c. 1996 Religion News Service
GRESHAM, Ore. _ It’s 9 a.m. on Sunday, and the sanctuary of Gresham United Methodist Church is empty.
Row after row of pews, made in 1959 with the finest of Oregon timber, sit like sculpture in the dark. They are monuments to a bygone era when Americans flocked to mainline Protestant churches. It was the respectable, even fashionable, thing to do.
Nationally, the United Methodist Church, the largest of the seven mainline Protestant denominations, has lost, on average, more than 1,500 members a week for the past 30 years. “People no longer seek us out,”says the Rev. Edward Paup, 50, the new Portland-based bishop of the United Methodist Oregon-Idaho Conference.”In fact, what we’re finding from young people today is it’s not attractive to be part of something that is seen as a traditional institution in this country.” The seven mainline denominations could go the way of the dinosaur if they don’t adapt quickly to the changing spiritual landscape. Surveys show grave concern about the nation’s moral climate. Yet people, especially young people, aren’t turning to the traditional religious institutions that once defined America like a Norman Rockwell painting.
To turn the tide, some mainline churches are turning to consultants who show them how to borrow the marketing strategy, but not the theology, of prospering conservative and nondenominational megachurches.
For example, at Gresham United Methodist, the 9 a.m. service is no longer a service. It’s a”joyful celebration,”designed to attract those looking for something less traditional than the 11 a.m. service still held in the sanctuary.
The celebration is held in a cozy room behind a large fireplace, away from the sanctuary. Instead of pews, it has padded lavender chairs arranged in a semicircle. There are no hymnals; lyrics are projected on a wall.
Twenty-eight people are here on this rainy Sunday, but on good days the celebration has attracted as many as 50. The old 9 a.m. service rarely cracked 30. About 200 still attend the traditional 11 a.m. gathering.
The new”joyful celebration”began two months ago after the Gresham United congregation and seven other Oregon Methodist churches turned to a San Francisco consultant, Richard Southern of Church Development Systems.
The church formed a”vision team”that wrote a 14-page strategic plan complete with”our core values,””our mission statement,””our marketing theme/growth slogan,””our vision statement,””our positioning niche”and”our growth goals.” They then conducted 25 church focus groups to fine-tune the vision. “We teach them TQM, total quality management,”says Southern, who charges $3,500 to $7,500 plus expenses for a year of his services.”My partners and I owned an advertising firm for 17 years in California. We wanted to teach churches the same things we learned there.” If that sounds more like marketing than ministry, so be it. Southern says it works. “People don’t want to buy a product unless it’s quality,”he says.”That’s especially true of the baby boomers. Before this generation, people would go to a church regardless of whether it was quality or not.” Kevin Swift, 38, a regional sales manager for a candy company, is a prototype baby boomer. With his wife, Karen, a 38-year-old psychologist, they pursued the American dream, raising two children and occasionally attending church, depending on Kevin’s golf schedule and the football games televised that Sunday morning.
Four years ago, they realized their children needed a spiritual home, as did they.
Like many of today’s spiritual seekers, they had no brand-name loyalty. Instead, they shopped, trying six churches before settling on Gresham United Methodist, a congregation of about 250.
They love it. This Sunday, their 13-year-old daughter is at a Methodist camp on the Oregon coast, learning family values. Kevin sings with a guitarist at the”joyful celebration.”Karen flips the transparencies on the overhead projector.
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Once a month, they go out with six other Methodist couples who all have children attending Orient Elementary School. They may drink beer, eat dinner, play darts or go bowling. Whatever the activity, it provides the community the Swifts are looking for.
Kevin, who owns a Harley-Davidson, plans to start a church motorcycle group. He also looks forward to the continued evolution of the”joyful celebration”service. The plan has it adding a band with a keyboard player and drummer. “We’re going to be rocking and rolling,”says Swift, a member of the vision team.”I’m looking forward to it.” (OPTIONAL TRIM ENDS)
The goal, according to the consultant, is to increase membership 10 percent a year, beginning in 1997. “This is what we’re doing,”says Carol Weber, 67, a member of the vision team.”We’re reaching out to the boomers, the busters and Generation X.” But not all the seniors who still dominate the church share the vision for change. And many of them are big contributors.
That’s a common challenge facing the seven mainline denominations, which also include the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church, the American Baptist Church, the United Church of Christ, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
A more fundamental problem is that these churches have become bland, trying to be all things to all people, according to Thomas C. Reeves, a history professor and author of a new book,”The Empty Church, the Suicide of Liberal Christianity”(Free Press). “What is a Methodist?”Reeves asks.”Who knows? That’s part of the whole mainline problem. They have lost their theology, so they’ve lost their identity. People go to their churches because they’re in the neighborhood, and they like the people there. That’s fine. “But that’s not what Christianity is about. Christianity is an intentionally serious matter that leads you to a proper way of life and death.” Southern, the consultant, disagrees, arguing that the recent success of conservative churches is more a matter of strategy, technology and flexibility than theology. As an example, Southern points to his own liberal Episcopal congregation, which grew to more than 5,000 after employing seeker-friendly marketing techniques.
He says churches such as Gresham Methodist can experience similar success, but it takes time and a willingness to change.
Whatever the solutions, the empty pews are a constant reminder that United Methodists have a problem. “We’re trying to understand what it means to be church in 1996,”says Paup, the Oregon bishop.”We need to acknowledge that it may be very different in 1996 than in 1950. We had churches back then, like many denominations, that only had to open their doors and people would start flooding in. It’s not that way in 1996.” KC END O’KEEFE
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