By James V. Heidinger II,
President and Publisher
GOOD NEWS PERSPECTIVE – No. 14, March 3, 2008
Welcome to this issue of Perspective, Good News’ e-mail newsletter sent out every two weeks to United Methodists across the nation. We hope you are finding it helpful and informative. If so, feel free to forward it to family, friends, or persons in your local church who might be interested in receiving it. The e-mail is free. To subscribe, send your e-mail address to: perspective@goodnewsmag.org. E-mail addresses will not be sold or shared.
UNITED METHODISM LOSING MEMBERS TO EVANGELICAL PROTESTANT CHURCHES – A landmark study of religion in America released February 25 by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life revealed that the United Methodist Church is losing more members than it’s gaining, with its parishioners increasingly moving to evangelical Protestant churches or choosing not to affiliate with another religious group at all.
One significant finding in the study was that of the 53 percent who left the Methodist faith tradition of their childhood, 19 percent went to evangelical churches!
For forty years, we have heard stories of evangelical United Methodists leaving our denomination because of powerless sermons from ministers who did not believe in the truth of the Word, the resurrection of Christ, or the transformed life through the Holy Spirit. There have been others who have been driven away from United Methodism because of excessive liberal political diatribes from the pulpit.
The Pew Forum study was based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans age 18 and older. The study estimates that of the nation’s 225 million adults, 78 percent are Christian, 5 percent belong to other faiths and more than 16 percent are unaffiliated. Of those professing to be Christian, more than 26 percent belong to Evangelical Protestant Churches while just 18 percent belong to mainline Protestant churches. Among the 18 percent of mainline Protestants, United Methodists have the largest share at 5.4 percent with Lutherans next at 2.8 percent.
Some of us involved in evangelical renewal ministries have watched many of our finest, most biblically-grounded members come to the sad conclusion that they can no longer remain in the denomination of their youth. I have watched this pattern even among persons in their 60s and 70s. Think about that. It takes a profound sense of alienation for a 70-year-old United Methodist to conclude she can no longer remain a member of the church that has been her only, life-time spiritual home.
United Methodist leaders have been in denial, it seems to me, about why we have been losing members. For many years, we’ve been told it is mostly a matter of demographics—that persons aren’t leaving because they are upset or dissatisfied. It seems to me, however, to be a stunning statistic that 53 percent of those raised in the Methodist faith tradition from their childhood have left for another church communion. This is more than just demographics.
I remember visiting years ago with my friend, the Rev. Harvey Chinn, who for more than 20 years was pastor at First UMC in Sacramento, California. Harvey had retired from pastoring and had gone to be the executive director of the California Alcohol and Gambling Council. I vividly recall Harvey telling me that after a number of years visiting churches all across the state of California, he had made a startling discovery: “Jim, the largest denomination in California is ‘I used to be United Methodist.’” A casual look at the tragic membership losses in either California annual conference will confirm Harvey’s claim.
For Marta Aldrich’s lengthy UMNS report on the Pew Forum’s highly significant, landmark survey, LINK:
HOLSTON, EAST AFRICA CONFERENCES SIGN SUDAN COVENANT – The face of missions is changing, it would appear. Increasingly, local churches and now an annual conference, are getting directly involved in mission partnerships with United Methodist Churches in other countries. Consider:
In the summer of 2005, United Methodist Bishop James Swanson and his staff talked about possible mission projects they could pursue.
One staff member mentioned a book she had read over the weekend about the "lost boys" of Sudan. Swanson told of a photo e-mailed to him that morning showing a starving Sudanese child being watched by a nearby vulture. The bishop was haunted by the image and challenged the staff in the Holston Annual (regional) Conference to act.
On Feb. 23, less than three years after that routine Tuesday morning meeting, Swanson signed a covenant with Bishop Daniel Wandabula of the East Africa Conference that includes Sudan [as well as Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, and Kenya]. The covenant also was signed by Bishop Felton E. May, interim top executive of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries.
The covenant formally establishes Holston as the first United Methodist conference or church to be in mission in south Sudan. The partnership will provide a school, clinic and other facilities in Yei, as well as educational assistance, church leadership development, volunteer labor and supplies.
Some fundraising already has provided land for the new facilities, pastors' salaries, a physician and nurse, school equipment and two wells in south Sudan. In addition, Holston Conference commits to raising $250,000 over the next two years.
The covenant signing was the centerpiece of a missions celebration held February 22-24 at First Broad Street United Methodist Church in Kingsport, Tennessee, with the participation of Swanson, Wandabula, and representatives from local and international agencies.
Bishop Wandabula said, “I am grateful that the Holston Annual Conference was the first conference to accept God’s call to come and work with south Sudan.”
For the full article by Annette Spence, editor of the Holston Conference’s newsletter The Call, go to: LINK
FOUNDRY UMC PASTOR WILL LEAD SERVICES THAT “RECOGNIZE AND HONOR LESBIAN AND GAY COMMITTED RELATIONSHIPS” – Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C., has announced it will recognize same-sex unions in special ceremonies that fall just short of an official wedding.
The action, which became effective February 1, has made headlines in the Washington Post and other newspapers. Foundry is the church presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) attended with her husband, Bill, while he was in office.
In the church’s February newsletter, the Rev. Dean Snyder, senior pastor, announced he will lead services that “recognize and honor lesbian and gay committed relationships.”
These church services, however, will not be “ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions,” he added, citing the denomination’s Book of Discipline sanction against United Methodist clergy performing such ceremonies.
Dr. Snyder said that his action—which indeed walks a fine line—reflects “an attempt to be ecclesiastically obedient while at the same time offering pastoral care to our members.”
Guidelines for the new services at Foundry require that same-sex “marriage” ceremonies, where couples actually exchange vows, to be held off-site and not be led by a church minister. The church would, however, host worship services that recognize and honor commitments that have already been made. (One must ask just how, exactly, these are not in fact “ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions,” which are expressly forbidden by the United Methodist Book of Discipline (See Par. 341.6).
For a United Methodist pastor and congregation to “recognize and honor same-sex commitments” is to engage in a ceremony that “celebrates homosexual unions.” There is no way one can do such a ceremony and claim to be “ecclesiastically obedient.” Unfortunately, a spokesperson for the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference said, “There is no violation of the Methodist Book of Discipline as it relates to Foundry Methodist Church.”
Foundry’s pastor is opening himself for a formal complaint, which will be an attempt by persons who are supportive of the Discipline and the church’s traditional moral teaching to try to hold this highly visible UM church accountable to our doctrine and polity.
A formal complaint should not be needed. Rather, there should be episcopal intervention that tells the pastor and congregation that no such services will be held. Period.
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