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Young clergy evangelize in cyberspace


The United Methodist Young Clergy network is taking up the challenge of recruiting younger clergy and members through social media. UMNS photos courtesy of the Board of Higher Education and Ministry.

A UMNS Report
By Kathy L. Gilbert*
Aug. 28, 2009

Young United Methodist clergy see the elephant in the sanctuary – the fact more ministers are headed for retirement than the pulpits – and they are grabbing the mops.

The concerned under-35 crowd is doing what comes naturally. It is using social media – Facebook, Twitter and blogs – to form an online community to search for ways to draw more young people into ministry and into the pews.


Jenny Smith

A core group of 10 young clergy met with the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry in February. As a result, hundreds of young clergy are now talking and creating relationships in cyberspace through their own Web site, www.umcyoungclergy.com.

Throughout the denomination, young adults are responding to the evangelism challenge in several ways, from sharing their own stories about the ordination process to creating campaigns such as “40 Days of Prayer,” and “6 Questions for The United Methodist Church.”

The need is critical, research shows. The number of people under 35 ordained or on the track to be ordained dropped from 3,210 in 1985 to 910 in 2008, according to a study by the Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington. The average age of elders is 52; for ordained deacons it is 51.

“I decided I owed it to the church that raised me, paid for my college and seminary to ask the tough questions,” blogged Jenny Smith, a 26-year-old master of divinity student at United Theological Seminary who took part in the February meeting. “We decided it was time to name the elephants in the room for young clergy. When you know where the elephant is, it’s easier to clean up after it.”

Prayer first

The idea of calling young leaders to pray for 40 days for The United Methodist Church came from something God placed on the heart of Ben Simpson, 29, an ordained Baptist minister married to the Rev. Molly Simpson, an associate pastor at The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kan.

 
Ben Simpson

“God took me by surprise,” said Simpson, also a member of Resurrection Church. “I was responding in obedience. I didn't have any grand or lofty expectations when I put that project out there.”

He e-mailed 17 friends and colleagues and posted a blog spelling out his vision. In two weeks, Simpson had 30 volunteers to write prayers, and at the end of six weeks he had more than enough to complete the campaign.

“40 Days of Prayer for the United Methodist Church” began May 18. Prayers were posted every day through June 25. An average of 550 people visited the Web site during the first several days. A prayer guide was published.

The prayers are deeply personal, and from day one, there was no mincing of words.

“Today we confess our sins as a denomination,” wrote the Rev. Andrew Conard, associate pastor at The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, on the first day. “We confess that some of what we have done and some of what we have left undone has contributed to the mess in which we find ourselves and our denomination today. The United Methodist Church in North America has become a shell of what was once a vibrant movement spreading scriptural holiness across the land.”

The 40 days ended with hope.

“We’ve laid everything out before you,” Smith concluded on day 40. “It’s not pretty. We’re broken. But hopeful.”

Asking the right questions

The next inspiration came to Conard, who wondered: What are the right questions?

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“6 Questions for The United Methodist Church” was inspired by a quote from the Rev. Lovett Weems, author of “The Crisis of Younger Clergy.” He said, “Leaders do not need answers. Leaders must have the right questions.”

A 44-second YouTube video explains: “Our church has one mission, 3 simple rules, 4 areas of focus, 5 practices and now 6 questions.”

Conard said the purpose of the campaign is to raise important questions for next steps in the life of the church, provide guidance for future gatherings and shape the discourse across the denomination.

The campaign started June 25 and will end Sept. 30. He said the project “seeks to shape a conversation, not produce immediate action steps.”

So far, some of the top questions include: In what ways do you feel responsible for the ministry that happens through your church? How are you equipping the members of the church to live more faithfully, integrating their faith into their daily lives and work? How can we help (eliminate diseases of poverty) in this area in a way that is more than just giving money?”

More than 200 people have submitted more than 500 questions and cast 11,000 votes for their top questions.

Signs of encouragement

And the effort keeps expanding.

Smith has launched a project to help young people interested in ministry discern their calling. She has asked bloggers to publish a post on what it feels like to have a call into ministry.

 
The Rev. Andrew Conard

One of the contributors is the Rev. Becca Clark, an ordained elder in the Troy Annual Conference and pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church and Grace United Methodist Church in Vermont.

“The hardest part of discerning a call to ministry for me was believing it was possible,” she wrote. “I really didn’t think I was a good candidate, spiritually speaking. At the time I heard my call, I’d never read the whole Bible. I wasn’t much of a churchgoer. I was pretty new to that whole taking-religion-seriously thing, and I had a lot of doubts about a lot of the things I thought Christians Are Supposed to Believe.”

For his part, Simpson is working with the United Methodist Publishing House on a new book on “Becoming a Praying Congregation,” a collection of inspiration and ideas for encouraging prayer throughout a congregation.

“Historically, the prayers of the church have been formed by our worship, through times of private devotion and in consultation with trusty printed resources,” Simpson said. “But with recent advances in Web technology and social media tools, new forms have become available to us that enable us to come together in prayer in new and innovative ways.”

One of the images on the young clergy Web site seems to sum up the conversation among young leaders. It depicts a young man on the side of the road, holding up a sign: “Hope ahead.”

*Gilbert is a news writer for United Methodist News Service in Nashville, Tenn.

News media contact: Kathy L. Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

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