Methodist Thoughts

Denominational Data, Questions, and Turning Points…March 2021

As the Covid19 Vaccine continues to go into arms and the sun shines more, important conversations that were top of mind before the Pandemic are returning. Case in point, my world is taking up the question of the future of the United Methodist Church. 

The denominational brand generally does not have a whopping impact on the day to day ministry at the local church I serve. There are some exceptions, and these exceptions can become, for many pastors in particular, a secondary concern that consumes the essential air of ministry and life. 

On the positive side of being United Methodist is the tale we hear often from couples, one from a Baptist expression and one from a Catholic or Lutheran expression, that generally they find the UMC experience and brand helpful for their life together. Another positive piece of the brand is the familiarity of the UMC name, logo, and presence in the cultural fabric of the USA. Until recently, the last 100 years or more has seen at least one UMC church in every county of the country. United Methodists have had an available presence.

On the flip side of the coin, the UMC has had the challenge of theological, brand, and experiential dissonance. The experience of members and pastors is often one of unmet expectations; in how we know and experience God, in how people interact as a community of faith, in how we intersect with the larger community, and in how we see the world. This dissonance has been present in spite of some tremendous and costly efforts at giving the UMC a unifying voice and experience. 

The result of the lively, yet challenging conversations is that the United Methodist Church, which began in 1968 with the merger of two churches that amounted to 12 million members, mostly American, has been a church in steep decline. In the US the 2019 stats tell us there are 6.48 million members with an average attendance of roughly 2.4 million. 

The numbers that set me to thinking and writing this came from a couple of conference meetings I was a part of in February and March 2021. 

In one meeting, Missouri’s Bishop was unpacking the news of a special called General Conference for 8 May 2021 (now cancelled as of 22 March). In the meeting the Bishop described the agenda for the General Conference: basically a continuing resolution to keep operating at the general conference level. He also emphasized what was not going to be on the agenda: a plan for the separation of the UMC into like minded tribes (gracethroughseparation.org). 

While noting that the separation protocol is top of mind, the Bishop indicated it would have to wait for an in-person General Conference, scheduled for late August 2022. As a part of the conversation he mentioned some numbers that grabbed my attention:

 - 30% - the Bishop could foresee 30% of churches in the Missouri Conference departing from the current structure and joining a new “Traditionalist” church.

 - 9 to 5 - the Bishop spoke of an upcoming contraction of the conference operational structure that involves reducing the numbers of District Superintendents from 9 to 5, thereby reducing apportionments and saving the conference about $850,000.

- 10% - this is the goal that the Bishop has set for the amount churches are apportioned for General and Annual Conference concerns. The contraction of the Districts and their savings will be a first step to getting to a 10% apportionment rate.

- 15 to 20 - this is about the number of churches that the conference closes every year.

 

The second meeting I was a part of was a conference committee that establishes the conference budget of apportionment to churches. This meeting was generally pro forma. We received news about how much money we started with in 2020, how much we spent, how much came in, and what next year’s budget could look like. Along the way we did see an impact on the budget process for a reduction in District Superintendents. What went unmentioned was planning for the other numbers the Bishop mentioned. 

I began to wonder: what is the impact of 15 to 20 churches closing every year on the conference budget? What is the budget going to look like if 30% of churches close, leave, or move to another denomination? 

This wondering sent me on what some call a “methnonerd” study. I went to a document called the Conference Journal and pulled data for four years, 2010, 2015, 2019, and 2020. I was interested in the number of churches and how that related to budget considerations. 

The first thing I found was that it is difficult to count the total number of churches in the Annual Conference. I decided to count the number of CHARGES that sent delegates to the Annual Conference gathering. In Methodism charges can mean 1 church, or it can mean multiple churches brought together and served by a pastor. In 2021 UMDATA.ORG states that the Missouri Conference has 724 churches. By using the category of “Charges” we will have a lower number, but the trend line is key to watch. 

Here is the data:

	2010	2015	2019	2020
# of Charges sending Delegates to Annual Conference	642	437	381	326 (may not have all reported because of the pandemic)
Total Budget Apportionment (inclusive of General and Conference budgets)	$13,743,824	$13,880,297	$13,902,431	$12,470,259

(Source: https://www.moumethodist.org/conferencejournals)

From 2010 to 2019 the number of charges has declined by 261, or 41%.

From 2010 to 2019 the General and Conference budget has increased by $158,607, or 1.15%.

In 2010 the 642 charges shared an apportionment that averaged $21,410.

In 2019 the 381 charges shared an apportionment that averaged $36,490.

In 2020 the budget decreased by 8.5% - largely due to an estimated drop of 20% in the General Church apportionment. This drop was practiced even though the budget process was interrupted because of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Charges/churches are closing, or leaving the conference, in staggering numbers, and the budgets did not follow in proportion. Fewer charges/churches were paying more into a system that was undergoing tremendous contraction. Losing 15 to 20 churches a year is adding up quickly over time. 

