The undersigned individual members of the Rosewood United Methodist Church hereby submits this petition to manifest the following observations and opposition to the filing of the on-going case on certain members of the Church:

1. The whole Rosewood United Methodist was named plaintiff on a lawsuit filed by some members of the Church, without the knowledge, understanding, and consent of the other individual members of the Church.
2. The other individual members were made to believe that a task force was created to gather information and to perform a fact-finding duty which output will be submitted to the appropriate organization of the Church for review and for presentation to the entire body of the Church for appropriate action but this was not observed.
3. Specifically, the task force job as mentioned in 2) was said to investigate, research and gather information and report back their findings to the council and from there, with the guidance of the SPPRC, would proceed to action blessed by the council and authorized by the conference.
4. Instead, a case was already filed by some members of the Church who are incidentally or coincidentally members of the task force before even presenting the findings to the council and resorted to mob voting to correct their process.
5. The ENTIRE section II. Investigations, Trials, Appeals under Judicial Administration of the Book of Discipline was not observed because of the hasty filing of case at the local courts. And that some individual members who have no knowledge of such action view such act of filing as an act of bad faith and a gross disregard to established standards enshrined in the Book of Discipline tantamount to gross disobedience and a conduct unbecoming of Methodist and an utter disrespect to the views of others who were not consulted nor informed about the issues behind the filing.
6. The whole Rosewood United Methodist church being named as plaintiff is a MISREPRESENTATION as it does not reflect the sentiments of the whole church. And now that the lawsuit is in motion, the members who DID NOT subscribe to this lawsuit are held hostage and as objecting and unwilling participants of the case.
7. The votation that transpired on Sunday, January 14, 2018, is considered flawed and is viewed as an ex post facto (afterthought) act to legitimize the filing of the case to overshadow and undermine the pertinent express provision in the Book of Discipline as mentioned in 5) regarding fair process in judicial proceedings. The attempt to subsume the consent of other individual members by creating an illusion of majority does not correct and will not correct the action of hastily filing of case without observing the acceptable processes and procedures of the Church as enshrined in the Book of Discipline. Majority or numbers will not correct a past error or make an error right.

In view of the foregoing manifestation and protestations, the undersigned hereby petitions that the following affirmative actions be undertaken to REDRESS and RESOLVE the issues mentioned and for them to be freed from being harmed and being held liable as a consequence of the filed case:

1. REMOVE the name Rosewood United Methodist Church as the plaintiff because it is NOT representative of the WHOLE church and/or specifically exclude the name of individual members who do not wish to be a party of the said case.
2. REPLACE RUMC with the names of the individual members who have directly filed the case and their associated party as the plaintiff in this case.
3. RELIEVE the RUMC from all lawyer, administrative, and court fees accrued and have the individual members who have directly filed the case and its associated party shoulder such fees.

Further, the undersigned individuals would like to manifest the following warnings and social and spiritual ramifications, of the filed case if it becomes a precedence to future events and to the future of the Church:

1. A future officer of the Church who may be tasked by the Church to do something entrepreneurial will be expected to be sued by anyone in the Church with or without going through its accepted processes and procedures when such ventures flopped or are later found to be a bad deal, proven or unproven, within or beyond control of the leadership or even if such are caused by force majeure;
2. Anybody could sue anyone in the Church, IN THE NAME OF THE CHURCH even without observing due process;
3. Anybody could use the name of the Church to sue anyone without the need to observe the processes and procedures in the Book of Discipline;
4. The lesson that will be imparted to the future generation of leaders, our children, is to become risk averse and not to learn from failures because of compartmentalized information that promote cliques;
5. An environment of hypocrisy will pervade wherein members will display no trust and confidence between and among each other and fearful that anybody could sue anyone;
6. Since risk aversion and the lack of trust and confidence will be the norm, no one would like to become future leaders and disciples anymore;
7. Without future leaders and disciples you just have a building and not a Church. And the people there as country club members and not as followers of Jesus.

If you AGREE with this petition. Please SIGN.