The UMC and Institutional Decline: What About Membership Decline?

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

In response to my series on the UMC and Institutional Decline, reader (and United Methodist Professor of Mission) Rev. Dr. Jack Jackson writes:

“Hello David, thanks for these articles. You are bringing up some important issues. I wonder if you plan to address the underlying problem which, if not addressed, will make all these other renovations irrelevant? Namely, the current collapse of the United Methodist species. We simply aren't reproducing ourselves in the West. Clearly the denomination is reproducing in the Philippines and a handful of countries in central Africa. But apart from those 6 or 7 countries (so much for being a global church) the UMC is in the midst of species collapse. Will you address the need [for a] new vision regarding mission and evangelism that centers on making disciples for Jesus? I'd love to hear more of your thoughts.”

Given the significance of Rev. Dr. Jackson’s question, I wanted to spend an entire post responding to it, rather than trying to do so within the confines of the comments section.

The Relationship between Membership Decline and Institutional Decline
First, in his comment, Jackson gets at what is absolutely an important truth: It doesn’t matter what denominational institutions look like if there are no denominational members left to be part of them. Decline in denominational membership (especially among white Westerners) is an essential bit of context that shapes and shades all other discussions of the UMC’s future, including discussions of its institutions.

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to conclude that because membership decline has the potential to make institutional decline irrelevant that we should focus entirely on membership and not on denominational institutions (not that Jackson is saying so). Such an argument would only make sense if membership and institutions were unconnected, but there is a relationship between the two.

The sorts of institutions that we have as a denomination can influence how effective we are at inviting new members through evangelism, retaining our current members through discipleship, and developing the next generation of members through Christian education. Rightly conceived, updating institutions can be a means to better equip the church to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

A football analogy may help. The only undefeated NFL team in history was the Miami Dolphins in 1972, incidentally the same year that many of the institutions of the UMC achieved their current form. Obviously, that team knew how to win. But if we were able to bring that team and their equipment, strategies, and training regiments to the present, the 1972 Miami Dolphins would likely struggle in the 2021 NFL season, where rules of the game have changed, game strategies have changed, technology used to help players play their best has evolved, offensive and defensive lines are much larger physically, and the season is three games longer. We can’t assume that just because the 1972 Dolphins knew how to win, none of the rest of these changes would matter.

In a similar way, evangelism (and discipleship and Christian education) is not just about knowing how to win people to Jesus in some ahistoric sense. It’s about knowing how to win people to Jesus in our present time and contexts, as Jackson’s writings highlight, and then developing the systems of rules, equipment, strategies, etc. necessary to support that approach. And our rules, equipment, strategies, etc. should be updated from their 1972 versions, just as the 1972 Dolphins would need to update if they played in the 2021 NFL.

The importance of church structure for the growth of the church is something I have addressed in several other posts (http://www.umglobal.org/2018/03/mission-structure-and-innovation.html; http://www.umglobal.org/2018/05/structure-financing-and-early-methodism.html; http://www.umglobal.org/2018/05/movement-vs-institution-choices-and.html).

Tracking Membership Trends
Second, as Jackson points out, there are important differences across The United Methodist Church in terms of how the church is doing in reproducing itself. Assessing the danger of “species collapse” and responding appropriately requires good information about where The United Methodist Church is and is not growing, how those trends compare to other forms of Christianity and population demographics, and the group-specific trends within the whole.

Over the years, developing this sort of data that can help United Methodist leaders discern where the church is and is not doing well, including in comparison with others, has been a major effort of my writing on this blog and elsewhere:

• In a co-written article from 2011, Dana L. Robert and I looked at UMC demographic trends relative to other Methodist and closely related denominations (https://www.methodistreview.org/index.php/mr/article/view/48), and I very briefly touched on a similar comparison this year (http://www.umglobal.org/2021/04/us-membership-decline-and-rhetoric-of.html).
• I crunched the numbers to analyze worldwide UMC membership growth or decline relative to the overall population (http://www.umglobal.org/2019/05/umc-membership-growth-and-decline.html), and I have encouraged United Methodists to be more specific in their thinking about global growth or decline (http://www.umglobal.org/2016/11/getting-specific-about-global-umc.html; http://www.umglobal.org/2018/02/making-sense-of-umc-membership-numbers.html).
• For another perspective on growth and decline, I put together an analysis of worldwide UMC clergy numbers relative to laity membership (http://www.umglobal.org/2021/01/clergy-vs-laity-membership-numbers.html).
• I have examined the racial components of membership trends in the United States (http://www.umglobal.org/2017/03/american-umc-decline-is-white-people.html) and compared membership decline to contextual economic factors (http://www.umglobal.org/2013/07/middle-class-methodists-and-church.html).
• I have put together comprehensive data on where Methodists from all denominations are located around the world (http://www.umglobal.org/2018/02/resource-maps-of-locations-of-world.html; http://www.umglobal.org/2018/04/resource-more-world-methodist-maps.html) and have looked at how these maps highlight historical factors influencing the spread of Methodism to date (http://www.umglobal.org/2018/02/analysis-of-locations-of-world.html).

