The following is an entry in the Big Data and the UMC series: how data can help disrupt false narratives in the Church.
Membership Matters
The United Methodist Church is a representative democratic institution, meaning that ~1000 delegates from the regions of United Methodism meet every four years to vote on its doctrine and polity. If 501 out of 1000 delegates choose something, it becomes our law for 4 years. The next General Conference is in May 2016 in Portland, Oregon.
While the UMC is not really representative or democratic, it tries to be, and that means that they need to have some way of allocating decision-making ability. When it comes to this General Conference, there’s only one number that matters: membership.
The number of church members in the regions of United Methodism gives the proportional number of votes at General Conference, and thus power in the United Methodist Church. For 2016, a populous conference like Oklahoma gets 14 votes split between clergy and laity, whereas a smaller conference like Oregon-Idaho gets 2 votes. Like the House of Representatives in the U.S. Congress, population determines number of votes.
So a question: What if it was revealed in the 2010 census that Oklahoma (the state) artificially inflated its population so it would retain more members in Congress? That would be scandalous, right?
But what happens when the numbers don’t add up…in the Church?
Membership audits…
When a member of a church becomes inactive, what happens to their membership? While the pastor can reach out, while friends can try to connect, while people can try to determine if they moved away, there’s only TWO ways to remove them from church membership:
- Self-removal by written notice from the member, or
- Vote of the yearly gathering of a local church community (a charge conference).
A membership audit, held yearly by the Discipline (¶231), helps churches of any size maintain their membership roles and deal with inactive members by removing them by charge conference action.
I grouse about these reports because in my local church, we’d be seen as vital if it weren’t for removing members by Charge Conference action. We take in just a few less members than we lose to death or removal by charge conference. Our new members bring new life and excitement, and overall our participation in small groups is huge, our worship attendance is up…but to the bean counters of General Conference, all that matters is the number of actual members.
You see, my congregation follows the Discipline and we remove members every year via charge conference action as a direct result of an annual membership audit. Doesn’t everyone else do this, uphold the Discipline?
…By Only 11% of Methodism
It turns 89% of the churches each year do not follow the Discipline and have a membership audit.
In 2013, the last year which we have the data, out of 32,608 churches, only 3,847 removed people by Charge Conference action. Just over 11% of the church had a charge conference membership audit. Eleven percent!
Let’s be charitable: I’ve heard of some district superintendents requiring them every five years. Okay, over-estimating that each one is a different church, 20,952 of the 32,608 churches had at least one person removed by charge conference action in the last five years. That’s 65% of United Methodism over five years…and we’ll soon hit less than half.
The numbers are in a perfect slide down. Remember these are churches that reported at least ONE member removed by charge conference action that year.
- 2009: 4,480 churches
- 2010: 4,319 churches
- 2011: 4,232 churches
- 2012: 4,074 churches
- 2013: 3,847 churches
In a church that is already bleeding members, the Discipline-mandated practice of maintaining membership rolls is no longer being practiced in large, large swaths of United Methodism. Indeed, out of the Top 100 churches, only 11 in 2013 had removed anyone by charge conference. Really, out of thousands of worshippers, 89 megachurches didn’t have anyone drop off the rolls?
There’s something fishy here.
The lack of incentive to uphold the Covenant
The problem is that membership matters when it comes to allocating power by General Conference. So it is in a region’s best interest to not do membership audits. I heard of a DS who encouraged a church to not report so many deaths in one year as it would negatively impact their numbers and they should hold off reporting some until the following year–even though they were dead now.
The structure of the UMC rewards membership. The polity of the UMC requires accountability and accuracy in membership numbers, but there’s no institutional inclination to do this. In fact, the opposite is true: doing robust membership accounting is both time-consuming and always–always–results in membership loss. This may not be a mass conspiracy so much as benign neglect, hoping that being lax on enforcement will benefit the area rather than hurt it.
However, it is a massive problem when only 11% of United Methodist churches do membership audits each year and have removed anyone from the rolls over the past five years. In our increasing mobile and aging population, it’s inconceivable that more churches are not losing members in this way. And if entire regions are holding onto inactive rolls and receive a boost in their representation at General Conference–well, that’s a huge issue!
