Up, Down, In, & Out

Last week I read an article by Ryan Burge who is arguably one of the foremost sources of church related statistics in the United States.  I appreciate the work that he does and that he shares it to help leaders throughout the Church become aware of our statistical realities rather than just our perceived realities.  Last week, Ryan shared, through Church Answers, an article entitled “Which Denominations Are the Grayest? (The Youngest Will Surprise You)” where he revealed some jarring information.  

As a United Methodist pastor and leader, it was not a secret to me that our denomination has more than our fair share of gray heads.  I am becoming a member of that club.  I believe what jarred me was that United Methodists are essentially the “grayest” of the denominations.

Ok, so we are in a dead heat with the Lutherans, but with all respect to the Lutherans, I don’t think that bodes well for either of us. In the United Methodist Church, people who are 55 and older make up 66% of our churches, with 42% being at least 65 years old.

First, this statistic doesn’t do anything except give us a snapshot of a moment in time regarding one demographic aspect.  

Second, this does not negate or downplay meaningful ministry that has been done, is being done now, and will be done in the future.

Third, whatever happens to any of these denominations, Christ’s Church will endure.

I believe that the challenge we face is a spiritual challenge and a practical challenge.  It’s a question of faithfulness.  I don’t intend to say that we current United Methodists are unfaithful or ones in the past have been.  I believe that each generation of the church faces some sort of existential crisis, and this is ours.  The spiritual challenge that we have is one of true, Jesus-shaped discipleship.  We have lost the scriptural plot, even amidst all of our bickering over second or third-order challenges. We may have zeal for the banner we carry, but we have lost the zeal we have for Jesus and the lost.  We are more concerned about our discomfort than we have been concerned about being truly faithful in our personal lives and congregational lives. That’s us.  As I am typing this I am prayerful that this is heard as candor and not complaining because I have recently learned that candor is determined by the hearer and not the speaker (hat tip to Kim Scott’s Masterclass).  In this sense, candor is in the eyes of the reader and not the writer.

The second challenge is practical.  The practical challenge is concerning the leadership of the United Methodist Church, and perhaps nearly every other mainline denomination.  When I mention leadership, I am not talking about actual people as much as I am referring to a philosophy of the prevailing leadership.

I have spoken on multiple occasions with pastors who have retired over the past twenty years.  One retired pastor who attended one congregation I served pulled me aside one day to discuss some of the changes that we were undertaking to revitalize the church.  He was grieved, not at the changes or how we were approaching the challenge, but he was grieved that he served faithfully for decades (for a stint at that particular church) and felt as if his generation let this generation down.  He recalled that his era wasn’t trained or challenged to think or do ministry in the way that is now required.  I shared with him that he was trained to lead the church for that age.  

In retrospect, we can see that the prevailing philosophy of church leadership was focused down and in, meaning church and institutional leaders tended to focus on the local congregations and content membership.  Over these years many wonderful reports were developed to help local churches track members, worship attendance, Sunday school attendance, church assets, finances, etc.  Pretty much anything that could be counted was counted and reported.  Down and in leadership meant that the primary focus of leadership was management, and with management comes a focus on efficiency, control, and authority.  

Once this began to be a common theme, we began shifting in the opposite direction.  I have heard many mentions that making denominational change is a lot like rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.  Institutions can be a lot like a big, bulky cruise ship; they are hard to turn.  But as quickly as could be done, many started to shift completely to the opposite ends away from the down and in philosophy of church leadership to, you guessed it, up and out.  Up-and-out leadership tends to be focused on influence, and this was captured by things such as marketing, church growth workshops, mission trips, service projects, marches, book studies, personal devotionals, and so forth.

We can certainly dispute where we are in the shifts. Some will say that we really just started the up and out and we are still plagued with down and in leadership. Of course, the same argument could be made in the other direction.  We tend to associate these two philosophies of leadership with generations with different visions of the church.  Young people think it's the older folks holding the church hostage, and older folks think that the younger ones are taking over and changing things. This is especially exacerbated when we look at statistics and demographics such as the ones above.

It is also reasonable to say that these thoughts on leadership are dated, and they might be. However, they still exist. The reality is that at this point and time, we can wring our hands and pace the floor, but we should question the helpfulness of such practices. We might want to let go of the macrotrends for a while and begin to embrace the micro, the practice of fruitful discipleship by the person looking us in the mirror.  

The reality of it all is that what is needed more than ever is not so much managerial leadership (down/in) or influential leadership (up/out), but missional leadership (up/down/in/out). Missional leadership is the holistic way of leading that keeps our purpose at the center of all that we do, marrying the spiritual and the practical. It is part of the struggle that Darrel Guder highlighted several years ago when he posited that the church has focused more on formation for maintenance rather than forming people for mission. (Reference to Guder's "Walking Worthily: Missional Leadership After Christendom," Princeton Seminary Bulletin 28, no.3 (2007), 256)

Our discipleship is to be of Jesus and not our denomination.  Who has shaped you more? Who do you imitate more?  

I believe if we are honest about this question, we will find that we may be way better at being a denominational apprentice rather than an apprentice of Jesus.

It is entirely possible to be looking at narratives and completely miss the plot and lose the story.

This is especially important for leaders throughout the Church.  We are all disciples of something, and we are all likely making disciples of that something.  Leading missionally, up, down, in, and out in our personal lives, might resemble something a little more Jesus-shaped for us.  If we cannot keep the main thing the main thing, then is there any hope? Outside of Jesus, there probably isn’t.