Hear the prayer of the prophet Habakkuk: "O Lord, I have heard of your renown, and I stand in
awe, O Lord, of your work. In our own time revive it; in our own time make it known . . . .
AMEN. (Habakkuk 3:2, NRSV)
I have been asked to read the State of the Church report and identify interesting findings,
emerging questions, challenging contradictions, and other implications resulting from the
research. I have chosen to do so using the concept of “provocative questions” with a heavy
emphasis on provocative.
The first task of leaders is to help define reality in the tradition of Nehemiah saying, “Look at the
trouble we are in.” Or as Peter Senge puts it, “Nothing is more limiting to a group than the
inability to talk about the truth.” The State of the Church report gives us an opportunity to look
at realities that our church faces.

Issue: Theological Grounding and Spiritual Vitality
Provocative Question: Can we capture the Wesleyan power of being an evangelical church
in a liberal tradition?
United Methodist core beliefs are clear, says the State of the Church report. There is remarkable
consensus on key affirmations of Christian faith. There is also strong evidence of spiritual
vitality across the church shown by extraordinary responses on questions of faith and core
beliefs, as well as practices of Christian discipleship, including social justice.

There are variations of emphasis across global regions and within the United States. These
differences should not overshadow the consensus, but they do point to the need for good
Wesleyan Christian conferencing in which we honestly engage theological differences for
mutual edification, knowing that no one perspective captures all of God’s wisdom.
United Methodists today appear to be in the tradition of Georgia Harkness, who spoke of herself
theologically as an “evangelical liberal.” She believed that it was possible to combine “tolerance
with decisiveness, open-mindedness with Christian conviction.” Most survey respondents would
agree with her that the powerful communication of the gospel is “the most important task under
God that any person can undertake.” The respondents also would affirm the call theologian
Claude H. Thompson made years ago for evangelical renewal in the United Methodist Church,
saying this is an hour when United Methodist evangelicals are called to eliminate the evils of
war, poverty, and racism from our society.

Could this Wesleyan identity be captured in an inclusive vision of an evangelical church in a
liberal tradition? We are an evangelical church. At the same time we are in a liberal tradition.
We are the first to challenge assumptions. We are the first to open windows and doors to new
ideas and possibilities when faith mandates it. Could such a vision that is both deep (in faith and
piety) and open (to new needs and possibilities) sustain us over the years ahead?
Issue: Global United Methodism
Provocative Question: Can the growing global regions of United Methodism remember the
first law of life-guarding—don’t let the drowning person drown you?
With the vast differences among the world regions of United Methodism in growth, vitality, and
hopefulness named in the report, what should connectionalism and mutuality among them look
like?

One way to think about it is to ask what American Methodists most needed from other
Methodists during years of dramatic growth. The last things needed were another culture’s
structure, rules, liturgies, and politics. Of more benefit would be prayer, relationships, resources,
and genuine partnerships in reaching others for Christ and healing and transforming the world.
The money required for a global governance system on the traditional U.S. model could, if
rechanneled, mean the difference in life or death to untold numbers of people, missions,
congregations, schools, and clergy around the world.
How then do we accomplish a global church with maximum support and minimum interference?
This leads to structure, another major topic of the State of the Church report.

Issue: Structure
Provocative Question: Can we move from a structure of control to a structure of grace?
Mainline denominations have often been fundamentalists of structure rather than of doctrine. It
is not working, according to the State of the Church report. From the General Conference
through virtually every level of structure, clergy and laity express significant dissatisfaction. Is it
time to create a Discipline that leaves organizational detail to all the global regions with the
challenge to simplify, simplify, simplify?

What might this mean specifically?

We live in a time when people are not anxious to have others make decisions for them or to
speak for them. What if the General Conference came to address the “essentials” of doctrine and
United Methodist self-understanding and then left to the global regions all matters of structure,
regulations, and proclamations? Further, could the global regions themselves take a minimalist
approach? For example, could we agree that significantly more than a simple majority be
required for all policy, directives, and proclamations addressed to other than the operations of
that body—given this time of high distrust of systems of control?

