To reverse the United Methodist Church’s decades-long membership decline in the United States, local UM churches must embrace innovation and commit themselves to constant improvement, according to Adam Hamilton, leader of one of the UMC’s largest and most successful churches.
Hamilton, founder and senior pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection (COR) in Leawood, Kansas, was the lead speaker at COR’s 12th annual Leadership Institute, attended last week by nearly 2,000 pastors and leaders.
Even if local churches are willing to embrace innovative change, a net membership increase in the UMC is still likely to be at least 10 years away, Hamilton predicted, because the next decade will see heavy membership losses due to the deaths of tens of thousands of older members.
“If we act now, in 10 years we might actually see that we begin to reverse the decline,” he said during the conference’s Friday afternoon session. “In 10 years, we’ll actually start to see that we have a future with hope.”
He did not address the serious doctrinal disagreements or sharply differing approaches to social concerns that have roiled the denomination over the past four decades and have helped fuel membership decline.
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Adam Hamilton illustrated the need for innovation and improvement at the local church level by looking at how computers have changed during the 20 years since Church of the Resurrection was founded.
I bought a computer for us four weeks before our first worship service. It had just come out…. It was a Macintosh Classic…. And this was the hottest computer you could buy in 1990….
And I want you to imagine if Apple Computer had said…, “We have just built the best computer that anybody could ever build.”… [Or maybe they said,] “We’ll make if faster, but we’re going to keep it [looking] just like this.”…
The Rev. Adam Hamilton
Instead, they developed laptops… that had the capacity to do things that nobody had ever dreamed of when [the Mac Classic] was built….
And [now in 2010 they’ve] invented a whole new way of doing computers…[with the release of] the iPad….
[T]hey studied how people used computers, they studied to try to understand…the needs of people, and then they formed a product….
And so [as the church,] part of this [is] in our hands. We have to be able to ask: “What needs to change [so that we can better speak to people’s needs today and connect with them]?”…
[M]ost of our churches [haven’t] had leaders who understood that and we [have] just kept doing the same thing over and over and over again. And we’re realizing that can’t work. It simply can’t work for the future.
You either…innovate, you improve, or you’re going to die. That’s a [Church of the] Resurrection classic principle we use around here….
[W]e’re not changing the gospel, we’re not changing the Scriptures. But we are changing how we talk about faith. We’re changing how we help people experience the presence of God in their lives.
Hamilton also focused on ways new communication technologies are improving the ability of local churches to connect with people — and with other churches.
The world is changing. Are you willing to shape the future by embracing technology?…
I think our future [in the United Methodist Church is] rooted and grounded in our past. When the early Methodists went to start churches across the United States, here’s what they did: they sent circuit riders out, and those circuit riders were given two books — they were given a hymnal and a book of John Wesley’s sermons.
And they would preach in a place and they would form a church, and after three weeks they would say, “Now, you’re in charge while I’m gone…. Here’s a copy of John Wesley’s sermons. And while I’m gone, why don’t you just read one sermon a Sunday when the people gather together for worship?” So the circuit rider would go start five or six or seven more churches and would circle back around 12 weeks later….
How do you think John Wesley would do this today? Would he give them a book of his sermons? No, he would say, “Why don’t you log on…online and then you can join me and I’ll look in the camera and I’ll say ‘Hey’ to all of you….”
Circuits were the groupings of churches that worked together and they shared one pastor and then they had lay leaders and they would work together for the discipleship of the people….
Is it possible that there are super circuits in the future where there are multiple churches, not bound geographic areas — they may be in different parts of the country — and they join together voluntarily and become connected to one another in these circuits?
Some of them [would] have ordained pastors who are overseeing. Some of those ordained pastors [might be] excellent preachers and some of them, maybe not so much. So sometimes they [would] use the sermons from another congregation…. Maybe some of them [would] only use the sermons from the largest church.
They [would] all share the IT resources of that [largest] congregation, and all of the churches [would] work together and bring their strengths to the table to help them all be more effective and stronger congregations….
There are 19,600 churches in the United Methodist denomination in the U.S. that have less than 60 people a Sunday in worship. Currently, most people say those churches have no future. They’re going to have to close because they can’t afford pastors, they can’t afford benefits, they can’t afford apportionments — they simply are going to die.
But what would happen if each of those was seen…as a place that could be [connected by technology]? And…it costs nothing to do it in this place. The building is already paid for. And if we get 25 people and over the next three years we can grow it to 30, we’ve seen a 20 percent increase in attendance in that place in three years, as opposed to closing it down….
What could you do with this? How could you help other churches in your community? Is there a way that you could create a voluntary circuit in which you are helping support and nurture one another in being healthy, vibrant congregations?
Renewing the church is going to require all of us looking at how we do share we share the resources we have so that other might have a chance to have future with hope.
