21st Century Church Growth Talk Pervades United Methodist Churches

By Audrey Barrick, Christian Post Reporter Friday, July 13, 2007

This year's recurring theme across United Methodist conferences nationwide was church growth, consistent with the denomination's new initiative for the 21st century.

With churches struggling to grow in numbers and receive new professions of faith, many of the 63 U.S. conferences of Methodist lay and clergy representatives that met in May and June addressed concerns over shrinking membership and spoke of revitalizing their churches.

"It is most imperative that we embrace the future with hope," Bishop Violet L. Fisher told the Western New York Annual Conference, where membership stood at 56,127 at the close of 2006, down 969 from the previous year, according to the United Methodist News Service.

Membership in the United Methodist Church is at its lowest level since 1930 with just over 8 million members. But new plans are under way or already in place to start 650 new congregations with 63,000 members by 2012.

United Methodists marked this year a time of newness in adopting a bold vision of church planting and adapting to a society that is constantly changing.

At least 32 annual conferences revealed plans to start new churches and revitalize existing ones and at least 13 began campaigns to support campus ministry or already have campaigns under way.

The Florida Annual Conference celebrated the launch of nine churches in 2006 and 10 new churches in 2007. Its goal is 23 new church starts by the end of the year.

Also, in addressing the controversial issue of homosexuality, 22 annual U.S. conferences indicated their support of or opposition to a 2005 ruling that gave United Methodist pastors the authority to determine a person's readiness for church membership. And 12 conferences passed resolutions regarding sexuality, homosexuality, same-sex and civil unions.

The Arkansas Annual Conference adopted a resolution calling the denomination to "a renewed commitment to the Doctrinal Standards and Discipline" while urging the General Conference – the top decision-making body of the UMC – to maintain current language regarding human sexuality, marriage and pastoral authority.

Baltimore-Washington United Methodists recently defeated a resolution that called for the deletion of UMC's current statement on homosexuality that "the United Methodist Church does not condone the practice of homosexuality and considers this practice to be incompatible with Christian teaching."

This year's conferences also voted on delegates to send to next year's General Conference meeting along with votes on resolutions and petitions to send to the General Conference for consideration and action.

The 2008 General Conference meeting, held every four years, will be held in Forth Worth, Texas, Apr. 23-May 2.