Much of the above work can be found in the UM & Global collection “Methodist Maps and Membership”: http://www.umglobal.org/2021/01/um-global-collection-methodist-maps-and.html.

In addition, I have suggested a variety of explanations for these trends that try to look not just at The United Methodist Church but at other forms of Christianity and wider societal contexts, especially in the United States.

I have tried to enumerate factors influencing church growth (http://www.umglobal.org/2019/05/factors-influencing-church-growth.html) including organizational and cultural explanations (http://www.umglobal.org/2021/04/organizational-vs-cultural-explanations.html; http://www.umglobal.org/2016/04/coming-to-terms-with-numeric-decline-in.html; http://www.umglobal.org/2018/03/are-there-too-few-mainline-denominations.html) and the role of the witness of the church amidst suffering (http://www.umglobal.org/2018/06/is-suffering-cause-of-umc-growth-in.html).

I have examined the role of empire in the fate of Christianity in the West: http://www.umglobal.org/2020/06/secularization-and-collapse-of-empire.html; http://www.umglobal.org/2020/12/what-is-imperial-religion-and-why-do.html; http://www.umglobal.org/2020/12/american-christianity-as-imperial.html; http://www.umglobal.org/2020/12/routes-forward-from-imperial-american.html

This work is not the same as developing a theology or method of evangelism, but I do see it as important background for such work. Since evangelism must be contextual, United Methodists must understand the contexts in which they evangelize.

Evangelism
Jackson suggests that the UMC needs a “new vision regarding mission and evangelism that centers on making disciples for Jesus.” I wholeheartedly agree that evangelism is an essential part of mission and that the UMC should be engaged in evangelism.

That is an important part of why I developed the definition of mission I use in my book on mission for congregations, Crossing Boundaries: Mission is “cultivating relationships across boundaries for the sake of fostering conversations in word and deed about the nature of God’s good news” (http://www.umglobal.org/2019/03/a-new-definition-of-mission.html). By emphasizing conversations about God’s good news, this definition of mission is intended to include evangelism as a core component of mission.

This conviction that evangelism is an essential part of mission means that evangelism is among the subjects that UM & Global covers, even if I don’t always write those articles myself. You can find UM & Global articles about evangelism here: http://www.umglobal.org/search/label/evangelism.

Given my background as a social historian, I tend to write about areas that I feel I am uniquely qualified to analyze and that others are not writing about extensively (such as organizational theory and demographics). I then try to lift up the voices of those who are more insightful than me on other topics. Evangelism tends to fall into that latter category, not because I don’t believe it is important, but because I recognize the insights that others have go beyond my own in this area. I believe I can better contribute to furthering evangelism by doing some of this background work that I hope others will draw upon.

Recommended Viewing: Mission Beyond COVID-19 Webinar on Evangelism

Video of the second episode of Global Ministries' monthly webinar series, "Mission Beyond COVID-19," which examines aspects of mission theology in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic, is now available online. This webinar occurred last month, with Dr. David W. Scott facilitating a conversation between Rev. Dr. Jack Jackson of Claremont School of Theology and Rev. Dr. Wesley de Souza of Candler School of Theology on evangelism amid the pandemic. The video is just over a half hour.

The next episode of this series, featuring Dr. David W. Scott facilitating a conversation with Rev. Dr. Jin Y. Kim of the World Council of Churches and Bishop Ivan Abrahams of the World Methodist Council on "COVID-19: Hindrance or Help to Peacemaking?" will happen at 10:00am EDT next Wednesday, August 12th. Those interested may register in advance for the webinar. A fuller description is below:

COVID-19: Hindrance or Help to Peacemaking?

The COVID-19 pandemic has enforced national borders through travel bans and disrupted planned peacemaking events for 2020, such as those associated with the 70^th anniversary of the Korean War. But it has also led to new calls for a cessation of hostilities world-wide, such as the UN Security Council’s Resolution 2532. Will the pandemic lead to more separation and conflict as groups seek to secure their own health and other interests? Or is the pandemic an opportunity to redefine peace and security in terms of people, human life and value, and the importance of (re)securing relations with one another?

