Nurturing the Call

I'm on a sabbatical from writing for the United Methodist Reporter right now, as I'm getting ready for some big exams coming up in the month of December.

There has been a lot of good content in the Reporter of late, though. Allow me to point you toward some of it, gentle reader.

My friend and colleague Eric Van Meter, a campus minister at the Wesley Foundation at Arkansas State University, has a recent column looking at the importance of nurturing the call to ministry in youth and young adults. Eric has the ability to speak hard truths that are, nevertheless, expressed in great hope for what the church could be.

He writes, "The call to ordained ministry begins with catching the breath of God beneath our wings and seeing where it will take us. In the best of settings, we hear others shouting encouragement throughout the journey."

Eric reflects on the possibility of his own son someday following his footsteps into ministry. He wonders whether the church can move toward a fuller understanding of ordained ministry and a healthier process for those called into that form of service. This is a topic I've taken up myself recently, both in an article on structural change of the ordination process and an article on the reform of personal attitudes in the church.

I think Eric is right on when he directs us to look at our own approach to discipleship and ministry as the best way to set an example for future generations: "We have to be the ones who set positive examples. We have to be the ones to offer them opportunities for meaningful leadership. We have to be the ones who, despite our desire to protect them, go with them to encounter desperate and hurting humanity. We have to step up and be the disciples we want them to emulate."

Eric is good at expressing both frustration with the status quo and a guarded optimism that we can still follow the Holy Spirit's leading toward a more robust church. I think we all need a healthy dose of both of those qualities: the frustration to drive us to seek a more faithful path, and the hope that God ain't done with us yet.

An evening at the Mad Pizza Co.

I made the trek back to Arkansas earlier this month to attend the annual session of the Arkansas Annual Conference. I try to do that every year, as a way to renew friendships and participate directly in the life of the church back home. And of course, this year there was added interest because of the debate over the proposed amendments to the United Methodist Church's Constitution.

But while I enjoyed all the happenings in the convention center where annual conference was held, perhaps the most significant part of the week for occurred one evening at the Mad Pizza Co. in Rogers, Ark. I tell the story in my recent United Methodist Reporter column.

For the past five years, the young adult clergy & lay delegates have gathered for a supper together at some point during annual conference. We've tried different approaches to how to structure the evening - sometimes a round table discussion over a specific topic, and sometimes a more free-flowing invitation to gather in groups and talk about whatever comes up. But we always make sure to break bread together and open in prayer.

The evening at the Mad Pizza Co. was especially enjoyable, as our annual group has grown to more than 50 people. Conversations were on a bunch of different issues, naturally. But from where I was sitting it seemed like everybody took advantage of the chance to engage each other on matters of real importance: the nature of annual conference, the ordination process, the structure of the church, and how to carry out a faithful gospel ministry.

In fact, the evening ended with the last group of people gathered in a circle and three of the young adult elders - all of them church planters - sharing their experiences of growing churches from the ground up.

It was exactly what conference is supposed to be about. That gathering offers a perfect example of what we mean when we say our church is a connection.

If your annual conference doesn't have a group like this every year, start one. You'll be glad you did. And so will the rest of the young adults you're serving with.

What to do about our 'graying church'

Woody Allen once said, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying."

Ah, if only. But since Woody's desire doesn't seem to be a possibility for any of us, we have to make plans for what is going to happen to the people and the communities we love after we pass on. In the church, that means making sure that there are younger generations of people who will carry on the torch of the gospel and help to make disciples for Jesus Christ. But for many Protestant denominations in this culture, church members seem to be dying at a much faster rate than they are being replaced.

My own church is in this predicament. So I ask myself, "How can the United Methodist Church attract more younger members? How can we keep from being a 'graying church?'"

I've got some ideas on that, as I'm sure you do. But whatever solutions any of us thinks would work, we could all agree that having a toolkit with useful information about the church's demographic makeup - and trends - would be a big help.

As they have in the past, Lovett Weems and his staff at the Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., have come through for the UMC. They have just released a new report that looks at the church's aging in the United States as compared to the overall population, which you can access here.

