How much trouble are we really in?

I've come across a blog posting that discusses the proposed merger in Indiana of 2 current Annual Conferences into a single Indiana Conference. One of the questions that the bloggers listed was about the budget which is being planned. It appears that it is underfunded (they plan on spending more than is projected to come in) by $940,000, and in looking at the offerings collected so far this year they're behind current needs by more than $200,000. This doesn't speak well of the state of the church.

In the Virginia Annual Conference the 2006 attendance statistics are in. Only 100 people are in worship, and the Conference lost attendees through the year at a rate that would equal 26 churches. What would have been 26 congregations just ceased to exist. We cannot assume that it was the result of natural (death, etc.) attrition. We are losing people to either other denominations, non-denominations, or worse they're just leaving the church altogether. And Virginia is one of those conferences that has always been vibrant and thriving. This information doesn't speak well of the state of the church.

I believe either last year, or perhaps it's this year, that there was a merger of 2 Michigan conferences into a single entity. I understand that this was because the number of congregations had diminished to the point where they could no longer sustain both. So in order to maintain the conference political structure they merged. I don't know how successful they've been thus far, but the very fact that they'd shrunk to this point where a merger was needed... this doesn't speak well of the state of the church.

The Western and the Northeastern Jurisdictions are blatantly liberal in their politics and their theology. The Western Jurisdiction has fewer members than the Virginia Conference alone. That's a lot of space to not have a large number of UMC members. This doesn't speak well of the state of the church.

What have we lost? Why do we seem to have forgotten the message we've been very successful in promoting for the last 200 years? The UMC is flourishing in other countries, especially Korea. What is being done in those places that we need to bring back here to the Americas?

For myself I believe that our "social gospel" has overtaken the Gospel message itself. And because of this the people are not finding what they're all searching for- the Truth. Those congregations that are growing and reaching the masses have been willing to break the mold of business as usual, and this is another area where we have to abandon the status quo and move into the 21st century. We need to be innovators in outreach and worship styles. To be open and inviting to the post-modern generation. How many of our congregations have more persons in their membership under the age of 35 than over 35? It's time for a change, and thinking that the younger generation is actually looking for traditional models of churches and worship is a mis-placed hope for a return to the 1950's.

Those days are gone forever, and the sooner we acknowledge that the quicker we can get back to the business of the Kingdom.

Maranatha.