Beyond Death and Crisis Metaphors for the UMC... (please?)

"Death." Scupture at the Cathedral of Trier.
Photo JBuzbee. Used by permission. CC-BY-3.0

You hear it. I hear it. More than once, most likely, you or I may have said it: "The United Methodist Church is dying."



But if we're serious about actually delivering on our mission,  it's time for everyone to stop saying it. Okay?

Why?


1. Key Overall Numbers Do Not Bear It Out
 As a global church, we are not even declining. In fact, the UMC grew in professing members substantially, by 25% between 1999-2009. Part of this growth represents adding Ivory Coast to the UMC as of 2008, but that accounts for only about 30% of the total addition of over 2.4 million professing members during that decade.

Even  financially, while we're down a bit in overall giving, we have actually done better than might be expected given the severity of recent economic recessions.  (Source: 2011 State of the Church Report).

To be sure, our patterns of growth are financially unsustainable if we depend on current funding practices, where the US churches support well over 90% of all General Church ministries across the global church.

But that is in part a side effect of the amazing growth of our churches in the Global South in the past two decades. We simply have not yet adapted our funding models to deal with these dramatically different realities. If we want to continue to function as a global church, we are going to have to work at dramatic, adaptive changes in our funding models.

And keep in mind this isn't because the church is either declining or dying, but actually because it is growing! So the assumptions we use in developing new funding models will have to be based on the realities of dramatically growing mission contexts, both outside and inside the US. Approaching this task with a mindset based on any idea that "the UMC is dying" just won't give us the right set of tools or the Spirit-driven creativity to approach the situations we actually have.

2. It's a Category Mistake
Second, to speak of organizations as "dying" is very likely a category mistake. A category mistake is an error in thinking where one applies characteristics of one kind of thing to another kind of thing to which those characteristics do not apply all that well.

Living things and systems can and do die, all the time. Indeed, all living things and living systems exhibit inevitable life cycle patterns of birth, growth, decline and death.

But to apply the analogy or metaphor of "death" to human organizations turns out not to be all that accurate. Organizations do not have "inevitable life cycles." This is no small or incidental difference. It's actually an essential one. An organization with a sufficiently compelling mission, access to resources and ways of doing their work that are aligned with its mission and effective in using its resources to deliver on that mission in its context over time can continue and even  thrive for centuries with no "inevitable" period of decline, much less "death." Indeed, that's one of the reasons people create organizations-- to keep a mission they care about thriving long after they themselves have died.

Organizations, I might submit, then, do not "die." Relative to their capacity to deliver on their mission they can thrive, wane, drift, gain or lose influence,  or cease to function. But none of those is the same as dying, or even "living" for that matter. 

3. It Inhibits Adaptive Change
 
The term "dying" when applied to a human organization messes too much with our emotions in ways that don't do nearly enough to help us turn the organization in more prosperous directions.

We will tend to say an organization such as the UMC is dying with two different, though often intertwined, emotional motivations: sadness and fear.


 
Sadness keeps us stuck or delays us moving on
Some of us  may say "The UMC in the US is dying" to convey our feelings sadness and loss. We have lost people in the US. Fewer people attend our services or join our congregations as professing members now in the US than in the past. We are closing many congregations. Of course, we have also planted over 600 congregations here since 2008, a higher rate than at any time since the early 1920s.  And nearly half of these are non-white ethnic or multicultural new church starts! We used to have  great influence in the culture and politics of the US, but not any more. The proportions of children and younger, more affluent or upwardly mobile adults active in our congregations are shrinking while the older adult populations on limited incomes and facing more health challenges the longer they live are increasing. But we forget or possibly aren't aware that the average life expectancy in the US has climbed substantially (and will likely keep climbing!),   religiously active people live even longer,  birth rates have declined, and death rates are low and predicted to remain low and fairly stable through 2050.

If we say, "We are dying" and then we point to such perceptions of our situation (anecdotal or statistical) to back them up, we are claiming all of these situations as losses subject to our sadness. In fact, not all of them are "losses." Indeed, the "aging" of the UMC in the US puts us in grand position to reach the fastest growing age segment of the US population from now to 2050! But we frame even these opportunities as losses to support our sense of sadness over those things which can be seen as dramatic changes, if not also losses. And then we share the burden of our hearts with others around us, making a contagion of our sadness.

