Back to the future

I read the following this morning:

United Methodist laity put more stock in clergy who are caring rather than courageous and cooperative rather than competent and they prefer honesty to imaginativeness.

Those preferences, indicated in a survey by a church agency, amount to a self-portrait of a institution in decline and fearful of bold and innovative action, according to survey analysts.

The profile of the 8.9-million-member denomination emerges from a survey by its Office of Research in the General Council on Ministries. The office, which regularly samples United Methodist opinion, based the report on a survey taken in 1991.

While urging caution in interpreting the results, based on a self-administered poll of a representative sample of 758 United Methodists, researchers drew some gloomy conclusions.

According to the survey, the values Methodist laity look for in their pastors are the kinds of characteristics associated with an institution trying to maintain itself.

"One possible answer is that institutions in periods of decline come to take on certain characteristics," the report on the survey said. "One such characteristic is to become increasingly focused internally instead of externally. Thinking and decision-making begin with maintenance questions."

The report ranked in four tiers the values that the laity look for in pastors.

The first tier, the most admired traits, included being caring, cooperative and honest. They were identified by more than 40% of those responding.

The second tier of values--listed by 16% to 23% of those responding--included being spiritual, broad-minded and inspiring, and the third tier, listed by 8% to 12%, included such traits as loyalty, self control and intelligence.

The final tier, listed by 3% or fewer, included such traits as competence, independence, courage, maturity, fair-mindedness, straightforwardness, ambition and being forward-looking.

The report quoted an unnamed bishop who, on seeing the results, "expressed concern that some values so crucial to a missional stance by the church (forward-looking, imaginative) did so poorly among laity."

"The concern in all of this is that just at a time when the church needs missional leadership, marked by the characteristics included in the lower tier of the survey, laity are registering high marks for those kinds of characteristics generally associated with a maintenance style of operation," the report concluded.

Sounds like the denomination I'm in needs something to treat the cuts, something to heal the wounds, huh?

Problem is, with that kind of thinking, that panic that is on every United Methodist, is that this story was written in July of 1993. NINETEEN NINETY THREE. Twenty-two years ago. And we're still here.

Look, who isn't looking for clergy that isn't competent, independent, courageous, mature, fair-minded, and forward-looking? Who works 80 hours a week and is paid for 10? Who isn't looking for someone who will bring young people into the church but won't change anything? 

Really, who?

But the thing is I also read that the Assemblies of God denomination just announced it had had growth for 25 straight years. Last time I looked, the Assemblies of God was a rather conservative denomination. I'm just saying...

What if the trick to all this was going back to being the Church of God, and I've been wrong about everything I think about contemporary  worship and things like that? I don't think I am, but what if? What if younger persons want something that will be about morality in a world that is increasingly secular? What if?

I really am confident I don't hold all the cards, don't have all the answers. But I'm also fairly certain that the answers are out there, and we are in it for the long haul.