The United Methodist Church - Older, Whiter, And Needing A Guide For The Future

I started seminary 20 years ago this month. At the time, aged 25, I was definitely on the low end of the age Bell-Curve for seminary students. Many if not most of the students were second-career individuals, in their mid-40's or older, and were recently returned to the church. Wesley, like many seminaries, actively recruited second-career students in part because of the declining numbers of young people hearing a call to ministry.

In the late 1990's, I attended, along with my wife, a meet-and-greet with the new Bishop of the Virginia Annual Conference. That Conference, the largest in the denomination, has 18 Districts, and the Bishop was moving to each district, talking about his vision for the Conference. As I sat and listened to the bland statements being uttered, I looked at the clergy around me. Most were older, almost all were men, and all of them - ALL of them - were white. The Petersburg District included both Sussex and Greensville Counties, two majority-black counties. Brunswick and Dinwiddie Counties had substantial African-American populations. Not a single black church, historical or new. I mentioned this fact during Q&A. The result was no one sat with Lisa and me at the lunch break.

These general ruminations are the beginning of my thinking sparked by an email my wife forwarded to me:

New research from the Lewis Center on Church Leadership reveals two facts about the UMC that have been part of the church's struggle for many years.

1) The median age of clergy continues to rise very quickly: More than half of elders are age 55 or older. In 2000, the midway point was age 50, and in 1973, the median was 43.

2) In a nation where racial diversity is increasing, the membership of the UMC is becoming even more white: 90% in 2008, up from 87% in 1998. During that time, according to 2009 Census Bureau figures, non-Hispanic whites decreased from 69% to 65% of the U.S. population.

What does this mean for our church?

Like the rest of the old mainline churches, the UMC saw a substantial decline in membership, starting in the 1970's. My home church, once a robust, active congregation with over 400 members and, at its peak when I was in high school, a worship attendance closing in on 200 a week. Less than a quarter century later, that church has ceased to be.

While we can discuss all sorts of reasons, from demographic shifts to the failures of the hierarchy, to the failures of individual ministers, to the general decline in church attendance and religion in general in the United States, there still remains open the question of how we move forward, constructively, as a denomination?

Part of this, I think begins with understanding who we are. Part of it is instilling an understanding, and even a pride, in our Wesleyan heritage, the many contributions important and influential church leaders, theologians, bishops, and others have made to making our country a better place.

Another factor that needs to be addressed is our ministry to youth and young adults. It is pretty much settled that, even if an individual was raised going to church, between the ages of 18 and 30, church attendance declines substantially. After people settle in to careers and families, they start to trickle back. If we had serious, thoughtful, engaging youth ministry and ministry for young adults, we might just see a change. Not a substantial change; there are too many social and cultural factors that just wouldn't make that possible. Yet, if we could retain in active participation just a small percentage of the young people who go through youth ministry programs, and have waiting for them young adult ministry programs that meet their needs, the effects could become a multiplier.

With more young adults staying active in church, being involved in its ministries, the understanding of a call to ministry might come sooner than mid-life. More young people going to seminary and becoming local pastors under appointment would, in turn, not only reduce the potential burden on pensions and a ministerial drought; it would also provide a resource for new ideas. It would show other young people at the local level that there might just be something to this whole "church" thing, reducing the drop-off rate even a little bit further.

It starts, I think, with having serious, substantive, yet also engaging youth and young adult ministries. This is the crucial point in the lives of young people. Too much of our youth ministry is faddish, or rooted in an approach that denies the legitimacy of the very real question young people have regarding the relevance of God in their lives in the early 21st century. We need to be open to exploring the Bible with youth. We need to talk about sex and drugs. We need to talk about race and war. Most of all we need to provide a space for our young people to come and talk about these matters in a way that affirms their questions without dodging them.

We also need to be more serious about cross-cultural ministry. We need to give more than lip service to expanding our local church's potential membership by reaching out to the growing Mexican and Latino communities; to other geographically specific minority groups (it might be south Asians in Michigan, or Cambodians and Laotians in southern California).

Finally, on this matter, we need to address the very real problem of structural racism in the denomination and the individual bigotry of clergy. It is not enough to point to historically black United Methodist congregations; it is not enough to point to the recruitment of minority clergy and lay leaders; it is not enough to talk about this or that mission project in a community with a different racial or ethnic identity. We need to stand up and say, without fear, that there is still much work to be done to address the whole question of race in the United Methodist Church, both at an institutional level and at the level of the attitudes of local clergy.