Is the UMC heading the way of No Child Left Behind?

The Associated Press had this little article the other day which made me think of the UMC's latest push to move toward greater concern about 'metrics'.

Nation wide the UMC is requiring a number of different metrics to be counted and logged into a network online.  Basic stuff really.  The UMC is saying that it is important to assess where each church is and by counting these different metrics (people in worship, dollars given away, baptisms, etc.) we can begin to set goals for each local church.  These goals will be able to help churches who might be "failing".

Ten years ago the USA adopted the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act which sounds rather similar to what the UMC currently saying.  NCLB has been exposed for radically falling short of its intended goals (irony if I have ever heard of it).  Students are falling behind in math and science and funding is being cut in all areas that are not test related.  Teachers are expected to focus on the numbers of the test and students become stats on a spreadsheet.

If the UMC is really embracing the almighty metrics, then might we be wise enough to know that just because people are in worship they are not being spiritually formed.  Just because the books might not show service hours does not mean people are not serving their neighbor.  Even if people do not know the micro stories of the Bible does not mean the macro narrative is not guiding their lives.

If you are in the UMC I encourage you to read this short article and heed the warnings that we can learn from the failings of the NCLB act.

Is the UMC set up to suffer from social loafing?

The UMC is a connectional Church which means a number of things.  So clergy are appointed by bishops and not hired by local congregations, each local church pays apportionments which fund global ministries, clergy benefits are grouped together in order to get a "group rate" and many other points of connection.  In many ways you might say the UMC is one big group working on the same mission.  Each church is a local 'franchise' of the larger Church so even if one local church closes the larger Church is not at huge risk of collapse.  Unlike say the Crystal Cathedral which when it closed so did that entire Church.

I love the connection of the UMC, it is in part why I am a UMC minister.  In light of a recent book, You are Not so Smart (of which I hope to blog about for a few posts in the coming days) has made me wonder if the thing that makes the UMC strong and global is in fact the very thing that is leading to the recent rise of the church freaking out about "metrics".

Some would say the rise of concern of counting the butts, baptisms and bucks is connected to the trend of a dying denomination.  Perhaps.  Some would say the rise of counting metrics is in response to a world that is driven by numbers and economics more than generations before. Perhaps.  Some might argue that we might not even care about these metrics if the church was blowin' and goin' and able to meet budgets across the board.  Perhaps.

I wonder if the metrics buzz is a result of the connectionalism.

In You are not so Smart, there is a chapter titled, "Social Loafing" in which argues that we have a misconception about group work.  That is we believe that when we are joined by others in a task, we work harder and become more accomplished, however in reality, once we are a part of a group, we tend put in less effort because we know our work will be pooled with others'.

Could it be the fact that the UMC has pooled our efforts together for so long that we who sit in the pews believe we do not have to work as hard or give as much because it will be pooled together and either be diluted or 'covered by' other people who are giving and working.

This overall thought that our individual slacking or lackluster work has then become the catalyst for a church in demise.  We all think someone else is going to cover the bill or pay the apportionments, but in reality no one is.

So our Church goes into decline.

We loose money and staff and members and then we have a negative feedback loop.

In a time when 1 in 4 Millennials do not associate with any religious tradition, if members of the UMC want the Church to survive then we ought to be aware that our social loafing is no longer going to cut it.

Open Source Continuing Education

Another idea I have been working on as a way to encourage clergy to continue in education while also keeping costs down and using the collective expertise/wisdom of the clergy community of the Central Texas Conference.

You can read the beginning proposal of Open Source Class (a working name) here.

My friend Sarah commented that this idea might work (with modifications) for staff development not just at churches but in any organization.

Church Growth = "We need more people like us." Really?

There are efforts in the UMC to talk more about church growth.  My cynical side will say that this focus on church growth is because the church is declining in terms of warm bodies in the pew and if the numbers of people in the pews were of the 1950's then we would not focus on church growth.

However, my non-cynical side of me says this is a good thing.

My only issue with this how church growth is defined.

If we define church growth meaning that we need to get more people into pews; that is to say if we define church growth as "getting more people to be like us" and become members - I do not think that is a great way to think of church growth.

Instead of thinking that church growth means "more people need to be like us", perhaps a healthier understanding is "we need to be more like Jesus".

When talking about church growth as primarily as getting more people, we are forgetting that the church is the Body of Christ and even people who are members of a church are part of the body of Christ.  Church growth includes those who are already members of the church.

If we redirect all the resources we spend on trying to get more people to be like us to use them on getting us to be more like Christ then the church inevitably grows!

Friends, let us be honest here, if the church is growing by becoming more like Christ not only is the Church growing, but also non-Christians will be more interested in the Christian life.

I am convinced the life of Jesus is more attractive to people than any event or sermon series in the world.