UMR Communications is offering the latest headlines in the RSS format.
Q & A
Q&A: Busting myths that hurt United Methodism Bill Fentum, May 16, 2008
United Methodists, says the Rev. Craig Kennet Miller, hold too many beliefs that just aren’t true. He urges us to stop thinking, for instance, that “big churches are bad” or that “we don’t know how to start new churches.”
In his book, 7 Myths of the United Methodist Church (Discipleship Resources), and its related Web site, www.gbod.org/7myths, Dr. Miller, director of pastoral leadership for the denomination’s General Board of Discipleship, suggests ways local congregations can help reverse membership decline and revitalize the UMC. He talked recently with staff writer Bill Fentum.
You say that a tension exists between the church as an institution and the Methodist movement.
Yes, and it’s probably been there since the beginning. The Methodist movement, after all, started as a reaction to the institution of the Church of England. The early Methodists met outside of the institutional life in small groups and class meetings as a way to further their faith and development. What I think I hear people saying today is they want to recover that sense of movement.
How do we start?
It means rediscovering some of the front sections of the Book of Discipline, that don’t have to do with rules and regulations. As United Methodists, we grow in faith through the practice of spiritual disciplines like weekly worship, communion and praying with others. Those practices are our means of grace that move us into a deeper relationship with one another and with God.
One of the myths we buy into, you say, is that people in our congregations don’t want change. Are you sure?
I think most United Methodists see that the culture is changing, and they know they have to do something to reach new generations. Because in many cases they see younger family members who no longer come to their church or go to other churches or to no church at all. I hope the book can get us thinking about the things that hinder our growth.
What’s to be done at the local level?
I ask congregations to look inward at their “DNA”—their Discipleship Process, their Niche and their Affection. The discipleship process is the system a congregation uses to bring people into faith in Jesus Christ. And every church has a niche, a segment it serves in the wider spiritual community. They also have affections or passions, whether it’s for youth ministry, social justice or helping the homeless.
But most churches think they need to reach everybody, so over time they lose touch with their DNA and live it out only by default. Before long, there’s no clear discipleship process, their niche gets smaller every year and their affection is reserved for people already in the pews. Newcomers may feel like uninvited guests at a party.
When congregations decide to change their DNA, they’re bound to try a few ministries that just don’t work. How can they stay encouraged?
Anytime we do something new, it means taking a series of steps. Sure, not every step is going to work. That’s OK, as long as we evaluate it afterward and learn from it. But if we lock ourselves into an attitude that says, “We tried that idea 10 years ago, and it failed,” then we get away from the concept of innovation. And yeah, it becomes discouraging.
I’ve found Robert Quinn’s book, Deep Change, to be really helpful. He says that “deep change” in any business or institution always requires faith that something better can emerge from our efforts and transformation can happen.
But in some cases you recommend closing a dying church and giving back its assets to the annual conference.
That’s one option, but there are others. The book tells the story of a United Methodist church in the Virginia Conference that was on its last legs several years ago. They had even stopped using their sanctuary because they couldn’t afford to keep it heated and air-conditioned. But a new pastor came on board, and she helped turn things around with a clear vision on young people and innovation. When she was appointed, it was a congregation of 15 older adults; now those members are part of a vital, multi-generational ministry that connects with young people in the neighborhood. Last year 39 people joined that church, 16 of them by profession of faith.
You give a lot of statistics to disprove another myth, that we have too many local churches. Some of the country’s most highly populated areas such as southern California and Nevada, for instance, have the fewest United Methodist churches.
That was part of my reason for writing the book, to put a lot of the latest data about our denomination in one place so readers can take a look at our current reality. We need to think beyond our annual conferences and jurisdictions and say, “Where are the areas of the country where we as United Methodists should start churches?” We’ve basically gone at it as a conference-by-conference endeavor, but one of the things the Board of Discipleship’s Path 1 team is looking at is how to start thinking of church planting as a national strategy.
The ideal example is Daybreak United Methodist Fellowship, a church plant in Las Vegas that started through a partnership between the Desert-Southwest Conference and the North Georgia Conference. Candace Lansberry, an elder in Desert-Southwest, is leading the congregation. And North Georgia, which has big history of starting new churches, is providing funds and training.
You talk about “the Katrina effect,” a sense of partnership between conferences that actually flourished after the hurricane in 2005.
We saw a strong social network develop—the institution and the Methodist movement were on the same page. Churches and individuals in other parts of the country called people on the Gulf Coast and said, “What do you need?” Now it’s time to put that connection to work in other ways, including church planting.
How do we start? 
When congregations decide to change their DNA, they’re bound to try a few ministries that just don’t work. How can they stay encouraged? 