What if we saw the role of leaders as helping to insure accountability to the mission and vision –
rather than managing structures? Accountability, then, is based on faithfulness to our mission,
vision, and values, and no longer simply on authority. Leaders do not spend time telling people
what they cannot do, but asking people what they are doing about our shared commitments.
People will be less likely to feel the need constantly to report what they will not do because no
one is telling them what they must do. Instead, everyone is busy being responsive to the shared
vision because that is the expected accountability.

The message to all levels of the church is that you are free to be flexible with your structure.
You are not, however, free to structure in a way that does not promote the manifestation of the
power of God where you have the calling of ministry. You are free to structure for reaching
diverse populations in any way you choose with one exception. You are not free to structure in a
way that does not result in the love of God through Christ becoming a reality for all the people
you are called to serve.

Accountability in our day will not come by mandates, legislation, or resolutions. Accountability
instead may be achieved through the right questions. Leaders no longer will be those with the
answers but those with the questions. The background for every question must be what it is God
is calling us to do.

Issue: An Aging Church
Provocative Question: Can medical science continue to keep U.S. United Methodism alive?

When the Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren Churches stopped growing in the 1960s,
the average age of members was well below the general population, and that continued until
about 1975. Since 1975, the average age in U.S. United Methodism has gone up consistently.
Despite over thirty years of aging as a denomination, with the help of medical science we are still
alive.

The failure to reach younger people is abundantly clear in the State of the Church report. It is
painful to read that clergy seem less concerned about this than laity are, and that laity want
younger people but are not willing to change their worship or budgets to reach younger
generations. The report is clear that the gap between rhetoric and action appears to be as large as
the age gap that some believe threatens the future viability of the denomination.

Issue: Finances
Provocative Question: Can we escape the approaching “tipping point” of declining income
after over thirty years of aging as a denomination?

There is strong support for apportionments as an effective and efficient way to pay for work
beyond the local church. The report describes attitudes toward apportionments and giving as
positive, though these are not as strong among younger people.

One unfortunate reason the aging of the denomination has not received more attention is that in
aging congregations, the availability of financial resources tends to continue, and perhaps even
increase. Overall, people have more assets from age fifty and above than at any other time in
their lives.

The next two decades will bring the death of a large group of United Methodists nurtured in
another era and with an exemplary dedication and commitment. Some will continue their giving
to the church through estate plans. But in the final analysis, churches cannot thrive on either
inherited faithfulness or inherited money. There must be a vision and enthusiasm to capture the
hearts and souls of a new generation of disciples.

Issue: Young Clergy
Provocative Question: Should we declare young United Methodist clergy as an endangered
species?

There has been a dramatic drop in the number and percentage of United Methodist clergy under
the age of 35 in the last 20 years in the United States, with the percentage of clergy under the age of 35 now below 5 percent. The young clergy crisis is a complex, multi-dimensional
phenomenon. There is no single cause and no single solution.

Why is it crucial for the pool of clergy to include a proportionate number of younger persons?
Without them, new ideas, creativity, energy, and cultural awareness often exhibited by the young
are lost. With more persons entering ministry with fewer years to serve, the wisdom and
experience that can come with long tenures in ministry are also in jeopardy. Young clergy have
certain advantages in reaching out to their own generation—speaking the language of an
emerging generation whose worldview and communication modes differ from those of their
parents’ generation. Just as importantly, the very presence of young clergy in a church
symbolizes that younger persons are valued as leaders and participants. All of these factors help
explain why young clergy seem particularly well suited to the task of church planting. Research
has found that pastors between the ages of 24 and 35 were the most successful in founding
churches.

Issue: Diversity
Provocative Question: Should the affirmative action and monitoring priority for the next
decade be people of color professions of faith?

Diversity is not as prominent in the State of the Church report as one would expect, given the
fact that the United States is experiencing one of the most dramatic shifts in racial and ethnic
makeup in its history. But the report makes clear that diversity continues to be a high value, and
commitment continues toward the elimination of racial inequities.

