Leadership Crisis Prompts Methodists to Seek More Young Clergy
United Methodists are developing a new strategy to foster an effort to get more young people to seek clergy positions after a comprehensive report revealed a leadership crisis within the church body.
Called a "culture of call," the strategy will serve to create sensitivity to young adults in the candidacy process that some leaders describe as complicated and exclusive. It comes after the United Methodist Church released "This is Our Story" – the denomination's most recent report of membership, attendance, and giving trends – which found that less than 5 percent of the church's leadership were aged 35 or under in 2005. That is a drop from 15.05 percent 20 years earlier.
"The whole [candidacy] process is so elaborate and exclusive," said the Rev. Amy Aiken, an elder in the California-Pacific Annual Conference, according to the United Methodist News Service. "Some of it is like hazing. I had to go through this, and so you have to go through this."
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The National Leadership Development Advisory Team, which began its work last October, plans to create a "tool kit" for annual conference staff and committees that work with candidates for clergy and for those who work with young people in local churches or on college campuses. The team is also developing videos and testimonies of young people called to the ministry as well as tip sheets giving pointers on the best practices in encouraging and supporting young people in the candidacy process
Simply put, the United Methodist Church is asking "What can we do right now, within the process we have, to encourage young people to seek ordination and to improve the climate for young adults who are in the process," said the Rev. Meg Lassiat, director of student ministries, vocation and enlistment at the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry, according to UMNS.
The Rev. Jerome King Del Pino of the Board of Higher Education and Ministry stressed last month during a teleconference that the church must build a "streamlined structure for the development of young leaders that will result in doubling the number of young people in positions of leadership as pastors and specialized clergy and lay ministries."
The drop in younger leadership is also part of a continual membership drop in the U.S. United Methodist Church, which is now at around 8-million large.
Resources about the candidacy process are already available but the new strategy team is condensing the information and making it more accessible on www.explorecalling.org.