The methods in the report are creative and unorthodox, and they deliver results that I think are probably pretty accurate. The church is aging everywhere, though there are wide differences between regions of the country. And there are interesting differences in aging rates between annual conferences within the same jurisdiction as well. As you might imagine, the church is aging slowest in the South (i.e., in the Southeastern and South Central Jurisdictions), which is also the region where some annual conferences report modest growth at times. It's aging most quickly in the West, Midwest, and Northeast regions of the country.

Just based on the statistical data, there is nothing to suggest that predictions about a precipitous decline in church membership over the next few decades is off the mark at all. So the question then becomes, "What do we do about it?"

I offer my own views on this report in my new column in the UM Reporter. Feel free to check it out and share your own views. I appreciate the section of the Lewis Center report that makes suggestions about starting new churches and growing existing congregations. But ultimately I think those suggestions are fairly useless until they are informed by prior theological work.

The church will not grow again until we proclaim a gospel that reflects the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. If we are willing to proclaim that gospel and embody it in our common life, I suspect the Holy Spirit will bless us with fruits. If we do not, then Jesus will do what he says he will do to the church at Laodicea. I for one believe that the proclamation of the true gospel was the very reason God raised up people called Methodists in the beginning. And God can use us still, if we are willing.

So the real question for us is not really how we get younger, not-so-gray heads in our pews. It is rather how we can once again preach and practice the gospel once entrusted to us to save souls, reform the church, and spread scriptural holiness across the land.

Young Adult no more (?)

At the age of 35, Eric Van Meter reflects on the experience that many Gen Xers are having these days: that of moving past the fabled "young adult" category.

As Eric puts it, he is now in "the border country between young adult and unqualified adult."

His column series in the Reporter began here, and in his new article, he reports that he is more hopeful than ever. He talks about the somewhat strange experience of moving out of that phase of life where everyone is excited about who you are (young, and therefore the hope for the future) but no one wants to listen to you (because you're young, and you don't know anything).

In your 30s, people do start to listen to you. And with that age, you also tend to mellow a little bit. You start to take the less savory and more frustrating parts of your own denomination as an inevitable part of what it means to be in a church that is run by real, broken people.

But - and this is an important but - you still have the desire to work for the change you so ardently hoped for back in the more idealistic days of your 20s. This is probably a common experience of all generations; it's just that Gen Xers are only now beginning to realize it for themselves.

Eric points to the way that the Arkansas Conference Vision Team invited a bunch of Gen X pastors to help think about what it would mean to "youthify" the church in Arkansas. As Eric rightly points out, the willingness of the Vision Team to make such a move is a very positive step. The group Eric took part in did some great brainstorming. Now the annual conference needs to show that it can not only listen but also take action based on what they heard.

In my recent article in Faith & Leadership, I specifically used Eric as an example of one who has navigated the waters of ministry as a young adult and made a positive impact. I also believe he represents a type for hundreds of other young (yes, still young) United Methodist pastors out there. Let's not forget the difference we can make!

Good news for young clergy

A few weeks ago, I posted about the new findings of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Seminary about recent trends in the numbers of under-35 year old clergy in the United Methodist Church.

As you may be aware, the Lewis Center's original report, covering the years 1985 to 2005, showed a distressing downward trend in the numbers of young clergy in the church. But the updated findings show that the trend may be reversing, as both the absolute numbers of young clergy and the numbers of young clergy as a percentage of all UM elders has risen.

I recently spent some more time reading the report, and I contacted the director of the Lewis Center, Dr. Lovett Weems, for his thoughts on the new findings. I discuss my thoughts in my new column in the UM Reporter, "New stats offer hope for young UM clergy."

Dr. Weems is cautiously optimistic about what the Center has found. But he notes that he thinks various levels of the church are really doing a lot in nurturing a 'culture of call' that facilitates the ability of youth and young adults to hear the Holy Spirit's calling on their lives to ministry. He cites the work of the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, the advocacy of individual annual conferences, and the proactive attitude of young clergy themselves in helping their brothers and sisters respond to the call.

