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By Rich Peck*
3:00 P.M. EST April 9, 2010 | NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS)
The Rev. Larry Hollon, top staff executive of United Methodist
Communications, tells the Call to Action Committee about research on how
people view Christianity.
UMNS photos by Rich Peck.
View in Photo Gallery
Many United Methodists would agree there are gaps between where the
church is and where it wants to be.
A decline in membership in the United States and growing fiscal
problems represent two of many such gaps.
The 12-member Call to Action Committee, meeting April 6-8 in
Nashville, set plans to gather data from across the United States to
help the church discover ways to bridge these gaps.
The committee is a successor to an earlier 18-member group appointed
by the Council of Bishops to reorder the life of the church for greater
effectiveness and vitality in “making disciples for Jesus Christ for the
transformation of the world,” and addressing the Four Areas of Focus
endorsed by the denomination’s 2008 legislative assembly, the General
Conference.
Led by Bishop Gregory Palmer, president of the Council of Bishops,
the group dreams of a church:
- with more grace and freedom and fewer rules––more accountability
to gospel and less conformity to an outdated, bureaucratic system;
- more ministry with the poor and less reticence to link arms with the
desperate, the sick and the hungry;
- more dreaming about what will be and less struggling to preserve
what was;
- and more trust and less cynicism.
“It is an enormous project,” said Fred Miller, process consultant for
the group and president of The Chatham (Mass.) Group. “We wouldn’t be
here if everything was OK.”
He asked the group to focus on the big picture and not tinker with
“stress-reducing distractions.” He encouraged them to “imagineer
(engineer and imagine) what could be.”
To start their work, the committee employed two consulting groups to
gather data from which they can make final recommendations.
Doors to effect change
Mark Harrison, founder of Manhattan Beach, Calif.,-based Apex
Healthcare Group, will conduct an “operational assessment” to provide
three to five “doors” that may open pathways to improve decision-making
and affordability. He is also asked to find ways to increase
effectiveness in addressing the Four
Areas of Focus.
“This is not a performance audit of each general agency and the
Council of Bishops,” Harrison said. “It is an aggregate evaluation.”
He plans to conduct interviews with bishops, agencies executives,
pastors and laypersons, and he is scheduled to finish work by June 27.
Harrison is not a United Methodist and comes to the position as an
outsider with experience in company mergers. Following 20 years as an
investment banker, Harrison has also done consulting work for the Red
Cross, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the
Baylor College of Medicine.
Asked his early impressions of the denomination, he told United
Methodist News Service that the church appears “diffuse without
sufficient alignment.”
Vitality factors
Towers Watson, a New York-based organization with 14,000 employees
around the world, will provide the committee with information about
factors that contribute to church vitality.
The agency interviewed bishops, pastors and laypeople to discover six
indicators of church vitality. These interviews and responses to a Web
survey resulted in the following indicators:
- Average worship attendance as percentage of membership;
- Total membership;
- Number of children, youth and young adults attending as percentage
of membership;
- Number of professions of faith as percentage of attendance and
membership;
- Actual giving per attendee; and
- Finance benevolence giving beyond the local church as a percentage
of the church budget.
David B. de Wetter, a Chicago-based executive with the organization,
said the agency will categorize churches based on percentage increase or
decrease in each item over a five-year period.
The agency also wanted to consider the percentage of persons involved
in mission activities, but there was doubt about the consistent
availability of that information across all annual conferences.
Bishop Gregory Palmer (right), chairperson of the Call To Action
Committee, shares thoughts with consultants Mark Harrison
and
Frederick Miller.
View in Photo Gallery
Towers Watson staff will mine existing data submitted by local
churches and tabulated by the United Methodist General Council on
Finance and Administration (GCFA). The 33,850 churches will be grouped
into churches with high, medium and low vitality; and 25-30 percent of
churches from each group will be selected at random to determine factors
that drive vitality. All individual church information will remain
confidential; only the aggregate findings will be used.
The staff will survey all active U.S. bishops, all district
superintendents, and pastors and laity in selected local churches.
Others will be able to provide insights on a Web site to be announced by
May 1.
Once the group identifies structures, policies and practices that
encourage vitality, it may recommend ways in which these can be
encouraged throughout the denomination. Towers Watson is expected to
report its initial findings by late June.
Given its limited time, the group agreed to focus only on U.S.
churches for this initial work. Other groups, including the 20-member
World Wide Nature of the Church Committee, will address international
concerns. The church has 7.8 million U.S. members and 11.5 million
worldwide.
Number of clergy
Scott Brewer, GCFA senior researcher, told the group it takes more
than 100 church members to support a full-time pastor. He noted there
are 25,074 charges (including pastors assigned to two or more churches),
and 15,527 of these charges have fewer than 100 members; 8,001 of these
small-membership charges are served by full-time pastors.
“We are overstaffed if our mission field is existing churches,” said
Bishop Palmer. “But if our mission is the world, we are understaffed.”
The first Call to Action committee called for consideration of the
elimination of guaranteed appointments for elders. The United Methodist
Commission to Study the Ministry is tackling this issue.
Later this year, the Call to Action Committee will host a meeting of
current study groups addressing such issues as worldwide nature of the
church, theological education, clergy health and apportionments. The
groups will consult about developing findings and recommendations for
General Conference emerging from each study and consider ways in which
they can cooperate.
Funded by a $500,000 grant from the Connectional Table, the Call to
Action Committee will give a final report to the Council of Bishops in
November. The committee will also report to the Connectional Table.
Either of those groups could take recommendations to the 2012 General
Conference.
*Peck is a retired clergy member of New York Annual Conference and a
freelance writer in Nashville.
News media contact: Tim Tanton, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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