Lessons from the Leadership Institute's "Futuring" Session
by Cynthia B. Astle (used with permission of UM-Insight)
October 3, 2019
Attending this year’s Leadership Institute sponsored by United Methodist Church of the Resurrection proved to be an unusual, if not unique, event. Days after an information cascade washed over participants, I’ve finally been able to process much of the event.
The venue itself staggered perception. Built from seven “wings” as its founder the Rev. Adam Hamilton put it, Church of the Resurrection’s edifice rises out of the Leawood, Kansas, landscape like the flames of a wildfire roaring over the prairie. The building can be seen from miles away. I can’t recall encountering a structure so imposing, not even the famed architecture of the Vatican, which I visited in 1997 with the World Methodist Council executive committee.
Only the presence of dozens of volunteers put a human scale to the monumental environment. As might be expected, given the culture established by its founding senior pastor Rev. Hamilton, COR’s staff and volunteers excel at radical hospitality.
The venue was the perfect setting for the 2019 Leadership Institute’s content, which centered on what the ad hoc group UMC Next now calls its “Next Generation UMC” plan. Sad to say, for me the proposal and its venue seemed to symbolize everything The United Methodist Church has become: overwhelmingly complex, accommodating different interests yet cemented in an immovable institution amid a cultural era that calls for adaptability and nimbleness.
No pleasure derives from such a perception. Like many others with whom I spoke and heard during the event, hopes were high that a detailed plan would be disclosed for moving the UMC forward from its current parliamentary entailment. When parts of the plan were revealed, however, a familiar sense of heavy dread ensued. Once more, a proposal for the church was crafted from a 30,000-foot perspective that may well prove too inbred and arcane for the average United Methodist to appreciate.
Intricacies are a stumbling block
That analysis isn’t a rap on United Methodists’ ability to understand institutional intricacies. In fact, it means the opposite: the UMC’s institutional intricacies are such a stumbling block to its future that one can easily despair of ever freeing ourselves from them. Bishop Mike McKee, president of the General Council on Finance and Administration, intimated as much when he talked about the financial burden of breaking up the worldwide denomination. Hearing from the bishop reminded me of a comment that a colleague relayed earlier in the summer from an international attorney: “Do they understand how much breaking up will cost and how long it will take? Millions of dollars, and maybe 10 years.”
Having thus far read only summaries of the various proposals for the UMC’s future, I found they nonetheless share a common characteristic: all of them bear the typically United Methodist trait of trying to solve an issue of heart and soul with legislation. Furthermore, that legislation has to go through a process hijacked by political maneuvering and found to be vulnerable to voter fraud.
The Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli, a co-chair of the “Next Generation UMC” Plan, noted in Leawood that regulations and structure don’t change attitudes, but they do provide equity. With respect, I must disagree with my clergy sister, for the North Carolina Conference video on sexism she showed in her presentation proves otherwise. We have regulations regarding anti-racist and anti-sexist appointment of clergy, yet there are still congregations that refuse to accept a pastor of another race or a clergywoman to their pulpits. The legislation fails us because it doesn’t address the spiritual deficit at the issue’s heart.
Many leaders have worked hard to offer the “futuring” plans headed to the 2020 General Conference, and I am grateful for all their efforts. I respect and honor that they are people who clearly love The United Methodist Church and want to maintain the “unbelievable good” the UMC brings to the world, to quote Bishop Cynthia Fierro Harvey.
Yet their very commitment to the institution ironically bars the way to genuine reform because they are invested in the existing organization. Our leaders are like the fish of fables: they swim in an element so essential to their lives that they can’t comprehend what “water” is. For most United Methodists, the local congregation forms our “water,” and anything laid on top of that is superfluous to our mission and ministry. For example, it now takes close to 10 years to complete the process to become an “elder in full connection,” the pinnacle of ordination. We say we need younger clergy, yet the process we require shows how our complexity undercuts our mission.
True reform rises from margins
In short, this year’s Leadership Institute program told me that we’ve deluded ourselves into insanity, that is, performing the same actions over again and expecting a different result. History demonstrates that effective reform never comes from the center, which is where our leaders reside. True reform arises from the margins, and not one plan coming before the 2020 General Conference emanates from the innovative edges of the church. No, not even those of LGBTQ+ advocates, Filipino delegates, or a retired attorney from Tennessee, whose proposal to stretch out the timeline for separation has garnered support among Insight readers.
Out of vaguely described plans, historical achievements and future aspirations, one hope for authentic reform emerged for me from our Kansas sojourn: we can take off the shackles of institutional imprisonment and let change rise organically from the UMC’s grassroots. Forget all the complex separation schemes. Stop trying to legislate hearts and minds with regulations. Stop hurting one another through factions and fractiousness.
Instead, grant one another the grace to live out mission and ministry in the ways our various contexts require. If creating regional conferences will allow that, then let's do it. If letting annual conferences decide who's fit for ordination, let's do that. And yes, let's remove all the anti-gay language from the Book of Discipline, which is clearly aimed solely at gay men and doesn't cover the full spectrum of human sexuality. If anyone wants to leave thereafter, let them, and let them take their property with them.
Plainly put, we can’t repair what’s broken by the concepts and processes we’ve used before. Our General Conference delegates, for whom we should be praying fervently, have the power to break open a space for God’s Holy Spirit to work on us, if we have the courage to let go of what we put in God’s way. It’s time we own up to that reality and deal differently with one another from what we’ve pursued thus far.
A journalist for four decades, Cynthia B. Astle has reported on The United Methodist Church for 31 years and is a veteran observer of nine General Conferences. She serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011.