All of this is encouraging news. And it is a great reminder to each of us that we have a responsibility to help raise up a new generation of leaders in the church. God is good!

Young clergy age trends

The Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., has released an updated version of its Report on Clergy Age Trends in the UMC. This updated report is built upon the original report done by the Lewis Center, which was chronicled in the book, The Crisis of Younger Clergy by Lovett Weems and Ann Michel. (I wrote a book review of Crisis, which you can access here.)

There is information on all age groups (including elders, deacons, and local pastors). My own interest is largely in the "younger clergy" age group, and the good news is that there is actual good news to report.

The numbers of under-35 year old clergy elders and their percentage as a number of all elders bottomed out in 2005 (the year I was ordained), but it has climbed since then. The numbers for elders look like this:

Year - % - Total
2005 - 4.69 - 850
2006 - 4.89 - 881
2007 - 4.92 - 876
2008 - 5.21 - 910

Those changes aren't huge, but they are promising. There is also a nice statistic to report from my home conference - the Arkansas Conference. We have the highest percentage (9.29%) of under-35 clergy of any conference in the U.S.!

[Note: the report is helpful this year in the amount of information it contains on the trends in numbers of deacons and local pastors, which were missing from the report as it was presented in The Crisis of Younger Clergy.]

Young People's Address at GC

The 2004 General Conference created the Division on Ministries with Young People, within the General Board of Discipleship. Now the 2008 General Conference has heard the first ever Young People's Address, before the whole gathered body. United Methodist News Service reports on today's address in this news story. It sounds like the 6 teenagers and young adults represented a diverse cross-section of the church.

The church yearns for young people, and young people yearn for a place to belong, according to one of those who gave the address. Amen to that. What they said up there is important. The fact that the church invited them to say it and celebrated their presence is even more so.

What's happening to the preachers?

Lovett Weems and Ann Michel think they know.

They have a new book out from Abingdon, entitled, The Crisis of Younger Clergy, that analyzes the results of the 2006 survey conducted by the Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary on clergy demographics in the United Methodist Church.

In 1985, there were over 3,200 ordained elders in the UMC under the age of 35. Today there are around 850. The book tries to get a handle on this troubling trend and, even more importantly, suggest ways that the church can provide the kind of culture where youth and young adults are able to really hear the Holy Spirit's call to ministry.

I write about Weems and Michel's new book in my new column in the United Methodist Reporter. In addition to that, Robin Russell has a good Q&A article with Weems where he answers questions about the importance of young clergy in the church.

I endorsed this book before it came out, and I have a review of it that will appear in the Reporter in the coming weeks. I think it is timely and important, and it is a great book for anyone who cares about the future of leadership in our church. I could easily see how a Sunday school class or small group might use this book as a way to start a conversation about how to nurture the kind of church environment where calling is affirmed and supported. Check it out!

A strained love

My friend and fellow pastor Eric Van Meter has got a remarkable article in the United Methodist Reporter this week, where he tells the imaginative story of being in "therapy" for a troubled relationship with his true love - the church. The church he's talking about is the UMC, and he relates how he was attracted to it by the warmly evangelistic outreach of the Wesley Foundation where he went to college. His love of the church grew throughout his college career as he saw a Wesleyan expression of faith at its best, from heartfelt worship, to weekly Holy Communion, to outreach ministry to children and the elderly.

Eric then describes how his idyllic view of the church came crashing down around him during the ordination process, particularly when he started meeting with the Board of Ordained Ministry. There he saw how particulars of polity certain structures or traditions of the church (though he doesn't say which ones) caused him to become frustrated, because it seemed that they stood in the way of the church's full flourishing. These experiences caused him to begin seeing the church as having a "split personality."

This article is worth a read, both for its creativity and for the way so much of it will ring true in the experiences of young clergy. This is only the first installment in a series of articles continuing the same story. I'll post them all as they appear online.