What to do:
- Local churches should ensure their Membership Secretary (¶234) is doing their job and do intentional work on your membership list…every year.
- Bishops must hold Cabinets accountable to encourage every church to do a membership audit (¶231). It may reflect numbers you are afraid of, but it will go a long way to encourage honesty in reporting.
- General Agencies who track membership (like maybe GCFA?) should report when a congregation has gone five years without a membership audit. That list would greatly help the above two circles know where to ask.
The numbers will hurt. The congregation memberships will go down.
But that’s not how to think of this: it’s an opportunity for engagement and pastoral care. Whenever my local church gets the list of members who haven’t attended in 3 years, that becomes a pastoral concern and we contact those inactive members to the best of our ability and see what’s going on or if there’s life changes that we can care for. Local churches are not only missing out on a huge way to care for its members, but also on honesty in representation to General Conference
Reset the Church in 2015?
The credibility of General Conference depends on our representative system being accountable and accurate. When representation is based on membership, and annual conferences have no reason to lower their memberships by enforcing charge conference membership audits, then we wonder if General Conference is truly representative. Are there regions of United Methodism that are artificially inflated? Are there megachurches with huge numbers on their lists that haven’t darkened the door in years or a decade?
Maybe 2015 is the year to do a full-scale audit, reset the actuaries, see the real data, and allow the next General Conference to be more representative and accurate. It will hurt for everyone numerically, but it will be more honest, and will help every local church reach out in Christian love to those who have fallen off the rolls.
That sounds like a win-win to me.
Thoughts?
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Obligatory disclaimer:
“The statistical data included herein were provided at no charge by the General Council on Finance and Administration of The United Methodist Church (GCFA) and may be obtained directly from GCFA, PO Box 340020, Nashville, TN 37203-0029. This data is proprietary and is owned by GCFA and may not be used in any commercial or exploitative way, to make a financial profit, or in a manner that defames the United Methodist denomination or its agencies or organizations. GCFA does not endorse any particular use of the data or accept responsibility for its interpretation or analysis by another.”
One clarification here: the Top 100 you cite here are the 100 highest ATTENDED, not the 100 with the highest membership. The 100 highest membership would be a much different and less authentic list than attendance. Many churches in the Top 100 attendance list have greater weekly attendance than membership, which is anomalous in the UMC.
Wonder what would happen if we based GC representation on attendance and not membership?
That’s a good point, sorry to not be clear, Talbot. I’d have to reorder the spreadsheet to see that one.
I think if we based it on attendance and not membership, we’d have a lot more churches counting Father, Son, and Holy Spirit like I do in their gatherings.
By the way, I see I used the word “anomalous” in my comment. Is that even a word? Or should I have just said, “which is an anomaly in the UMC”? Inquiring minds want to know.
It is indeed a word. I’m surprised you didn’t Google it before using it. People who don’t do this make mistakes like my husband did when he confused flummoxed with flustered.
I didn’t want to interrupt my Responding To UM Jeremy Mojo by googling. Got caught up in the moment. Won’t happen again.
Every DAC charge conference I’ve attended acts on membership. #1percenter
I won’t hold my breath waiting for the Defenders Of The Covenant to suggest that pastors who don’t uphold THIS part of the covenant should be brought up on charges.
Yes. Odd, isn’t it, John 🙂
Ever since I was in seminary at Duke (way back in the mid 70’s, so that tells you how old I am), I have publicly advocated a radical notion that has, not surprisingly, never gotten any traction. I think we should require local church membership to be renewed once a year. I don’t propose setting the bar very high–just attend worship at least once a year and sign the attendance register. This small act is an intentional declaration that one wishes to remain a part of that particular congregation. For active members, this would be a non-issue. Even those who come only on Christmas Eve and Easter could maintain their connection in this way. But those who move away, change churches, lose interest, or become disconnected from a congregation for any of a variety of reasons and go for more than a year not attending would no longer be adding to the numerical membership count. Special provisions could be made for the homebound and those in nursing homes who wished to renew their memberships without physically attending worship.
