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There's Power in the Connection

Abingdon Press

Chapter One

The quotation has appeared in a number of places, and with various renderings, but here is the version that Thomas Friedman cites in his insightful and significant book The World Is Flat. Lou Gerstner became the chief executive officer of IBM in 1992. Speaking to the Harvard Business School in 2002, Gerstner said, "Transformation of an enterprise begins with a sense of crisis or urgency."

If The United Methodist Church is to be transformed in a way that recovers any semblance of the Wesleyan spirit out of which we were born, we must recognize, acknowledge, and confess that we are a denomination in crisis. Indeed, every historically mainline denomination finds itself in a similar position. For those of us in the Wesleyan tradition, we have lost any resemblance to the movement that affected England in the eighteenth century, that swept across the United States in the nineteenth century, and that spread like wildfire across Africa in the twentieth century. In America, we have managed to become what John Wesley feared: we have the form, we have the organizational structure, and we have the vocabulary, but we lack the power or the courage or the will to radically alter the downward spiral of membership and participation that will move us beyond surviving for a few more decades as a shell of our former self.

We have also managed to get tangled up in our own little worlds, to carve out our caves and corners into which we may retreat, and to choose sides in ways that divide us into parties that blame everyone else for the problems we have. The worst part of it is that there are too many United Methodists (both leaders and pew-sitters) who believe that we are doing just fine, that there is no crisis, and that we will somehow make it through. Reality: we are in a crisis. Without sounding like the comic character Chicken Little, who runs around shouting about a falling sky, I want to sound a note of urgency but quickly affirm that it is not a death sentence. Crisis gives us an opportunity either to throw in the towel and retreat or to lift our eyes and advance. We can hide under our collective steeples and await the end, or we can use the crisis as a breakthrough moment. What are some of the signs of the impending crisis that require our urgent, God-empowered attention and efforts?

1. MEMBERSHIP DECLINE

It has been well documented that The United Methodist Church is in a steep downward spiral in membership in the United States of America. In the last thirty-five years, the denomination has lost over 25 percent of its reported membership. When The Methodist Church and The Evangelical United Brethren merged in 1968, there were more than thirteen million members in forty-three thousand churches, and the decline that had already begun continued unabated. By 1970, membership stood at approximately 12.5 million. Thirty-five years later, at the end of 2005, The United Methodist Church counted less than eight million members in fewer than thirty-two thousand local churches. As a percentage of the total population of the United States, the church has declined to less than 3 percent. The church is in a free fall!

Even though The United Methodist Church has a church in almost every county of the country, the reality is that, for the most part, those individual franchises are declining and dysfunctional. They are operating out of a survival mode mentality. There are exceptions to such decline, and almost every state or annual conference can boast of at least a handful of United Methodist churches that are growing, healthy, and vital. Regrettably, there are not enough of those exceptions to offset the rapid decline of the whole. Even more regrettably, those churches that are growing are often treated by some denominational leaders with derision and skepticism. The prevailing wisdom goes that if some of our churches are growing there must be something wrong with them. Astounding! Either the leadership enjoys the death spiral, or it refuses to acknowledge that there is something wrong at the heart of the denomination. We may take some comfort in knowing that, at the present rate of decline, The United Methodist Church will close its last church in the United States in about ninety years. The "comfort" of that reality is that for most of us reading this paragraph in the first decade of the twenty-first century, that closing will not happen in our lifetime! We also take comfort in knowing that we are not alone in this decline. Those denominations traditionally called "mainline" or "mainstream" or "old line" flatlined years ago and are in as steep a decline as The United Methodist Church. Misery loves company! Since there are a few pockets of growth in every region, we also take some comfort in knowing that maybe a few buildings will be left standing and a remnant will be lingering in 2100! I am one of a growing number of bishops, denominational leaders, and others who are absolutely dissatisfied with this current reality and who are trying to lead in ways that will reverse the decline.

