, gifts, donations, legacies, bequests, or devises, whether absolute or in trust, and may require that trusts be administered according to their terms and applicable law.
This means trustees are not a parallel government within the local church. They do not outrank the charge conference. They implement disciplinary responsibilities and charge conference direction within the boundaries of Church law and civil law. If trustees refuse to execute a proper legal instrument after the charge conference has directed them to do so and all legal requirements have been satisfied, the Discipline permits the charge conference to declare the trustee’s membership on the board vacated. Discipline, ¶ 2531.2.
Judicial Council Decision 1507 reinforces the constitutional importance of the charge conference. The Judicial Council held that the church council may recommend action to the charge conference but may not bypass it; delegating or transferring charge conference authority to the church council violates the constitutional role of the charge conference. Trustees should therefore be especially careful not to treat church council approval, trustee approval, or informal congregational sentiment as a substitute for required charge conference action.
VII. Core Powers and Limitations Under ¶ 2533
Discipline, ¶ 2533 gives trustees supervision, oversight, and care of local church real property and property or equipment acquired by local church organizations. But this authority is expressly limited. Trustees may not violate the rights of other local church organizations granted elsewhere in the Discipline; may not prevent or interfere with the pastor’s use of property for religious services or other proper meetings or purposes recognized by United Methodist law, usages, and customs; and may not permit use of the property for religious or other meetings without the consent of the pastor or, in the pastor’s absence, the district superintendent. Pews in United Methodist churches must always be free.
The later Judicial Council decisions on trustee authority over worship space must be read carefully. Decision 1503 held that nothing in ¶ 2533, as then framed in the question before the Council, prevented trustees from adopting certain policies about worship services. But JCD 1516 clarified that, under the Discipline as amended by the 2024 General Conference, a pastor has discretion in deciding whether to perform or not perform a marriage ceremony, and trustees may not prevent or interfere with the pastor’s use of local church facilities for religious services or permit such use without the pastor’s consent.
The practical rule is this: trustees may regulate property in appropriate ways, but they cannot use property authority to usurp pastoral authority over religious services or to require, forbid, or control pastoral acts contrary to the Discipline.
VIII. Insurance, Risk Management, and Safety
Trustees have an annual duty to compare the church’s insurance coverage with the insurance schedule published by the General Council on Finance and Administration and to report their review and recommendations to the charge conference. This is not a minor administrative task. Insurance review is part of the trustees’ duty of care.
Judicial Council Decision 866 held that an annual conference may implement a mandatory conference-wide property and casualty insurance plan, even though local trustees have responsibility for annually reviewing the adequacy of insurance coverage. Decision 1142 reaffirmed that an annual conference has authority to implement a mandatory conference-wide property and casualty insurance plan.
Best practice requires trustees to review at least property coverage, liability coverage, directors and officers coverage where available, workers’ compensation obligations, sexual misconduct coverage, cyber coverage, vehicle coverage, special-event coverage, tenant and user insurance requirements, and coverage for vacant or underused buildings. Trustees should document the review in minutes and report material gaps to the charge conference.
IX. Facility Use: Hospitality, Mission, and Boundaries
Trustees often receive requests from outside organizations to use church facilities. Discipline, ¶ 2533 permits such use only when it is consistent with the Social Principles and ecumenical objectives, and only with the required consent of the pastor or district superintendent when applicable.
Best practice is to maintain a written facility-use policy approved through proper local church processes and reviewed by counsel when needed. The policy should address mission consistency, prohibited uses, insurance requirements, indemnity, child-safety requirements, key control, custodial fees, kitchen use, parking, security, accessibility, alcohol and tobacco rules, political-campaign restrictions, emergency procedures, and termination rights. For recurring users, trustees should use written agreements rather than informal permission.
Facility use should be generous but disciplined. A United Methodist building is not merely rental inventory. It is a place of worship, formation, hospitality, and mission. Trustees should ask whether outside use strengthens the congregation’s witness or creates legal, theological, reputational, or safety risks.
X. Parsonages, Accessibility, Records, and Creation Care
Trustees also have specific duties beyond general property care. Discipline, ¶ 2533 requires an annual review of a church-owned parsonage by the trustee chair or parsonage committee chair, the pastor-parish relations committee chair, and the pastor to ensure proper maintenance. Trustees must conduct or cause to be conducted an annual accessibility audit of buildings, grounds, and facilities, with attention to barriers that impede the full participation of persons with disabilities. Trustees must also evaluate the adequacy of facilities that house permanent records, archival materials, and historical objects, in consultation with the pastor and local church historian, if one exists. The Discipline also urges trustees to conduct a carbon-footprint or greenhouse-gas audit and make plans toward carbon neutrality or net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.