Let's be clear. Sadness in the culture of an organization does not motivate adaptive change. It is far easier for sadness to move toward depression, and depression to keep our minds stuck on what was lost and what used to be, and thereby priming us to try to restore a past state than to discern and make adaptive organizational changes that better fit current realities.  To be sure, remembering and feeling the pain of what is lost is essential when we grieve. But the growth stage of grief, that might lead toward adaptive change (finding new patterns of life in the changed circumstances of the losses incurred), happens long after we have processed the sadness.

And here's the deal. We don't actually have to process this much sadness, much less full-blown grief, if we don't frame the changes we are seeing in the UMC in the US in such powerfully grief-laden emotional frames as "death" or "dying" in the first place! And in fact, apart from the popularity of the "UMC is dying" meme, there is no sound reason to do so.


Fear and crisis thinking may get us "off the dime," but that's all
In more recent years, some more strident voices among us, anxious to get UMC leadership to do something dramatically different,  have underlined, boldfaced and put an exclamation point on the end of those three simple words, like this: "We are dying!" They point to similar stats, but with a very different emotional edge, one of alarm rather than grieving resignation. The next words are, "Do something! Do it now! Do this particular thing, right now, or we shall surely die!"


The purpose is to provoke "motivating fear," the sort of fear that would be powerful enough to get otherwise "rational" adults to jump 100 feet off of a burning oil platform at night into a dark, cold, oil-laden ocean strewn with bits of flaming debris.

Now, if the situation one faces is indeed a burning oil platform, for some persons, at least, that fear-inspired leap to what may be a burning, oil-soaked, watery grave may actually be the better alternative than a nearly certain fiery demise on the platform itself.

As we saw from the massive BP fire and spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010,  the primary issues that led to truly catastrophic outcomes weren't primarily "technical." And they weren't merely structural, either. They were cultural, and they pervaded the entire culture of both BP and its contractors. There were  breakdowns in disciplines of inspection, parts replacement and communication compounded by unclear lines of responsibility and authority for key business and safety processes. Issues of this sort and scope do more than lead to disasters. They're also incredibly costly to the businesses of every partner involved, and, by extension, to everyone who uses petroleum products.

And these are issues that require not simply a few "technical fixes" (like, "jump off of a platform if it is on fire!") but rather long term, systematic "adaptive changes."

The attempt to "be honest about our situation" by provoking a contagion of fear and panic may get some individuals (though rarely a whole organization!)  to "take the plunge" for an emergency technical fix in the face of what is perceived as a life-threatening crisis.

But it simply does not have the capacity to motivate individuals, much less organizations, toward the kind of long-term, culture-transforming, adaptive changes they must take not simply to avoid catastrophes but actually to thrive in their current and projectable future contexts.

Why? Because we know what fear does. Fear as a process in our brains actually shuts down parts of the visual cortex so we focus only on what is right in front of us. It also disables creative thinking and reasoning paths. It does this to enhance our capacity to take immediate action to evade an immediate threat. No time for over-thinking, or even much thinking, in such situations! When there are immediate threats, it's helpful to have a process hardwired that gets us to take immediate action to avoid immediate life-threatening or painful outcomes. Fear can be a gift in such situations.

But if it's long-term, systemic, adaptive change we want, something that pervades the entire culture of an organization to make it better able to deliver on its mission effectively through multiple means in changing environments, fear is not our friend. For adaptive change, Ron Heifetz et al are clear that we need all the creativity, multiple ways of viewing our environment and understanding our resources, and strategic, long-range forecasting capacities our brains are wired to muster -- the very capacities fear disables or impairs.

If Not Death or Crisis, Then What?

What if we took the idea of adaptive change seriously, and not merely as a slogan to try to push particular legislative or structural initiatives (actually, more or less varieties of technical fixes)?

And then what if we began allowing the kinds of thinking adaptive change demands to shape our rhetoric both about our current situations and our possible futures?

Heifetz and Laurie describe the essential role of what they call "the balcony view" to discern adaptive ways forward.