What does this downward spiral mean? Is it just a matter of losing members to death or other denominations? Is it a sign of bad record keeping, the zeal of the 1950s outrunning the accuracy of maintaining membership rolls? It seems that during my thirty-five years of ministry, most of our churches have been engaged in the practice known as "cleaning rolls" and "removing members." In fact, if we had spent as much time, energy, and compassion in reaching new generations as we have done in trying to find and contact long-departed members, we might actually have seen a reversal in the downward drift. Every person is important. Every member counts. This is why it is essential that we never lose sight of the fact that every "number" is a person loved by God, redeemed in Jesus, and gifted through the Spirit. No one should be lost or forgotten or neglected. But if the majority of our resources are directed toward maintaining the status quo rather than reaching the new, we will lose every time. This reality of membership decline is a crisis, and the urgency of the situation demands that action be taken. This reality of membership decline is also a sign that something is wrong deep inside the soul of the church; it is a symbol of the loss of enthusiasm and passion for those who are hurting, who are outside the Realm and Reign of God, and who have not heard, responded, or taken seriously the call of God in Christ Jesus. We have not fulfilled our calling as "ambassadors for Christ ... God is making his appeal through us" (2 Cor 5:20).

2. LOSS OF INFLUENCE, LOSS OF VOICE

The decline is not simply about losing members; it is also about the loss of ratios: percentage of population, percentage of demographic growth, percentage of voters, or percentage of new generations. Statisticians thrive on such formulas and calculations. The steady decline in membership also signals a loss of influence within the life of individuals and communities. No longer does the institutional church, regardless of denominational label, shape society or determine office hours, shopping hours, or leisure hours. No longer does the Christian faith perspective influence the ethics, values, or behavior of the marketplace, the factory, or the boardroom. Is anyone listening? Reality: The United Methodist Church has no critical mass of people that can significantly shape or influence the culture. Our witness for Jesus is weakened as we argue among ourselves while the denomination crumbles around us. Attempting to adopt the ways of the culture in the name of being relevant waters down the gospel, compromises the faith, and does nothing to reshape the lives of people.

The world and its leaders are not hanging around the boardrooms, office suites, or break rooms awaiting a word from The United Methodist Church on what to do or how to do it. Yet we continue to operate out of a model in which we try to convince ourselves that everyone will sit up and take notice when we pass down our decrees. There is an extremely vital role for the voice of the prophet who calls into question the practices and philosophies that stand in direct opposition to the Reign of God. That vital message must be sounded in this century: hate evil, love good, and establish justice, which must roll down like waters (Amos 5:15, 24); do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8). Resolutions, petitions, and symbolic meetings are ignored when the church itself is divided and in decline. Because of the continuing decline of membership, participation, and influence, we have lost our authoritative, authentic voice. We have lost our way.

3. AN AGING RANK AND FILE

Not only do the statistics reveal the continuing loss of members, they also reveal that The United Methodist Church is a "graying" denomination, with the average age of the church membership increasing annually, now well into their late fifties. At the other end of this spectrum, the number of members and participants under the age of thirty-five is dwindling. Little wonder that we tremble to know that the number of clergy under the age of thirty-five is becoming a small blip on the radar screen of Methodism since they are not in our congregations to begin with. We are getting old. We are growing weary and tired. For decades we told ourselves that the youth were the future of the church, but failed to do anything to excite or stir up the faith in them. Reality: Not only are we aging but we are also a denomination that has lost and is in the process of losing entire generations of people. A national "division" (church talk) on young adults might call attention to the issue and might propose elaborate schemes to reach those born after 1985, but, until the will of local churches matches the desire of generations, we will continue to grow old together.

4. IT IS THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, PEOPLE!

One of the challenges facing annual conferences (judicatories) and bishops (denominational executives) in this twenty-first century is reflected in the dramatic shift that has taken place in the last four decades. During the same period of time that mainline denominations were rapidly decreasing in membership, participation, and influence, the world was undergoing massive change. The postmodern age is marked by the explosion of information, the proliferation of computer technology, relativistic individualism coupled with a pluralistic society, and the collapse of institutions built on the mid-twentieth century model of the industrial-militaristic philosophy. Reality: The world has changed! Dramatically! Too many churches still operate in the belief that we are still living in the 1950s!