Crisis of Younger Clergy

Lovett Weems and Ann Michel have just written The Crisis of Younger Clergy, a book that analyzes the results of both the Lewis Center for Church Leadership's study of clergy age trends from 1985-2005 as well as its recent survey of young adult (under 35) clergy. This is all new stuff. The study of clergy age trends came out in 2006, and the survey of young adult clergy took place in March 2007.

I recently reviewed an advance copy of the book, and it is really well-done. Weems and Michel offer a detailed picture of the crisis the church faces in regards to its young clergy (who now number less than 5% of elders), as well as suggestions about actions that can be taken in areas as different as recruitment & response to call, theological education & debt, and emotional isolation & the appointment process. If you are a young clergyperson and you read this book, a whole lot of it will ring true. Abingdon Press will be publishing it in early 2008, and I highly recommend it.

On a related note, I have continued to get responses on the issue of the UMC's candidacy process for ordination. One of the most revealing was this one from Kyle Roberson, who is in his final year at Perkins School of Theology:

"As a young person going through the ordination process I cannot tell you how often I have truly felt like abandoning the process b/c of my frustration with some of the very issues you point out in your article. I have also spoken recently with three young people who are 'lifelong United Methodists' who are now seeking to serve as ministers with non-denominational congregations in our area b/c they feel they don't have the time to 'waste' on the ordination process ... I strongly agree with your observation regarding the UMC's apathy towards the seminaries, and I would add that the same sentiment exists towards campus ministry programs across the country who are doing the hard work of raising up leaders only to watch them become frustrated and bound by a process that is supposed to be, in the end, the focusing and enriching journey one takes to discern how to serve God's people in ministry. I pray that those in the United Methodist system who have ears may hear these words and take them to heart as we prepare to meet for General Conference and discuss this issue among the many we have before us."

That is just one anecdote, but I think it speaks for the experience of many.

Sex on Campus

It was with more than a little fear and trembling that I wrote this column - "Sex on Campus" - in the United Methodist Reporter this week. No one has ever accused me of being a saint, and I was about as far from sainthood as you could get during my own college years. But time and maturity cause one to reflect, not only one's own past but also on the way that environments play such a key role in helping people to live in healthy ways. I'd be curious to hear readers' thoughts on this column in particular.

I believe there is very little that is healthy about the recreational pursuits of college students these days. The levels of substance abuse and casual sex, the inattention to engagement with the larger world, and the neglect of virtue formation all have real consequences for later life. Bad habits ingrained during the formative years tend to stick around and only become worse.

By the way, I wasn't picking on Duke in particular in the blog post. I only use it as an example of the permissiveness of campus culture because it is the campus I happen to walk around on everyday. And despite all the Duke lacrosse controversy over the past year-and-a-half, I don't think Duke is any worse than most places.

Amy Forbus had this to say on the Reporter's own blog about the issue of campus culture. Her comments about the "Shirttails Serenade" tradition at our own alma mater, Hendrix College, is right on: "Back then I saw it as innocent fun. Now it seems far less innocent." You could say that about a lot of the troubling behavior that happens on campuses. We have lost the sense that virtue formation is something that is intimately connected with an educated person.

Gen X/Y Gathering

Things are extraordinarily busy right now. I'm taking a large summer load of coursework, and I'll be taking off this weekend for annual conference in Arkansas. I am going to try to continue to post at least once per week, but if I slack off a little bit, just bear with me. I am laptop-deprived, so I don't know what my opportunities for Internet access will be in AR next week.

Just wanted to give everybody a heads-up on Amy Forbus' report on the Gen X/Y Gathering that took place at Mt. Sequoyah in Fayetteville, AR, in late May. You can read it on her blog here. I also talked with Eric Van Meter, a clergy friend from the Arkansas Conference, and he said the event was fantastic. There were about 56 participants, mostly from the South Central Jurisdiction, but also including people from as far away as Florida and Maine. Doug Pagitt and Tim Keel were featured speakers. There was worship, Holy Communion, and lots of free time to discuss the future of the church and how we might lead in the coming years.