These duties reveal the breadth of trusteeship. Trustees care not only for buildings as assets, but for buildings as spaces of inclusion, memory, pastoral care, ecological responsibility, and public witness.
XI. Gifts, Trusts, Endowments, and Socially Responsible Investment
Discipline, ¶ 2533.5 requires trustees, subject to charge conference direction, to receive and administer bequests made to the local church, receive and administer trusts, and invest trust funds in conformity with applicable law. The charge conference may delegate these duties to a permanent endowment and planned giving ministry committee or local church foundation, and must do so when a donor has designated such a committee or foundation. Trustees are encouraged to invest in ways that make a positive contribution toward the goals of the Social Principles, to act as socially responsible investors, to report annually to the charge conference, and to consider placement of investable funds with the United Methodist foundation serving the conference or the United Methodist Church Foundation.
Discipline, ¶ 2534 allows a charge conference to establish a permanent endowment and planned giving ministry committee. Such a committee may assume investment and reporting duties when designated, must work under charge conference direction and supervision, and should maintain endowment documents in conformity with changes in the Discipline after each General Conference. Discipline, ¶ 2535 permits local churches, after written consent of the pastor and district superintendent and charge conference action, to establish local church foundations.
Trustees should distinguish between unrestricted funds, restricted gifts, designated funds, endowment principal, donor-restricted gifts, board-designated funds, memorial funds, and trust instruments. The legal and ethical duty is not merely to preserve money but to honor the purpose for which it was given.
XII. Property Transactions: Purchase, Sale, Lease, Mortgage, and Transfer
Trustees often face their highest-risk responsibilities when property is purchased, sold, leased, mortgaged, or transferred. For unincorporated local churches, Discipline, ¶ 2540 governs sale, transfer, lease for thirty days or more, consecutive short leases with the same lessee, and mortgage. It requires notice, proper charge conference action, and written consent of the pastor and district superintendent, with the instrument executed by trustees.
For incorporated local churches, Discipline, ¶ 2541 imposes parallel requirements, including notice, corporate and charge conference authorization where applicable, written consent of the pastor and district superintendent, and action by the corporation’s board of directors to execute necessary legal instruments. Before consenting, the pastor, district superintendent, and district board of church location and building must ensure that a full investigation has been made and an appropriate plan developed for the future missional needs of the community; that the transfer or encumbrance conforms to the Discipline; that a congregation no longer continuing as an organized United Methodist church does not sell but may transfer title to another United Methodist church or agency; and that a relocating congregation first offers its property to a United Methodist congregation or agency at a price not exceeding fair market value.
Discipline, ¶ 2542 addresses disposition and mortgage of a church building or parsonage. When real property subject to the trust clause is sold or mortgaged in conformity with the Discipline, the written acknowledged consent of the proper district superintendent functions as release or discharge from the trust clause for a sale, or recognition of mortgage priority and subordination of the trust for a mortgage. But trustees receiving proceeds must manage and expend them according to charge conference direction and the Discipline.
Discipline, ¶ 2543 prohibits mortgaging a church building or parsonage to fund the current budget or operating expenses and prohibits using principal sale proceeds for current budget or operating expenses, subject only to specific disciplinary exceptions such as approved capital improvements or redevelopment efforts. Judicial Council Decision 664 strictly enforced this distinction, holding that such proceeds may not be used for current expenses, including emergency facility repairs treated as current expenses.
XIII. Building Projects and Major Renovations
Trustees should not treat construction or major renovation as a simple contractor-selection process. Discipline, ¶ 2544 requires planning and financing discipline for local church building projects. The process includes missional analysis, consultation, written consent, charge conference authorization, district superintendent involvement, and district board of church location and building review where required.
Best practice is to begin with mission, not architecture. Trustees should ask: What ministry is this project designed to serve? What community need does it address? What demographic and missional analysis supports it? How will it be financed without impairing ministry? What approvals are required? What risks exist in construction contracts, financing, zoning, environmental review, accessibility, insurance, and long-term maintenance?
For substantial projects, trustees should work with the pastor, finance committee, church council, district superintendent, district board of church location and building, conference chancellor, architects, accountants, and qualified owner’s representatives. The larger the project, the more important it is to avoid informal commitments before required approvals are obtained.