Adaptive work is required when our deeply held beliefs are challenged, when the values that made us successful become less relevant, and when legitimate yet competing perspectives emerge... Business leaders have to be able to view patterns as if they were on a balcony. It does them no good to be swept up in the field of action. Leaders have to see a context for change or create one. They should give employees a strong sense of the history of the enterprise and what’s good about its past, as well as an idea of the market forces at work today and the responsibility people must take in shaping the future.
 
And they must do all of this not by providing solutions, but by raising the right questions, they note.

So in that spirit, rather than arriving at frames for describing the solutions (such as "organizational death" or "crisis!"), what if we started asking some key questions?

And further, what if we take seriously the Six Principles for Adaptive Leadership Heifetz and Laurie developed, and so try to elicit a conversation that makes sure all voices, especially "those from below," are taken seriously?

This post is an attempt to begin to do just that.

So here are some questions that come to mind, directly from Heifetz and Laurie's requirements for adaptive work, as quoted above.

1. What deeply held beliefs about the place of The United Methodist Church in US cultures are being challenged by our current situations?

2. What values that used to make The UMC (and its predecessors) "relevant" in the US now seem to make it less relevant or even obsolete?

3. What legitimate and competing perspectives are emerging about the mission and operation of the various systems of The UMC in the US?

What questions come to mind for you?


Let's talk!


Peace in Christ,

Taylor Burton-Edwards

A Testimony to the Holy Spirit in GC2012 Worship

Opening worship at GC2012. Worship center design by Todd Pick.
Screen graphics by TripleWide and Marcia McFee.

Much of what I contribute to this blog tends to be in the category of exhortation toward or frameworks for working out "missional Methodism"-- accountably discipling people in the way of Jesus and deploying them as missionaries who are ever growing in holiness of love and life and inviting others to join them in this journey.

In  this post I want to bear witness to ways I saw the Holy Spirit move among us at worship as I experienced it from my peculiar vantage point as one of the developers and co-laborers with the General Conference worship team.

In doing so, I do not wish to come across in any way diminishing those occasions where it seemed General Conference was in the grip of "another spirit." There is good reason that so many commentators and "post-mortems" on this General Conference describe it with words like "tough," "cantankerous," "mean-spirited," "fear-motivated," "untrusting," and even "traumatic." 

But I bear witness to this. I have never before encountered the Holy Spirit moving as dramatically, powerfully, palpably and in so many different ways as I did at this General Conference, especially, though not only, through worship. Often, I came away simply astounded.

At opening worship, the Holy Spirit brought order out of chaos.

Chaos is the only word to describe where worship seemed to be heading 30 minutes before it was to start.

A full-day delay in installing the rigging put every other element of our work more than a full day behind. No rehearsal of any element of opening worship worked properly the first, second, or even the final time. Sound, lights, graphics, video-- everything was consistently off, and even into the final cue-t0-cue-- often off by a long, long way. We were seeing the very real possibility that over two years of planning, gathering video and graphics resources, creating a band, developing musical repertoire, designing liturgy-- two years of work and solid preparation, plus the hours of rehearsals on site-- could turn into a complete disaster. Every indication was that it could.

I remember saying to Marcia and a few others of us after we got backstage after that "cue-to-cue from the nether regions," "We're going to have to walk by faith, and not by sight."
That is what we did. It was truly our only choice. If we were to walk by sight, we'd have to consider cancelling the service. Really. Things were that bad. Anyone who was at the cue to cue or the previous rehearsals could tell you that.

We had to walk by what we trusted the Spirit could do as we offered it, despite what we knew it was just 30 minutes prior: chaos, still.

For those of us on the worship team, it meant simply letting go, trusting the Spirit to do what the Spirit could do, and running with it, come what may. For those in the sound, lighting and graphics teams, it meant running their scripts with the tools they had, focusing on trusting the tools and their skills the best they could, moment by moment (and, I presume, for some of them at least, trusting in God!).

