IT'S JUST NOT WORKING ANYMORE

Tom Berlin is the chair of Wesley Theological Seminary's Board of Governors. When he's frustrated, he says: "It's just not working anymore." Tom is pastor of Floris UMC, located in a Virginia suburb of Washington, DC. Floris is one of the one hundred largest United Methodist churches in the US. Tom is always among the first clergy elected to represent the Virginia Annual Conference at General Conference, and he serves on the Commission on the Way Forward (a group tasked with finding a solution to the dispute that could divide United Methodist polity). Tom as an optimistic, articulate, thoughtful pastor who calls out the best in others and very much wants to fix the church. Think of him as our Tom Hanks. (He even looks like the guy who plays the part of the sun on the Jimmy Dean Breakfast Sandwich commercial). So, when Tom says, "It's just not working anymore," his discouragement is discouraging. Tom isn't alone.

Leaders in all quarters of our denomination are reaching the same conclusion: it's just not working anymore. I get it in the form of questions from students and prospective students who ask, "What am I getting into?" "Will I be able to stay in ministry if I pay for this degree?"

Can We Restart Our Movement?

Through the ages, most people became Christians without thinking much about it. They joined because other people did — their tribal chief or monarch, their parents, their neighbors, their spouse, or even their children. For decades, this type momentum fueled the growth of our congregations. But when it stops working, it's like running out of gas at the bottom of the hill.

In a movement, most people believe in the cause. In an institution, most people believe in the institution. Movements beget institutions. This is what happened to us. But institutions also beget movements. In China today, Christianity is a fast-moving movement. Nearby in Korea, which has the largest Methodist congregations in the world, churches have reached an amazing degree of institutional development and are now thinking about how to foster new movements. I believe The United Methodist Church in the US is in "late-stage institutionalism," and the question is whether we can restart the movement again.

Two groups have the biggest influence on whether we can become a movement again: (1) appointed and elected denominational leaders and (2) the leaders of our theological schools. These two groups must come to a consensus about the gravity of our condition and the importance of reviving the movement.

Indicators of Systemic Failure

I could spend every Sunday for a year attending worship in a thriving United Methodist congregation in the mid-Atlantic area. But they are like pools of water in a drying riverbed.

Our denomination is experiencing the psychological and social equivalent of an economic recession. And, as with an economic recession, the problem is system-wide. What are the signs? Let me begin with some of the more objectively verifiable signs of systemic failure:

1. A steady decline in church membership and worship attendance despite an increase in the overall population.

2. A continual increase in the average age of our congregations, compared to the general population.

3. Our inability to plant many truly successful new churches or to close enough old, unsuccessful churches.

4. Our failure to attract enough young, diverse, and high-quality new clergy, and our inability to remediate or remove poorly performing clergy.

Additionally, there are some more subjective signs of systemic failure:

1. Increasingly, some of our best pastors are reluctant to be nominated to the episcopacy, and bishops find it harder to recruit them to serve as district superintendents. And, year after year, the same individuals seem to be re-elected as lay delegates to annual conferences.

2. Fewer of the best college students from strong church backgrounds express an interest in ministry as a profession, and many of those who do enter seminary say they want something other than the local church ministry.

3. For some time, in many churches, the average amount given by individual members has been on the rise because fewer people are giving larger gifts. This is the heroic efforts of the most loyal, often older members to counteract a shrinking donor base.

4. Our General Conference has been transfixed for more than twenty years by the continued disagreement over the acceptance of LGBTQ people. This is a symptom of something broken in the body politic. As a longtime resident of Washington, DC, I recognize the pattern of polarization and legislative gridlock.

We have earnestly tried to reverse many of the trends. We have spent considerable time and money with little or no result, even though we are full of good, smart, well-meaning people. A team that's working really well is said to be "more than the sum of its parts." Conversely, a team that isn't working well is "less than the sum of its parts." Isn't that the case with us?

In 2012, Lovett Weems introduced the riveting metaphor of the "death tsunami." His book Focus: The Real Challenges That Face The United Methodist Church, 2 published in advance of the 2012 General Conference, presented research documenting the aging of our denomination. Most people can see that with their own eyes on any given Sunday morning. But what's not as apparent to people in the pews is that this trend is accelerating. The projection shows a veritable tidal wave of deaths, cresting sometime between 2040 and 2050. While the United States population is aging, it's dramatically more so in the church. So not only is it "just not working anymore" — it's going to get worse. (I would have added that in the title of this chapter, but it sounded too grim.)

Price Point: The Challenge for Seminaries

What about our theological schools? A well-known business school came to me several years ago exploring the possibility of a joint degree. They had developed a "product," as they called it. It was an MBA for the social sector, where they had forged a partnership with a medical school to prepare hospital administrators. Now they thought clergy might be a vast untapped market. After a few rounds of conversation, they broke it off, saying, "There's no money in educating clergy." This was an epiphany for a business school dean but a reality I deal with daily.

The precise problem seminaries face is what marketers would call the "price point." The salary churches are willing to pay pastors, and the amount they are willing to contribute...