Time Warped

I read an article this last week that says our Council of Bishops approved a plan to make The United Methodist Church ten-year’s younger in a decade. I thought, “That can’t be right.” Just doing the math, we would need 70% of our existing over-50 membership to die or go to another denomination. Then I realized we were talking about the even less-likely scenario of attracting approximately 3 million 20/30-somethings to become United Methodist. There is always a lot of merit in wanting to introduce new people to a lifelong relationship with Jesus Christ. I hope we do this well. But as I look at what it will take to reach our goal, I have a few suggestions:

Make sure the bishops working on this are all 40 and under (I’m being ironic or sarcastic here, I can’t remember which…) — we know for a fact that Boomers and older Busters can’t do ministry for younger people. This is a no-brainer. The church for the young needs to be the church of the young. Oh, no — not either/or, but both/and. We need the church we have to welcome in baby brothers and sisters. Older children need to learn to share their toys with younger children — and even let younger children have toys of their own — or nothing much good happens.

Make sure the consultant to the process is 20/30-something — I just love all the old guard (my age) telling all the other people my age how important it is to reach young people. Give me a break. I was at the District Superintendent/Director of Connectional Ministries training. I know what it looks like when Baby Boomers try to dance and sing and clap to alternative rock music. It isn’t pretty. In fact, it’s skeevy. And every under-40 person knows and acknowledges this. It is the older generations who are in denial. For us Boomers, the ship has passed. Time to let a new generation take the tiller.
Make sure the 12-person steering committee has all its own teeth and hair (and some piercings and tattoos as well) — on the metaphorical ship I was talking about above, another name for a 50-something team member is “anchor.” Let younger people seek counsel when they need it. Let’s not just assume they cannot possibly function without the wisdom of our years. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. If we want to kill a youth movement fast, let’s let old people play.
Let’s NOT do another online survey — let’s allow younger church leaders to create an online community for discussion and networking. Let’s not turn it over to an institutional agency. Let’s not let Baby Boomers anywhere near the design of it. Let’s trust young leaders to lead. The let’s listen to what they say. Then let’s not bring up words like “budget implications” and “disciplinary restrictions” to kill the passion and enthusiasm.
Let’s not worry about the median age of United Methodists — age is a terrible measure of our impact in the world. We should be seeking meaningful ways to be in ministry to all people. Americans are living longer, and by God’s grace they will go to church longer. If we are a healthy nation, the median age will go up. Our great commission is to make disciples not make the church younger. By all means, let’s do a better job reaching young families and singles, children and youth, and let us be faithful evangelists that promote a healthy relationship with God in Jesus Christ — whether they join our church or not.

You may have noticed that I put on my “rant robe” for this one. We talk so much about this, but we seem to refuse to make the changes that will actually change anything. We love change that we can step back from and say, “Oops, well that didn’t work.” But the kind of true transformation we keep saying we want requires fundamental bridge-burning. Current leaders MUST share power. Young leaders MUST be allowed into the decision-making, direction-setting ranks of leadership in our denomination. Existing structures MUST make room for radically different systems and processes. And the older MUST get out of the way of the younger — if we truly value and honor those we say we want to reach. No more time to waffle, no more time to study, no more time for task forces, and no more time for saying we want something, then maintaining the status quo.

I hope The United Methodist Church does become the church of choice for young people in these United States — but because we deserve it, not because we merely want to preserve the institution.

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31 responses to “Time Warped”

Pastor Don

November 10, 2009

You ask why I keep reading your articles? You keep friends close, but enemies closer. You have written some blasphemous and anti-church things in the past, but this is just stupid. Look at the state the church is in today. It isn’t due to the inflexible old guard you point to. Our church is failing because of the younger generations making changes without fully understanding what it means to be a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. Young pastors throw out the creedal statements, the prayers, and bring in the bad music and the worldly values. The Baby Boom generation undermined the integrity of the church and now you want the next genration to finish the job by destroying everything that is left. There is a good reason that we have older bishops running the church. With age comes wisdom. We need the wise and experienced to teach the young how to be the church. The Methodist Church is doing it right. The older generation setting the rules and boundaries for the young to follow to become good Christians.

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1. Baldy
  
  November 10, 2009
  
  Pastor Don,
  
  Age has nothing to do with whether or not you are a good Christ-follower. If I’m not mistaken Jesus was what we would consider to day to be a “young Christian”. Perhaps we should look at the effectiveness of a person’s ministry instead of looking at a person’s age first. Christ has shown us how to be “the Church”.
  