And the outcome was-- beautiful, remarkable, moving, powerful. Perfect, no. There were still glitches here and there-- but nothing, nothing to the degree that we had encountered every prior time we tried to rehearse any of it. It was indeed order out of chaos. The call to discipleship was sung, spoken, heard, embodied, felt, celebrated and tasted, clearly and richly, even at that chaotic place we call "shoreline."

The next night, the Spirit brought life and joy out of a fearful and emotionally flat-lined assembly-- dramatically and immediately.
"Immediately" (euthus in Greek) is a word that shows up a lot in Mark's gospel, indeed with greater frequency than in any other gospel or book of the Bible.

I have to admit I was always a bit skeptical of all of the "immediatelies" Mark claimed. Immediately, Peter, Andrew, James and John responded to calls from Jesus, left everything and followed him. Immediately, storms were stilled and calm reigned. And on and on. Immediately.

But in what I saw happen with the assembly on Thursday night-- immediately is the only right word I can find to describe it. 

In what I am about to say, I am simply trying to recount what happened and how the body language and posture of the plenary session indicated the people were responding.  I am not trying to offer any judgment-- negative or positive-- on the presenter or the value of the content presented.
The business agenda that evening was a presentation about the necessity of passing a particular plan for restructuring and overseeing the work of the general agencies of the denomination. The presentation recounted many statistics pointing out the dramatic declines of the denomination in the United States. It stated that failure of this General Conference to take the kind of action suggested by this restructuring plan at this session would lead to an even more rapid demise of the denomination. One of the final illustrations in the presentation was a video telling the painful story of a congregation that had failed to seize its opportunities for change and had closed.

The presentation was intended as a sobering wake-up call. It did have a sobering effect on those in attendance. There was nearly zero positive energy left in the room just before worship was to get underway.

I need to say that in planning worship for this night, we had known that something would be said about restructuring, but we had no idea what kind of effect it would have or affect it would leave people with.

But the affect was obvious when it was over. It was like a darkness had descended on the crowd.

And worship then began in near actual darkness, with a slow dance to the Queen's Prayer by Pacific islanders moving toward the center table, bringing with them with tropical fruits to cover it. That opening synced with where many people were emotionally at that time. If we would offer anything to God at that time, it would be done slowly.

And then everything turned-- dramatically-- in the course of a prayer offered by one of the Pacific Islander delegates. The "pitch" of the offering of worship shifted from somber in the course of a few words, boldly prayed, so that by the end of it everyone was not only ready, but bursting, it seemed, to sing with joy, "For Everyone Born."

It was a joy that only continued to build-- through the verses, through the elements of worship that followed, and then taken to new heights by the sermon of Bishop King who greeted us all with the words, "Beautiful people!"

From a place of uncertainty and darkness-- emotional and physical-- to a continuing and increasing release of joy. I had never before seen a whole room of people make that kind of dramatic turn with that kind of authenticity more rapidly and completely-- ever.

It was the Holy Spirit, bringing joy out of uncertainty and pain... and doing so immediately!

There are more stories I can tell. But this post is long enough already. I will spare the details. But I will say that the next night, a healing service, was a time of profound healing for many of us, myself included. The night after that, the Spirit came with convicting power in the Act of Repentance, and particularly (though not only) in the words of George Tinker, who spoke hard, painful truth but with a loving spirit that never inflicted harm.  In both cases, we had hoped in our planning that we had made room for the Spirit to act in such ways, but we had (and could have had!) no idea just how powerfully the Spirit would actually move.

It was beyond, far beyond, what any of us could have asked or imagined.

That is why I speak of these happenings as the visitation and work of the Holy Spirit.

And I can only say, "Thanks!"




Peace in Christ,


Taylor Burton-Edwards

Optimism after GC2012

Ted Lyddon Hatten's "Question Mark Butterfly,"work in progress
at the "baptismal shore" of General Conference 2012.
Myrrh, mustard seed, glass, river rock, salt and sand form
the image of the butterfly with the continents in its wings.

For some of you, this may come as a surprise.


I am genuinely optimistic about our future and work as The United Methodist Church after the conclusion of the 2012 General Conference.


It surprised me, too. 


But there it is.


I have more hope for us now-- both as a network of institutions and as a force for discipling people in the way of Jesus than ever before. 


Really.