Diversity was a challenge for Wesley and early Methodists. Yet the results make clear the
seriousness with which Wesley took the task. The need for a renewed spirit of inclusion of
people is crucial today. The youthfulness of the growing racial ethnic diversity in the United
States makes its impact even more significant for the future. Clearly the church’s vitality in the
next century will be shaped largely by its willingness and ability to respond to the changing face
of America.

Issue: Future
Provocative Question: Can the church change to reach more people, younger people, and
more diverse people?
The United Methodist Church in the United States has a future only to the extent that it can find
ways to reach more people, younger people, and more diverse people.
The United Methodist Church did very well “growing up” with America through the nineteenth
century and into the early decades of the twentieth century. Then, as the last century unfolded,
the nation changed and the church did not. Earlier generations had followed Americans from
East to West, from urban to frontier, and from lower to middle and upper-middle classes. But
success led to staying with practices even as they became increasingly less effective.
Today the United Methodist Church in the U. S. is not only dramatically smaller, but it is older
and less diverse than the population. Thus, the premise emerges that we must learn to reach
more people, younger people, and more diverse people.

Issue: Large Churches
Provocative Question: Can we learn from a cohort of large churches that have for thirty
years been reaching more people, younger people, and more diverse people?
We are aware that new church starts are particularly effective in reaching more people, younger
people, and more diverse people. Less well known is another group of churches that have been
doing for three decades what the whole church must learn to do in the years ahead.
Churches with average worship attendance of 500 or more make up 1% of United Methodist
churches in the U.S. In 1975 (when the age of United Methodists became older than the national
population), these churches represented about 9 percent of membership, attendance, and
professions of faith. Today these churches represent
20% of membership
20% of attendance
24% of professions of faith
25% of youth
26% of children
29% of people of color
This takes nothing away from other churches, but these numbers—which represent people
reached for Christ—cry out for attention to what we all can learn from these congregations.

Issue: Pastoral Effectiveness
Provocative Question: Can we shift our attention from a few ineffective clergy to the many
faithful pastors who desperately need help in becoming fruitful?

The report indicates that pastors and laity do not strongly affirm that clergy are well trained,
expertly supervised, and appropriately assigned to churches.

Ineffective clergy take up far too much time and energy. There are not many, and every bishop
and superintendent knows them by name. The church must provide just, compassionate, and
immediate ways, as the 1992 Episcopal Address put it, “to assist ineffective clergy to seek
another vocation . . . ."

We know from the State of the Church and other research that most clergy receive high marks
from laity on their character and almost as high on their competence in the functions of pastoral
ministry. But what we are finding in our research at Lewis Center for Church Leadership is that
clergy and laity agree that pastors are not doing well in accomplishing the “fruits of ministry,” a
key concept for John Wesley. Wesley asked three questions: 1) Is there faith? 2) Are there
gifts? and 3) Are there fruits?

A Future Worthy of Our Past
These ten questions lead us finally to wonder if we can have a future worthy of our past.
Without a new vision, the future does not look bright. When I was a child, Methodism in the
U.S. was at one of its historic high points as a percent of population. Today the United
Methodist presence in the U.S. is back where it was around 1820. At present rates, we will
before long be back at the percentage at the time of the Christmas Conference.
It does not have to be that way. Indeed, it is in times of hardship that new visions often emerge.
It was in a time of despair that Nehemiah and his people united to rebuild the wall. It was after
hundreds of years of suffering that Habakkuk sought and received the vision of the just shall live
by faith. It was in the midst of life-denying realities that Jesus proclaimed the vision that all
might have abundant life.

Would it not be wonderful if at some future General Conference a bishop delivering the
Episcopal Address might make the following statement and immediately all heads nod in instant
recognition of its truth?

As I think back on United Methodism in recent times, the only fitting description
is in the words written years ago to the church at Thyatira. “I know all your ways,
your love and faithfulness, your good service and your fortitude; and of late you
have done even better than at first” (Rev. 2:19 NEB).

Lovett H. Weems, Jr. (lovettw@wesleyseminary.edu) is distinguished professor of church
leadership and director of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership of Wesley Theological
Seminary in Washington, D.C.
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