I was a child in the 1950s and came of age in the 1960s, so I have been stamped and shaped by an era that ceased to exist long ago. I am of the generation that grew up with television. I well remember the first one my family brought into our home—it was absolutely fascinating. And choices: why we had three networks from which to pick our evening entertainment! We live in a world now where hundreds of choices are available every minute, where iPods and MP3 players multiply our choices, where the next generation of communication tools will soon make everything we know today obsolete at a pace that travels at warp speed. We live in a world where the laptop on which I am writing this sentence has more power, more capabilities, more speed, and more memory than the rooms full of computers only twenty years ago. We live in a world where, once a month, a computer somewhere in the world logs on to a satellite spinning deep in space, locks on to the computer chips implanted inside the auto mobile I drive, performs a diagnostic test sequence, generates a report on how this car is functioning, lists what maintenance attention I should give it, and delivers it to my e-mail address within minutes. I grew up in an era when one took the car to a local mechanic, who tinkered, tapped, and measured in order to discover a problem.

Sadly, too many of our churches and conferences are trying to function in this radically changed world out of an antiquated system. Too many still think that if we just work in the old system a little harder and longer, things will have a way of correcting themselves. Like the old shade-tree mechanic, we have tinkered and tapped our way into organizational charts that hinder the movement of God's Spirit. We have allowed the proliferation of agencies, commissions, and national events to continue on the theory that the more of these we have, the better we will be, the longer we will survive, the more faithful we will become, and the more difference we will make in the world.

5. A FRAGMENTED, HURTING WORLD

Even a casual reading of news articles following a national election in the United States is enough to reveal a divided country. If the people of the Christian faith are going to make a difference and contribute to making a different world, then we will have to recognize the deep fissures that exist and that surface primarily when conversation turns to politics and social issues. More than simply recognizing and acknowledging the fragmentation in our society, we cannot shy away from naming the issues (greed, self-centeredness, envy, and violence to start the list) and identifying the conflicts (broken relationships, suspicious and skeptical attitudes, and xenophobia to start another list). Reality: We live in a broken world where people are suffering and where hundreds of thousands of people are dying daily from preventable diseases that are directly tied to poverty or from militaristic power displays that devastate the land and that create a tragic category known as collateral damage. There are hurting people populating every corner of this country and of this planet.

Christian believers are called upon to witness to a different view of life and an alternative vision of the way life is to be lived in relation, in harmony, and in shalom. Yet, in our downward spiral, churches struggle to make a difference. There are glimpses of the generosity of the people called Methodists in response to the destructive powers of either nature or inhumanity. The outpouring of dollars and volunteers in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks, the tsunami in Southeast Asia in December 2004, and the hurricanes of 2004 and 2005, most particularly Katrina, was a sign of the possibility of what may yet be accomplished through the church. Such news-making events call attention to the pain and suffering of one moment in time. The reality is that the pain and suffering is a daily occurrence in much of the globe. Can The United Methodist Church offer spiritual and physical hope to a hurting world? If we continue our decline in the Western world, who will pick up the void that is left when we can no longer generate the dollars or the people?

6. THE VISION THING

Very few people doubt that the world has changed dramatically in the last half of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century. We have lived through them all, and we will continue to wrestle with the changes that come toward us. Every organization and institution that has traversed the waters of uncertainty that these changes have brought has invested time and resources into developing mission and vision statements. If we can just figure out our purpose and our reason for existence, we will then find our way and know what we have to do to survive. Most United Methodists know and can quote ad nauseam the proverb about people perishing without a vision. Reality: Even though we have devised mission and vision statements, printed them in prominent places, and even memorized and recited them regularly, we are, as a denomination, drifting in the turbulent waters of this world. Although we boldly print that "the mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ" (120, The Book of Discipline), we expend more energy trying to define it, argue about it, or work around it than actually doing it. We have lost any sense or awareness that the church does not have a mission, the church is a mission. The church is God's strategy for sharing, modeling, proclaiming, and living the gospel good news of Jesus, God's self-revelation of divine love for a hurting world and its people.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from There's Power in the Connectionby Larry M. Bishop Goodpaster Copyright © 2008 by The United Methodist Publishing House. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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