And what appeared to be the moment of the total collapse of the work of this conference is largely responsible for that.


So let me start with what happened starting around 4:15 last Friday, May 4.

The energy in the room before the word came from Judicial Council was, essentially, resigned, tired, and flatlined. That itself was a bit odd, considering how contentious the conference had been up to that point. But right here, in what could have been close to the closing minutes, there was what felt like a dead calm. There was a new structure, and the body had recently completed the finishing touches on the budget to underwrite it, but few seemed particularly passionate about it, or much of anything else at that moment. 


Then the word came from Judicial Council. The plan adopted by General Conference on Wednesday was now, on late Friday afternoon, declared "constitutionally unsalvageable." At first, there were gasps of disbelief and shock.  The Secretary of the  General Conference, Fitzgerald Reist, simply had no words to describe this or its effect on us. This was nothing less than a traumatic word for everyone, no matter where they had stood on one plan or another. A recess was called to allow essential leadership groups to determine some way forward, and many left the plenary room, almost in a daze. 


But after the daze wore off-- and it didn't take long-- a veritable explosion of passion broke out in many directions. Everywhere I went, literally from one end of the convention center to the other, no one was resigned anymore. No one was tired anymore. Energy was way, way up. Everywhere. 


And with that, so were conversations-- across all kinds of lines, now spontaneously breaking out all over the convention center, inside and out. Everywhere.



Holy Conferencing with intensity, purpose, and passion. And, incidentally, without Roberts' Rules of Order!

(A post for another day-- why do we gather leaders across the global church and tie them down to consideration of legislative minutiae when we could actually have far richer conversations like this?) 


I don't think anyone was exactly celebrating the sudden overturning of PlanUMC. Some were visibly shaken, maybe even almost crushed at the collapse of all this hard work. Others seemed relieved that the adopted plan was no more. Still others were furious with denominational leaders and the creators of the various other plans for not having vetted the plans with Judicial Council before presenting them for deliberation or approval by the body. All feelings were strong.


I myself was just amazed watching all of this, walking around and talking with folks, seeing what I could learn or absorb of what was happening for them in these moments.  With no voice or vote, and as General Conference Staff for worship, I could not and did not take any sides throughout the conference, and certainly not now. The one kind of intervention I made was to try to redirect a few conversations where I could away  from blame (wherever that came up) toward helping folks ask, "Okay-- so what are the next steps you CAN take to make something constructive out of this situation?"   And, "What do we learn from this so we don't make whatever mistakes led to this result going forward?" 

I also experienced that whole thing as a wake-up call in my own soul that gave me renewed energy and determination to work for increased collaboration around worship issues across all kinds of lines. I ran into Cathie Kelsey, Dean of the Chapel at Iliff, and we began talking about how I and/or GBOD could be supportive of her work and Iliff's work.  Just after that, I found Jorge Lockward from GBGM and we started talking about how he and I would seek to collaborate in the coming quadrennium, as we had done in 2011 in Thailand. We are starting to talk and dream about possibilities in Kenya. (He had already been thinking about this, and I had met and had a conversation with a DS from there after the Act of Repentance). We'll see what the Spirit and our respective agencies make possible for us. 

That was my experience in the moment. It was a rising of hope and possibility and energy that something other than what we had previously asked or imagined might be open to us now. It was an opening-- one that I would personally describe as an opening in the Spirit. I will never forget those few hours or how they felt. And I will always be grateful for the leadership of Bishop Max Whitfield for guiding the body through this extraordinary time.

And still, several days later, with time to reflect on what happened in those few hours after a really difficult conference overall, my sense of optimism has not waned. In trying to understand why that has been so, here is what I've come up with so far.

1) We now know, in our bones, just how dramatically untrusting we are of each other across the global church. That may sound like a counsel of despair, but I really see it as a counsel of hope. Because there is a real answer to distrust-- building real relationships. The grand thing is that we have both the technology and the personal capacities to do this-- and do it persistently and well over the next four years. And I believe a lot of us coming out of this experience have the will and passion to pursue it, too. 

