See the first part and second part of this multi-series of posts about the UMC’s study that found ineffective clergy the biggest obstacle to overcoming the denominations 40 year decline. 3) The genesis of the article was the issue of decline. No one likes decline. But I ask,what determines our definition of decline? How do we even know that the UMC is in decline? What is the indicator? How do we even know that the UMC is in decline? What is the indicator?
Of course, the reason why we say we are in decline is because our worship attendance, membership and Sunday school numbers are down. But, is this what we should be looking at? One of my issues with the UMC is that our goals all seem to have some connection to our Sunday morning experience. We have made the issue of effectiveness based on our worshipand our Sunday School. My question is: Why? Is there more to a church than Sunday morning worship? Apparently not in the UMC. That seems to be the most important factor about the church. That is what we measure, what determines if we are in decline and what measures a pastor’s effectiveness in ministry. Are his/her numbers up? That is the question we continue to ask about pastors. I’m discovering that what we measure affects how we see ourselves and how we do things. If we believed that the most important thing about a church is how many outreach programs there are, or how much the building was being used for community programs, we would measure those things. We would also begin developing those types of ministries. Since we measure worship attendance, Sunday school attendance and membership, churches spend their time and energy doing things to increase those statistics. Is it possible for a church to be increasing in ministry while decreasing in worship, membership and Sunday school? What if a church decided to reach out to organizations that meet on Sunday mornings? What if a church released its members to miss church so they might be able to minister to those who would never show up to a service? In such a case, the church could decrease in attendance, yet, increase in ministry. I propose that we need to stop making attendance and membership the determining factor on whether a church is declining or not. While it is easy to measure attendance and membership, real ministry is a better indicator of whether a church is following the call of Jesus or not. Is it possible for us to find other ways to measure the ministry of a church? It might be time to try. |