Use the audio player below to listen to Adam Hamilton discussing the need for innovation and improvement in United Methodist churches (this 12-minute excerpt has been edited for length).
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The purpose of the annual Church of the Resurrection (COR) Leadership Institute, launched in 1999, is to teach “practical, translatable principles” that have helped COR grow from four people in 1990 to about 17,000 today with multiple meeting locations.
DVDs of this year’s Leadership Institute will be available through The Well, the Church of the Resurrection bookstore.
The problem in the UMC is not a lack of “Facebook flash.” The problem is Christ-less leadership promoting anti-Christian causes of homosexuality, abortion, anti-semitism and a liberal democratic political agenda.
“Embracing technology” will only be as effective as the message it communicates. The official UM message, seen in the last multimillion-dollar ad campaign, was rejected — and it will be rejected in digital venues.
John Warrener
UCMPage.org
On the other hand, a strong argument in favor of church growth exists for opening up our communication technologies to our laity.
It is time for the laity to be given an official forum to raise the issues lay people believe to be relevant, to discuss those issues when they choose, and to comment in robust give-and-take forums on the official UMC websites.
All voices matter.
Rich Buckley
UMC Unofficial Layman’s Open Forum
I agree with Rev. Warrener. I would also add that we should be reading Wesley’s sermons. Sadly, sermons today are designed to be uplifting, positive and encouraging motivational speeches. Preaching that message to a group of false converts only serves to keep them happily bound in their self-righteous sins.
Read Wesley’s sermons on the Kindle. Distribute them via email. Share them via flash drive. Tweet them and Facebook them. Use technology, yes — but don’t compromise the Gospel.
Often I think the church was far better off without all the gizmos, bells and whistles. And I’m only 33!
Technology seems to have taken the place of good preaching and good theology. Of course, bad preaching and bad theology has always existed (and always will), but too often churches cover themselves by having the latest and greatest technological show.
If the UMC would go back to its theological roots, we’d not have to worry about “wowing” the audience with multimedia shows.
I think it’s “both-and.”
We need unity in Jesus Christ and submission to the written Word of God (not just some concept of Jesus the Word filtered through our pet lenses). We can’t even agree on whether the Bible is authoritative, and until we do, until we preach the faith that Wesley preached — the Law and the Gospel both — any revival in the UMC is going to be only spotty and sporadic.
HOWEVER, I am fascinated by Adam Hamilton’s idea here. “Digital circuits” may well be a very good way to save some of our churches, to keep them as “preaching places” — not just that but truly vital congregations at whatever size they are, without the pressure of paying a full salary (or half a one). And it allows for multiple options and levels of cooperation.
I have to agree with the others who say that embracing technology as the answer misses the point. There is much technology can do, but there is a lot it is incapable of doing.
I am still trying to figure out how one can have a church service on-line. You can post services, you can stream services but how do you do it on-line and get the same effect/results? And I wonder how communion will be offered. I have some disagreements about the process of communion but those disagreements are meaningless when someone says that you can have offer communion on-line. How are the elements blessed? (Did someone invent a transporter beam and not tell us?)
What a reliance on technology is doing today is removing human contact. And human contact, face-to-face and one-on-one, is the core to the message. You can transmit the words but they cannot carry the feeling. And smiley faces ain’t going to cut it as a replacement for emotion.
I use the technology and I share my thoughts but I also want that time on Sunday when I am with people. I don’t see how it can be done otherwise.
I think Adam Hamilton’s point was less about embracing technology and more about being innovative in the way we communicate the Gospel. You can walk into many UM Churches (and churches from other denominations) and the worship service looks basically the same as it did 10, 20, 50 years ago.
Hamilton was not telling leaders to go get Facebook or a Mac. He was encouraging churches and our denomination to use the tools available to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ effectively.
I think Adam Hamilton was trying to get us to think about innovation of our craft. How do we engage the culture, not conform to it, but engage people on their own ground just as Wesley and the early Methodists did? We can use technology to show a sermon when lacking a pastor but that congregation can still sing, pray, and worship together and build community with one another until they can get a pastor who can preach a live effective message.
I also want to sternly warn us from comments such as those of Rev. Warrener. We are not to be communicating a political ideology be that Democrat or Republican. We are to be offering the Gospel of Christ and what a transformed life looks like.
There is a huge difference between promoting an ideology that takes people away from God and asking us to meet people where they are. I also find it very sad that we so often jump to what we are against instead of proclaiming what we are for.
I pray that our theologians get back to the craft of Wesley — engaging the culture where it is and proclaiming the gospel boldly in the midst of it.
Peace & Grace
I respect and basically agree with what Rev. Swanson says, but let’s be clear: I don’t think Rev. Warrener is suggesting that we adopt a particular political ideology, he is simply REACTING to what’s already been done in the higher eschelons of leadership in many sectors of United Methodism.
It seems that the prophet Jeremiah was less concerned about meeting people “where they are” than taking them to a better place.