XIV. Closure, Departure, and the Danger of Pretext
Trustees must exercise special care when a local church is closing, transferring property, merging, relocating, or discussing departure from The United Methodist Church. Discipline, ¶ 2549 governs disposition of property of a closed local church, including the vesting of property in the annual conference board of trustees when a church is closed.
Recent Judicial Council decisions are especially important. Decision 1512 held that ¶ 2549 cannot be used as a substitute for disaffiliation and that a local church may not disaffiliate without General Conference action. It emphasized that using closure to take members and property out of The United Methodist Church contradicts the intent of ¶ 2549 and circumvents the trust clause.
Judicial Council Decision 1517 applied that principle to an attempted closure that functioned as a pretext for allowing a congregation to leave with property. The Judicial Council held that the process did not satisfy ¶ 2549 and violated the trust clause. Decision 1518 further held that ¶ 2549 cannot be used as a means of disaffiliation, separation, or departure, and that a congregation wishing to continue as a church outside the denomination is not thereby a closed church under ¶ 2549.
Judicial Decision 1449 similarly held that the property-transfer provisions then found in ¶ 2548.2 were limited to deeding and transferring property in authorized ecumenical contexts and did not create a stand-alone disaffiliation pathway.
Trustees should therefore avoid any transaction that uses closure, transfer, lease, sale, or corporate restructuring to accomplish an unauthorized departure. A transaction may look technically plausible and still be substantively unlawful if its purpose is to defeat the trust clause or bypass the Discipline.
XV. Fiduciary Duties of Trustees
Although civil fiduciary law varies by jurisdiction, the United Methodist trustee role clearly includes four core duties.
The duty of obedience requires trustees to act within the Discipline, the trust clause, charge conference direction, donor restrictions, civil law, and Judicial Council decisions. This duty is central because trustees hold property for mission, not for private control.
The duty of care requires trustees to be informed, prudent, attentive, and diligent. Trustees should read the relevant Discipline paragraphs, review minutes, inspect property, understand insurance, seek expert advice, evaluate risk, and avoid rushed decisions.
The duty of loyalty requires trustees to avoid conflicts of interest, self-dealing, favoritism, undisclosed family interests, and decisions that benefit a faction or private party at the expense of the church and connection. Trustees should disclose conflicts in writing and recuse themselves when appropriate.
The duty of accountability requires accurate minutes, reports to the charge conference, documentation of approvals, annual insurance review, accessibility review, financial controls, preservation of records, and transparency with the proper bodies.
XVI. Best Practices for Trustees
Faithful trustees should begin each year by organizing properly, electing officers, reviewing Discipline, ¶¶ 2501–2503 and 2525–2544, calendaring required reports, and clarifying what decisions require charge conference approval. They should maintain a property notebook or digital repository containing deeds, title documents, surveys, leases, insurance policies, inspection reports, maintenance records, warranties, loan documents, parsonage records, facility-use agreements, and charge conference authorizations.
Trustees should maintain a conflict-of-interest policy, a facility-use policy, a key-control policy, an emergency-response plan, a record-retention plan, a maintenance calendar, and a capital-needs schedule. They should review insurance annually, inspect buildings regularly, document hazardous conditions, maintain fire and life-safety systems, and ensure that outside users provide appropriate insurance and indemnity.
Trustees should never sign deeds, leases, loans, construction contracts, settlement agreements, easements, cell-tower agreements, solar agreements, long-term licenses, or development agreements without confirming disciplinary authorization, civil-law authority, required church approvals, insurance implications, tax consequences, and legal review where needed.
Trustees should also cultivate spiritual habits. A trustee meeting should not be merely a property agenda. It should include prayer, mission framing, and attention to how the church’s physical resources serve worship, discipleship, justice, care, and community transformation.
XVII. Conclusion: Trusteeship as Ordered Love
The legal and spiritual duties of trustees meet in one phrase: ordered love. Trustees order the temporal life of the church so that the congregation may love God and neighbor more faithfully. They protect property so that it may serve worship. They preserve assets so that they may serve mission. They honor donor intent so that gifts remain trustworthy. They follow the Discipline so that local action remains connectional. They maintain buildings so that people may encounter grace within them and be sent from them.
In United Methodist theology, law and grace are not enemies. At their best, the Church’s legal structures protect the conditions under which grace can be offered with integrity. The trustee who understands this calling will not ask merely, “What do we own?” but “What has God entrusted to us, and how shall we be found faithful?”