To start off, I love Will Willimon. I studied under him at Duke, I respect many of his opinions. He has showed in the past that there is a different way to do and be church. Yet occasionally the Bishop does show his age, and that he like many of his contemporaries, still cannot see the transformation that has occurred in society. As a result he demonstrates the inability of leadership to effectively be in church in this new age. This is one of those cases.
In an article published by United Methodist News Service, Willimon insists that the measure of clergy effectiveness can be told simply by counting the numbers. The North Alabama Conference even has a dashboard on their website where churches report their attendance each week, how many baptisms, and new members they have received. Now I believe that numbers can be an indicator of some things however, I also believe there is a story behind every story. Even behind the numbers we see, there is a story that needs to be told.
In my context we have several stories behind the numbers. I have people who give all of their lives and of themselves for the mission and ministry of this church. But they are not members for various reasons and will not be. I have had new people come to the church, and even make a financial commitment to support the mission and ministries among other things, but they will not come to a new member group. The reasons are varied. For the Boomers it is because they were raised Catholic, or Lutheran, or even RLDS, and "for moms sake" or even conscious, they choose not to become a member. For the Gen X and millennial group, membership means something different than it did for people even 20 years ago. For them to join means making a full commitment that in their mind they may not be able to uphold. They take these vows so seriously that if they cannot fulfill in their mind even one of them, then that would be failure. So they come each week, help out with our missions and programs, serve in various positions in the church, but are not members. I respect all of that. This is their church. God is speaking to them through this particular part of the body of Christ and they have chosen to be a part of it. It may not show up on a stat sheet but meaningful ministry is happening through them.
As for me I would rather have a congregation of 150 committed followers of Jesus than 1000 members who simply come to the God box on Sunday morning. So rather than looking only at the numbers Bishop, let us look at the effectiveness of the body of Christ from top down. How is mission and ministry happening in the communities where we are? How is the leadership from the episcopacy on down enabling pastors and congregations to effectively reach those communities? That is the measure of true effectiveness.
Until our leadership realizes that the way we have always done things (counting in this case) will not be effective in the 21st century, our overall numbers will go down, but with that our continued decline in fulfilling the mission will also go down, because we are so worried about numbers instead of the people Jesus calls us to serve.
Yeah, Willimon grates on me sometimes. Then again, so does Hauerwas and Dave Rochford always yells at me when I dare question The Stanley.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you shared this.
Thanks. Sorry I didn't see your comment earlier. I was prompted to look at my response again after just reading Jayson Byasee's defense of Will on this. I love Stan and Will but he's not moving in the right direction. It seems like our angst about numbers is not really about building relationships with God but about a loss of prominence and prestige.
ReplyDeleteI do remeber Stanley saying that God was killing the American church and that it was wonderful because eventually when we're samll enough we can go back to being relevant again. Hmm..