Yesterday morning Bishop Sharon Brown Christopher gave the Episcopal Address, or the state of the church report, to the entire plenary. It was well done – for the first time, multimedia was used. We got to see snippets of United Methodists in action – from El Paso to Africa. And there was much rejoicing – at the $18 million Ums have raised for Nothing But Nets, to provide bednets for children in Africa as a means of preventing malaria nothingbutnets.net At the four emphases of the general church:1) Engage in ministry with the poor
2) Stamp out killer diseases among the poor, such as malaria, globally
3) Create new places of ministry for new people, and revitalize existing congregations
4) Develop principled Christian leaders for the church and the world.
While I like them all (and they aren’t exclusive – peacemaking, for example, isn’t listed out but is clearly a focus of ministry), one of the sub-goals of #4 rang true for me personally: increase the percentage of women clergy serving large membership churches. Worldwide that’s a pitifully small number. Of the 45,000 UM clergy just a little over 10,000 are women – and most serve small and mid-sized churches.
It’s clear that we as the church must do things differently, and quickly. In 1968 there were 11 million UMs in the United States; today there are 7.9 million. The number of elders (ordained clergy) has dropped by 24% in the past 30 years; the number of elders under age 45 has dropped from 9100 in 1985 to just 3300 in 2008. Churches are reporting 21.5% fewer baptisms.
So where is our future with hope?
I found it in the first-ever young people’s address at noon yesterday. Six young people, from ages 15-25, shared their visions, their hurts, their dreams and their hopes. Go online and see it – it’s worth the 30 minutes.
And 4 of these young people mentioned, for the first time, that the inclusiveness and diversity of the United Methodist Church, which we all hold so dear, MUST include sexual orientation. It’s not enough just to be accepting of racial/ethnic/gender diversity. They named it. None of the other speakers, including ones leading us on sensitivity training the night before, had.
There is hope for the church. I saw it in the faces of these six. And I see it in the faces of all of us at Hollywood UMC.
1 comment:
There is a future for the United Methodist Church, to the extent that:
-- there is always a future for disciples of Christ coming together in community to transform the world (we call that community "the church')
-- that the UMC reforms itself to become relevant in the world again.
I do believe that Hollywood UMC is a pioneer, in our willingness to embrace diversity in full and to step out on faith and embrace change. We can show the rest of the denomination that it's possible to be different and yet successful.
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