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NEWS ANALYSIS
Has our United Methodist ad campaign
ignited any church growth?
By John Lomperis

After 36 years of steady membership decline, the United Methodist Communications Commission proposed to the denomination’s 2000 General Conference an ambitious national media outreach campaign. Without major debate, delegates overwhelmingly approved $20 million for the “Igniting Ministry” campaign over the next four years.

But United Methodism has lost over 300,000 members since the campaign began, at a rate of decline even faster than prior to the ads.

Some evangelicals have complained about the theological implications of the campaign’s slogan: “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors.” Some liberals have complained that the ads are false because the church will not bless same-sex unions or affirm homosexual clergy.

But in 2004, the delegates overwhelmingly approved another $27.4 million for the ads. One delegate optimistically declared: “Igniting Ministry could be the catalyst by which we could reverse the decline that we continue to experience.” But that hope has been disappointed.

According to the General Council on Finance and Administration (GCFA), between 1996-2000, United Methodist membership in the U.S. declined by 1.8 percent. Between 2000-2004, U.S. membership decline quickened A UMNS photo illustration by James Stephens. to 2.6 percent. Between 1996-2000, U.S. worship attendance increased by 1.2 percent, but over the next four years, U.S. attendance shrank by 2.5 percent. The Igniting Ministry website contains poignant anecdotes of individuals who visited United Methodist congregations because of the ads. The website also includes survey data showing that the campaign has successfully “increased public awareness of the denomination,” and estimated that tens of millions who have seen the ads have enhanced perceptions of United Methodists.

An April 2004 survey for Igniting Ministry cited impressive statistics of increased first-time and overall worship attendance between 2000 and 2004 at 164 “representative churches from throughout the United States” and significant numbers of spiritual “seekers” surveyed in five “test markets” (Baltimore, Maryland; Indianapolis, Indiana; Portland, Oregon; Raleigh, North Carolina; San Antonio, Texas) expressed a willingness to visit a United Methodist congregation. According to United Methodist Communications, this study played a key role in the decision of the 2004 General Conference to devote more money to the campaign.

But the “representative congregations” clearly were not representative of U.S. congregations as a whole, given the continued national membership decline. As for the test media markets, the United Methodist annual conferences surrounding three of these cities (Baltimore-Washington, South Indiana, and Oregon-Idaho) experienced overall attendance declines ranging from 1.3 percent to 5.2 percent and membership declines from 4.3 percent to 7.7 percent in the same time period as the study.

If the Oregon-Idaho Conference continues its current rate of decline, in another two generations its churches will on average include fewer than 30 people in worship. The Southwest Texas (which includes San Antonio) and North Carolina (which includes Raleigh-Durham) Conferences experienced growth in both attendance and membership during this time. But they had already been doing this in 2000 prior to the start of Igniting Ministry. From 2000 to 2004, the Southwest Texas Conference grew in both measures at a much slower rate than from 1999 to 2000, while the reverse was true of the North Carolina Conference.

According to GCFA, of the ten U.S. congregations that from 2001 to 2004 experienced the greatest growth in worship attendance, only one (Cascade United Methodist Church in Atlanta, whose attendance increased by 700) received an Igniting Ministry matching grant (another major part of the campaign). None of the ten are in districts that received Igniting Ministry grants. Eight are located in annual conferences that have received Igniting Ministry grants, but over half of all U.S. conferences received grants. The top two attendance-growth churches, Mt. Pisgah outside of Atlanta (whose attendance increased by 1,626, or 48 percent) and Granger Community Church in North Indiana (whose attendance increased by 1,401, or 66 percent), appear to downplay their United Methodist affiliation and likely would not benefit from a United Methodist ad campaign.

In a recent column, United Methodist theologian Richard Heitzenrater recalls a non-Methodist woman telling him that thanks to the ads, she had been “learning quite a bit about” the denomination, namely, “that you don’t have to believe anything in order to belong to that church. You know, most churches have doctrine and stuff for you to believe.”

Bishop Michael Coyner of Indiana criticized one Igniting Ministry ad called “I believe” as not “very helpful since it is so ‘soft’ that it really does not portray our United Methodist position on theology or faith.” That ad boasted that United Methodists “may not all believe exactly the same thing” beyond belief “in God and each other.”

United Methodism has lost 3 million members since 1964. Whatever the causes of that decline, Igniting Ministry ads do not appear to be the remedy.

John Lomperis is a research assistant for UMAction in Washington, D.C.



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