2) Related to that, we get it in our bones now that we really are a global church. We are no longer and can no longer act like a US church with global appendages. We really can and must view each other as full partners in ministry across the globe and across the US jurisdictions, diverse as we all are, each bringing our significant gifts to share and exchange and no longer to control or dominate. We in the US have consistently downplayed the value of the gifts of our Global South partners, and parts of the US have consistently downplayed the gifts of other parts. All of that will end, in part because those who have been treated before as less than full partners will insist on full partnership going forward.  

3) We came out of this General Conference with restructured and repurposed boards at many of our general agencies-- a shift from mere representation to "representative, competency based governance boards." This is huge-- and it will be a bit of a learning curve for all agencies that have undertaken it. But from my work with non-profits in United Way, I am convinced it will be of major benefit to our operations and effectiveness. Governance boards will meet more often and have a better understanding of the work we actually do, and so be able proactively to develop the policies general agencies need to be sure that work is as finely tuned to supporting the adaptive challenge as it can be. 

4) We do want to restructure even more dramatically-- and we have an opening now to develop those plans in ways that take the voices of our growing central conferences and younger clergy worldwide seriously, expanding dramatically on what the work on Plan UMC had already begun to do. A huge part of the problem coming into GC2012 was that we had at least three distinct competing visions for structure, all developed by different groups largely centered in the US with different interests. We have the opportunity now, as the PlanUMC process improvised onsite showed us, to generate a global and cross-generational process around how the structure supports the outcomes we say we want it to achieve before we get to General Conference in 2016. I trust our Council of Bishops and Connectional Table will lead us to do just that, starting very soon. 

5) We realized at this General Conference the real value of the first General Rule-- Do no harm. That it took us doing some real harm to get to that realization was sad and painful. No one can be proud of that. We can only say, "Lord, have mercy." We can only turn to our sisters and brothers, look at each other, and, say, "God in your grace, turn us to you to transform the world" as indeed we sang in our Act of Repentance on April 27. The First General Rule was no longer historical rhetoric here. It was something we would remind ourselves of repeatedly. That we did so, I, for one, praise God. 

6) The new president of the Council of Bishops is Rosemarie Wenner, from Germany. She brings a deeply global perspective to leadership in the Council. And that is exactly what our bishops and all of us across the Church need now. You can hear her articulate this global vision here. It is also a thoroughly missional vision very similar to what Bob Walters, DCM of the North Katanga Annual Conference, Democratic Republic of the Congo, describes as the approach many of our African Conferences have been longing for us all to take, here. And it complements brilliantly the way German layperson and GS of GBGM, Thomas Kemper, describes the work of GBGM now-- "mission from everywhere to everywhere." I can't wait to see where and how she leads the Council and our Church over the next two years. 

7) If we didn't know it before, we must know now that our primary calling is a call to discipleship to Jesus and to discipling others in the way of Jesus wherever we are, and that we can and must accomplish that call in the power of the Holy Spirit with whatever resources or structures we have at our disposal. While some of us may be thoroughly disillusioned with the capacity of General Conference to do some things, my sense is far more of us are more convinced than ever of the power of the Holy Spirit to guide, direct and empower us all in both our local and our global contexts. 

We made some false steps leading up to and during this past General Conference, to be sure. We need to learn from those. I believe we can. Indeed, we have already shown that we are.  I am committed to doing what I can to reflect that learning in my work. 

But the Spirit has opened up for us many new possibilities through and despite what we did there. We can and I trust will build on those, as the Spirit continues to lead. 

If you know me, you know it is odd that I have come out of this whole thing optimistic. It feels very odd even to me. 

The optimism I have doesn't mean I underestimate the difficulty of the work that lies ahead of us for the next several years, even decades. This will be very hard, and I am convinced it may feel very discouraging and maybe even counterproductive at times.

But at least now, I think we have a much clearer idea of what the shape of that work is. It isn't perhaps what any of us might have expected. But I have a firm confidence that the Spirit will lead and empower us to engage it, chastening us and forgiving when we wander astray. 

Thanks be to our Triune God, the Holy Spirit has not stopped striving with us yet.

Can you hear the voice of God? "Follow me," says Jesus.

Spirit, may we trust and follow where you lead.

Peace in Christ,

Taylor Burton-Edwards