The Gathering was also put together in 'grassroots' fashion. This was not the programmatic idea of a general board, jurisdictional committee, or annual conference. It was the result of a Spirit-led movement of pastors who wanted to see seminarians and clergy get together to talk about crucial issues of how we can lead the UMC faithfully forward in our day.

My current residence in Durham didn't allow me to attend, unfortunately. But it has been good hearing about it from Amy and Eric, and I'm sure I'll hear more at annual conference next week. From what I understand, the Gathering has already spawned further conversations - about another event in the future, but also about more sustained work between pastors and churches within annual conferences. That is good news.

If you attended the Gathering and would like to share more in the comments section of this post, feel free.

Electing Gen-X delegates

Guy Williams has an insightful post over at Guy's Mental Wanderings about electing younger delegates to General Conference. With a lot of talk - especially in the Methoblogosphere - about electing young adult delegates, Guy wants us to take a step back and ask some important questions about how we go about making choices.

For starters, Guy suggests that age should not be a determining factor. That is, he does not want to elect a young delegate just because that person is young. He wants delegates who represent faithful views, with regards to the doctrine and missional priorities of the church. He also wants to elect strong leaders, which may or may not correlate with a certain age range.

I think Guy's views are right on. I have been supportive of electing younger delegates to General and annual conferences. In fact, not long ago, I wrote a column specifically supporting the selection of younger delegates to annual conferences, as a way of familiarizing young adult laity with United Methodist polity and encouraging them to become involved in leadership. But Guy is right in insisting that age cannot and should not be a determining factor. As much as the UMC needs the energy and insight that young leadership brings, it needs truly faithful leadership even more.

So what does that mean for the push to elect younger delegates? It is still very important. But potential younger delegates should be put under the same scrutiny as their older counterparts, so that they will be elected for who they are and what they represent, not just how old they happen to be.

Help Wanted: Generation X Leadership

Have you taken a look at the age demographics in the United Methodist Church lately? If you had to take a guess, would you think that Gen X'ers represent:

A) 35% of membership
B) 25% of membership
C) 15% of membership
D) Less than 10% of membership

If you guessed "D" you are right on target. That's right: our whole generation makes up less than 10% of the total membership of the UMC.

There could be any number of different reasons why this is the case. But if your gut reaction is to say, "Our church has just fallen behind the times," you should think again. Wealth, mobility, and the Baals that the world has to offer to Gen X'ers have a lot more to do with the reason. If membership hemorrhaging has anything to do with our interior ecclesial life, it has more to do with our refusal to insist on high standards and accountability than it does on issues of Traditional VS. Contemporary worship styles.

I write about one possible response to this trend in my Reporter column this week. It is simply this: If we want Gen X'ers to see the church as a place where they are wanted and needed, the church needs to start relying on them. That means making a concerted effort at putting Gen X'ers into leadership positions, from the local church on up to General Conference.

Do you have any ideas?

Young Adults and the Church

The Division on Ministries with Young People is a relatively new initiative of the UMC that does outreach efforts for both youth ministry and young adult ministry. The person who heads up the young adult end of things is named Julie O'Neal. Among other efforts, Julie has been developing an online resource for young adults and young adult ministry called the Young Adult Network. Check it out.

The church should take notice of this. We don't do a great job of keeping our young adults after they graduate from high school and leave their youth groups. There is a high attrition rate for churchgoers in the college and 20-something years. And increasingly, once people stop going they never really start up again. So any outreach that meets young adults "where they are" is a good thing, especially when "where they are" is usually the Internet.

I did an interview with Julie recently about her work and specifically about the Young Adult Network. You can read it in this week's edition of the United Methodist Reporter.

I also did a column that looks at the problems facing young adult ministry and Julie's efforts at addressing them. My column is also in this week's issue.

Oh, and one more thing. A feature of the Young Adult Network is that they get real live young adults to write essays on the site that cover a number of different issues. The writer that they are featuring right now is Adrienne Trevathan, a good friend of mine from Lambuth days. Adrienne is a first year M.Div student at Garrett-Evangelical in Evanston, IL. She rocks. You can read her stuff on the front page of the YAN for the next few days.