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Future of the Church?

There is a saying that demography determines destiny. In other words, if you were to look at the demographic breakdown of a country, it would give you an idea of the fate of that country over the next 5, 10, and even 20 years. For example, if you look at some of the African nations that have been ravaged by the AIDS epidemic, the current demographic breakdown is disheartening. The average life expectancy has been dropped to the low 30's, and entire generations are now missing from their population. The fate of these nations does not look good, because they have not only lost the wisdom and leadership of their seniors, but they have lost the next generation of leaders.

So, to get to the point of this post, what does the future look like for the United Methodist Church? Demographics of church members show that our denomination is heavily biased towards older Christians, those over 50 years of age. We have very members in their teens, 20's, and 30's. As a biologist, if I was to look at a population structured like this, I would be led to the conclusion that this was a declining population, with very little recruitment into the population. And, this is exactly what is going on in our church.

We have very few professions of faith annually, and we are seeing a steady to somewhat declining membership overall. These declines may not be the result of people leaving the church for other denominations, but may actually be the result of death. Bottom-line -- we are not bringing new people into the church, and we are really failing at bringing younger people into the church.

So, what can we do about it? The message does not need to change. The solid rock of the gospel of Christ is unchanging and has been affecting lives for thousands of years. But perhaps our way of delivering the message needs to change. As the culture around us has changed, so has the way people interact with each other. If we are to introduce people to Christ, we are going to need to interact with them on their level -- not changing the message, but getting it to them in a way they can understand and relate to. So far, our denomination, and most other mainline denominations, have failed in this regard.

Part of the reason is the diversity of theological understandings in the church, with liberals holding sway over the denomination in some parts of the country and orthodox conservatives holding sway over other parts. If someone were to look at the church, then, they would not be able to clearly say what we believe and what we stand for. Cases like the Damaan trial in the Pacific Northwest only serve to confuse the issue.

We need to make a concerted effort to solidify what we believe and what we are standing for and draw a line in the sand. Then, we need to make every effort we can to reach out to the world around us, young and old, to give them the life-changing gospel of Christ. To paraphrase the Apostle Paul, we need to become all things to all people so that we might save some through our efforts. If we don't start bringing the younger generations into our churches, we are doomed to a slow, lingering death.