In 2019 Lovett Weems, retired professor from Wesley Theological Seminary addressed the Missouri Annual Conference and offered an assessment of the UMC predicament. He suggested, following the contentious Special Called General Conference of 2019 that the General Conference was broke. The boards and agencies of the UMC, and the General Conference itself were soundly fractured, financially and missionally. Yet he suggested, the mission of the church and the strength of its organization was still present in the Annual Conference. At the time his words were comforting, but they were not aligned with the story on the ground! Taking a look at the stats, they proclaim loudly - WE ARE BROKE - the General Conference, the Annual Conference, and the Charge Conferences. It is no wonder that every year the Chief Operating Officer of the church I serve keeps noting, “our apportionment is higher this year,” even as our own budget has contracted slightly.  

The data presents some striking questions:

1. Which churches/charges are dropping away? Are these smaller bodies that are coming to their eventual end? What has been their contribution to the Conference Budget?
2. If 30% of the churches do leave for a new expression of Methodism, then at what level of apportionment giving will existing churches be able to manage? At what rate does the budget need to drop so that local churches are not overwhelmed by mounting apportionments?
3. At what point does the Annual Conference have to severely reduce, or merge for fiduciary sustainability?
4. Is fiduciary sustainability even possible?
5. What becomes of the long term liabilities, I.e. pension liabilities, for the churches that retain the UMC brand and legal responsibility? At some point do they not acquire tremendous liabilities, such that the only escape is bankruptcy? 
6. If Conference apportionments are not leading to ministry that brings positive gains over several years, should we not radically reevaluate the designation? 

My assessment:

By and large our efforts, measured by our investment of dollars and hours at every level, are not producing new fruit that reflects the transformation of Jesus Christ in lives that are healed, helped, and full of hope. We are not seeing new church plants take root and produce fruit, nor are we experiencing renewed missional churches. Instead we are crafting budgets with incremental steps of reduction, but not keeping pace with the closing of charges. We are expecting fewer people to pay higher costs. When it comes to change, we have been stuck in a conversation between technical and adaptive change, when the house is burning down! If we do not extinguish the blaze now and begin an immediate rebuild, this expression of Christ’s church will resemble old cities destroyed by fire - with a house standing here or there, but not much in-between. The Lord have mercy on the last ones standing, the fiduciary weight will be enormous!

What to do in this moment? 

Stay the Course? This is the argument that all of us are generally drawn to at some point. Change is hard. Maybe a year or two and things will look different! “Change the discipline and the fighting will end, people will relax, and we can grow again.” HA! Our cultural attraction magnet died 50 years ago or better. Staying the course, that is to continue in the same direction, with the same talking points of the past 50 years, is to go down with the Titanic. We might be remembered, they might make a movie about us, but it’s going to include a lot of sorrow and death.

Hang onto a Plank? This is where a church jumps ship and seeks to go independent. There are some churches large enough to do this and stay healthy in the short and long term. Others will go this way and be overwhelmed when it comes time to take the third or fourth step either in pastoral transitions, or mission engagement, or church health.  

Get into a Life Raft? Life rafts are stored on-board the current ship, they have the same smell, and are cut from the same cloth. Already there are at least two proposed denominations coming forth from the UMC. The first to make its debut was the Liberation Methodist Connexion (thelmx.org), and the second, fruit of the Wesleyan Covenant Association, is the Global Methodist Church (globalmethodist.org). There could be more. These groups are retaining language, and portions of the structure that are somewhat familiar - seeking to assuage those askance of change that they will find a good home in the future. The unknown question remains: how much baggage are the leaders of these new expressions trying to stow away on the life raft? Are they seeking to preserve their version of the past, or are they focused on a new future? Historically, it has been tremendously hard for those who lead revolutions to flip a switch and create a new future. 

Hop onto a Boat that’s not sinking? This describes churches looking to affiliate with another body of churches that is healthy, that has a fairly established identity, and has its future squarely in view. Recently a small church I know of did a self-assessment, hosted some conversations, and found another group, the Free Methodists, that is moderately healthy and decided to join their ranks. One could imagine some liturgically and missionally inclined churches finding a good fit in the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA). Some less formal churches, but equally committed to church planting may find a home amongst Methodism’s forgotten cousins - the Wesleyans or the Nazarenes. The Korean Methodist Church, the African Methodist Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion, or Christian Methodist could also provide a home. The objective of going to an existing denomination is to continue theological identity and accountability, share in mission and leadership training, and find a venue for health and growth.

I cannot begin to suggest when or what next step a church should take, but I can say, the day for local churches to remember their agency is NOW. Local churches that are waiting for votes to be taken are missing the votes happening every weekend, of members moving on, of neighbors living life without Christ, of communities oblivious to any contribution of the church. It is time for local churches to ask the Lord to resurrect their faith, mission, and hope. It is time for pastors to leave their offices and share the healing and hope of Christ in their cities and rural communities. Methodism spread organizationally because it was propelled by a theology of hope, help, and healing - the fullness of God’s love and grace for the world, a world stuck in slavery to sin and death. Most of the conversations I’ve listened to are pro-forma, ultimately about softening our eventual demise. What we need is Repentance, Resurrection, and Holy Spirit empowered Restoration of Kingdom Mission.