Mennonite Church of the Good Shepherd (Iglesia Menonita del Buen Pastor) in Goshen, Ind., will no longer be a member church of Indiana-Michigan Mennonite Conference as of June 30, 2015.

The congregational vote to leave, which was taken on June 14, passed by majority. There were two votes against leaving the conference.

“The members have decided not to be affiliated with an area conference that allows same-sex marriages and that has abandoned, in body and soul, the Mennonite Confession of Faith of 1995,” according to a statement on the church website.

“We cannot understand how leadership can speak officially about the denomination’s teaching position as being that of marriage being between one man and one woman and then permit or allow pastors that teach and practice the opposite,” said Pastor David Araujo in an interview on June 24.

“The decision and the vote was difficult for our church and was felt with agony and great lament,” said Araujo. “However, El Buen Pastor felt unequally yoked and out of sync with Indiana-Michigan Conference for a long time.”

Many church members saw the “Forbearance in the Midst of Differences Resolution,” put forth by the resolutions committee for Kansas City 2015, as going in a direction “that seems opposite to where El Buen Pastor is in terms of church and life,” said Araujo.

“The message of unity in the resolution—while admirable—is hard to reconcile,” he said. “We had asked that our biblical view be taken into account and considered.”

Therefore, the congregational vote took place prior to KC015.

Dan Miller, Indiana-Michigan conference minister, said in an Elkhart Truth article, “We’re in the middle of a two-year process to talk about how much of a difference of convictions we can live with and we want to live with (as a conference). Congregations make their own decisions along the way, and some are deciding that they want to leave now rather than waiting for that process.”

Araujo said his church hoped to be respectful to both sides of the issues, but the “unofficial stance of LGBT inclusion in Indiana-Michigan has affected our witness to the local Hispanic community.”

For example, earlier this year, Araujo and others Hispanic Mennonites attempted to start a Hispanic Pastors Network, an ecumenical group of pastors in Elkhart (Ind.) County to address issues of racism and justice.

However, half-way through the process, many pastors pulled out when they became aware of the same-sex marriage performed by a pastor in Indiana-Michigan Conference church, he said.

Originally, a different reason was given but later one pastor, in confidentiality, shared his misgivings about what was happening in our denomination, said Araujo.

Araujo said this is the most recent example, but there are others.

El Buen Pastor leadership is discerning the possibility of joining the Evana Network in the fall.

“We are Mennonite and Anabaptist,” he said. “We can’t see ourselves as nondenominational. We will need a place to land for accountability and encouragement.”

El Buen Pastor has 45 members and an average Sunday attendance of about 60.  The church was founded in the fall of 1974 although it had been meeting for worship several years prior at the facilities of Bethany Christian Schools, Goshen.