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Raymond Horton

November 10, 2009

“Make sure the bishops working on this are all 40 and under”…
“Make sure the consultant to the process is 20/30-something” …
“If we want to kill a youth movement fast, let’s let old people play.”…

{and, finally} “age is a terrible measure of our impact in the world.”

You got it right only with the last line, man. At my church, the freshest, youngest thinker is 84, and the 20-something leaders think like old people, stuck in their ways. A church needs fresh thinking, not just fresh birth dates.

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1. doroteos2
  
  November 10, 2009
  
  I wish yours was the rule rather than the exception…
  
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larry

November 10, 2009

Cindy, thank you. I can see where this may be related to an earlier meeting of the Bishops, one where I remember a call for hundreds or thousands to form groups of 30 to work on the four areas of focus. Was there ever any followup to that call, assuming I remember accurately?

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Cindy Thompson

November 10, 2009

Larry,

Here is the news story link:

http://www.umc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=lwL4KnN1LtH&b=2072519&ct=7650221

My executive director and I have already designed the ad campaign, “Join the United Methodist Church, you will be ten years younger ten years from now.” We have also developed the strategy to make it work. First you cannot take in any new members over the age of 40 and you must systematically remove anyone from the roles over the age of 50 who is inactive for more than one week.

Keep on ranting Dan!

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larry

November 10, 2009

I went to the website for the Council of Bishops to find the membership plan. I did not find one related to your posting. I did find this:

“The Initiative on Children and Poverty has been the commitment of the Council of Bishops of The United Methodist Church since 1996. This commitment� represents the bishops’ sense of the call and nature of God; the depth of the bishops’ concern for children and the impoverished; the new directions resulting from deppening global relationships; and the bishops’ belief that the church is to be where God is. The church, therefore, must be in community with children and the poor — as Jesus said, “the least of these.” [learn more about this initiative]”

I pressed the “learn more” button and found this:

“The Council of Bishops’ Episcopal Initiative on Children and Poverty is discontinued as of December 31, 2004. The Bishops are continuing children and poverty as an emphasis in their Council life and residential area leadership. This website will be continued until new material is developed or until August 1, 2005. A listing of resources which are available can be seen by going to RESOURCES 2005.”

Anyway, where may one find their plan? I take ownership of any typographical errors outside of the quotation marks, not those within the marks. Peace.

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David Lupo

November 10, 2009

If we should manage to bring enough new, young members into the church to lower our average age, it probably won’t be reflected in United Methodist statistics. I imagine that it will have been the result of a (very Wesleyan) end-run around the structures that get in the way, and that getting names on the roll will have taken second place to the task of forming disciples. I hope that we have a few bishops who could figure out how to offer a disciplinary fig leaf for such endeavors, or who might at least practice some strategic looking-the-other-way when necessary.

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Taylor Burton-Edwards

November 10, 2009

And not because we’ve sold ourselves out, at whatever age, to pander to just one generation… when the church is and at its best will always be a people of all “sorts and conditions” (as the really old prayer used to put it).

Thanks for the realistic math on this one. After all, and something that seems to have been forgotten before announcing this one, in ten years time we’ll ALL be ten years older, not the same age as now.

Average age measures little. I wish the next big idea were at least a biblical or Wesleyan one– like “measurably more holy” in a decade. Or 5X more engaged in ministry in the local community in a decade.

There are no bishops under 40. We had one, I think, from Nigeria if I recall– and he died a couple of years ago. I’m not sure we even have any US bishops under 47 right now. Most are closer to the UM average of 57. They’ll be 67 (and still eligible to serve and so likely still serving) in a decade. I’ll still be younger than the current average.

Another observation: restructuring rarely produces dramatically better outcomes. Leadership can. Leadership doesn’t try to fix the structure. It uses whatever structures are there, works with them, around them, and creates new things to accomplish the mission. You can’t put the structure for this into a document and then say “Now go do it this way with these structures.” That’s management– not leadership.

And despite all the talk that we’re trying to develop principled leaders, at least what the reporting suggests so far is that the “next new thing” is just more of the same, only maybe trying it on a bigger (or micro?) scale this time.

I sincerely hope the reporting is missing something big.

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