Wednesday, August, 12, 2020 at 10:00 am EDT

Panelists:
Bishop Ivan M. Abrahams, General Secretary, World Methodist Council
Rev. Dr. Jin Yang Kim, Global Ministries global missionary and coordinator of Korean Peninsula Dialogue and Peacebuilding of the World Council of Churches
Moderator:
Dr. David W. Scott, mission theologian, Global Ministries

Humble, receptive evangelism - Jack Jackson on Grace Upon Grace: A World Transformed by Grace

Today's post is the latest in a series of posts that are re-examining the mission document of The United Methodist Church, Grace Upon Grace (Nashville: Graded Press, 1990). Various United Methodist mission professors and practitioners are re-examining this theological statement and how it can inform our corporate life in The United Methodist Church today. This piece is written by Dr. Jack Jackson, E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism, Mission, and Global Methodism at Claremont School of Theology. Dr. Jackson is commenting on the tenth section of the document, "A World Transformed By Grace." Use the "Grace Upon Grace" tag to identify other posts in this series.

Does the world need to be transformed?  If so how, and to what end?  This is a central question for Christian churches in the 21st Century.  I find Grace Upon Grace both a compelling and frustrating document.  It is compelling in that its aim is to provide an overarching vision for mission from a United Methodist perspective.  In some ways it succeeds as it touches on many important elements of mission.  But it is a frustrating document in that it is at times repetitive, vague, and historically incomplete.  Many of my colleagues provided overviews of the document in previous posts so I will refrain.  I will only say that I share both Robert Hunt’s and Carlos-Cordoza-Orlandi’s observation that the document, in its effort to be inclusive, ends up ignoring significant individuals and communities that inform United Methodist understandings of mission.  Of course it is impossible to include everyone in a document of this length, but Grace Upon Grace would be stronger if it were more succinct.

But back to the question in the beginning, does the world need to be transformed?  Grace Upon Grace’s answer is an emphatic “Yes!”  This world is marred by “egoism, nationalism, racism, classism, militarism, and sexism” (par. 56) that will not prevail when the reign of God comes in its fullness.   Central to the church’s mission, according to Grace Upon Grace, is to witness to this reality.

For the remainder of this section Grace Upon Grace discusses the concept of “witness” in United Methodism, namely proclamation (par. 57 and 63), evangelism (par. 58), incorporation (par. 59), and servanthood (par. 60 and 64).  I found this section a bit cumbersome as it confuses the concept of evangelism (defining it only as inviting people to faith in Christ as opposed to the Biblical idea of proclamation) and because it addresses the idea of servanthood in a repetitive manner throughout the entire document.  But the main points do come through and can be affirmed.

United Methodists believe the gospel must be announced.  The world does not intuit either God’s love or the particular story of Jesus that we believe most clearly demonstrates God’s love.  God’s grace must be articulated if it is to be understood, believed, and claimed.  The reality of the beautifully diverse religious landscape in our world today demonstrates the need for the gospel to be announced.   While Christians share with many other religious and non-religious communities similar ethical and moral values, the motivations behind our ethical systems are quite different.  Grace Upon Grace affirms the need for United Methodists to articulate the motivations for what drives us in our plural world.

Grace Upon Grace rightly affirms the need to articulate our understanding of the story of Christ both humbly and receptively.  We do so humbly because even as Christians we are still a broken people who understand this story of Christ dimly, as through a cloudy vessel.   For example we United Methodists admit we made mistakes in the past in our understanding of what a transformed world looks like.  Perhaps this is no clearer than in the issues of slavery and women in Christian leadership, specifically the ordained ministry.  We repented.  We acknowledge we need to keep hearing the gospel story so that it continues to transform us.  And yet even as we repent, yearn to hear the gospel story again, and acknowledge that we see and understand Christ dimly, we also humbly offer Christ to the world for we know no greater good news. 

We articulate Jesus both humbly and receptively, for usually only if we truly listen to others articulate their own vision of transformation will others listen to our vision.  Par. 63 describes this need to listen to others even as we articulate, or present, Christ to the world.   Perhaps E. Stanley Jones’ model of the round table is an appropriate model for interfaith conversations in the 21st century.  Jones’ round table provided a venue where people of different faiths, or no faith at all, could sit as equals in voicing their deepest beliefs, motivations, and dreams for the world.  But Jones knew the round table was only effective if all people were both willing to evangelize and be evangelized.   He was ultimately a seeker of truth and he wanted to hear others’ understanding of truth and offer the most beautiful truth he had found in Jesus.  He believed the vision of life offered in Jesus was greater than any other vision and he was willing to test it.  If the world is to be transformed it will only be through a community that humbly admits its weaknesses, listens to other visions for the human community, and offers its own vision of a world in the image of our crucified and risen lord.