For ecclesiological reasons, this plan would necessitate our making a distinction between membership in a local congregation and the denomination as a whole on the one hand and membership in the Church Universal on the other. Those who did not renew their local church membership at least annually could be maintained on a roll of baptized Christians who have been previously affiliated with a particular congregation. There are those who could come up with a catchy but theologically appropriate name for this status.
I have always seen this idea as a kind of continuous, self-proving membership audit that places the responsibility where it belongs–on the person who, at one time, came forward and expressed a desire to join a particular congregation. If that desire no longer has any validity for this person, after appropriate pastoral efforts have been made to renew the relationship, then maintaining that person’s name on a membership roll is patently false.
I think that’s an intriguing idea. I’ve thought that replacing continuous ordination with re-certification practices like doctors have (say every 8-10 years) would solve all our problems of guaranteed appointment.
Reminds me of the early Methodists and their tickets. Of course, if one dropped out of a Methodist society s/he still maintained membership in the Church of England.
Church apportionments used to be determined by membership. An easy way to get more honest reporting would be to restore that factor in the algorithm. You should promote that, Jeremy. Glad you pointed this out. It has been like pulling teeth to get these churches to agree to remove inactive members by charge conference action. And a great many have been offended when I push for it. Still, membership needs to mean something. Keep pushing on this one!
Glad we’re on the same page on this, Jeffrey! 🙂
I think this is so interesting, because I have experienced the exact opposite! In all the different places I have pastored (North Carolina, Indiana, Illinois; rural, urban, suburban; lower class, middle class, rich) there is a HUGE incentive to do audits . . . lower appointments! Every congregation (large, medium, small) was quite keen on taking folks off the rolls, because if people weren’t coming regularly, they weren’t giving regularly. Yet, the congregation felt these same persons (who weren’t coming regularly or giving regularly) were being counted against them in large monies paid for apportionments (or as they would always unfortunately say “tax”). It became so bad, there was no thought to this being a pastoral or spiritual issue with person’s real needs not being meet by the congregation. Instead it became about money. Surely I am not the only one who has experienced this? In fact, in Seminary they had a whole session on how to not let congregations rush (cut down on the 3 year process) in taking folks off the membership rolls (as many were doing) and help them see the spiritual and theological dimensions to the Annual Audit. You and I see the same thing, yet because of experience, reach the exact opposite conclusions! I think the Annual Audit (again from my experience) and it’s link to apportionments causes congregations to happily and prematurely strike off folks on the rolls (many of whom would be open to returning to worship and faith if they felt their concerns were listened to and addressed) because they want lessen their apportionments. You have never experienced this, Jeremy? Anyone else?
Brian, I don’t know that I’ve served in a conference where membership is the determiner of apportionments. In ORIDA, it’s budget and a few other considerations. At least, that’s what I recall.
Yeah, Indiana changed apportionment designation when I was there from membership to monthly offerings received. Every month, 10% goes to conference, 3% to District. It made a real difference in congregations wanting to cut off as many folks from membership as quickly as possible. When those two were disconnected, it make people see the theological and pastoral importance of the Annual Audit. Things really changed. In Northern Illinois it is a vastly complex system of attendance, membership, and offering over the last five years. It has changed in North Carolina as well. Yet, even with these good changes that do not incentivize congregations taking folks off the rolls, I have never had a congregation not want to do thorough Annual Audit. Also, let me be clear, I always visited or attempted to on may occasions folks who were to be removed. Now, congregations listen to those who may leave much better instead of just being thankful they were gone so as not to be a apportionment hit.
Iowa also switched from apportionments being tied to membership to it being connected with church giving. I wonder what impact that switch had on our likelihood to report and do the audit.
All we have to do is go back to making apportionment allocations based on membership again. That will clear the rolls!
That doesn’t necessarily hold true. My church would rather pay more than admit it lost members over a decision made years ago. It is all a big lie and no one is held accountable. Real Christians.
It’s intriguing, Jeremy, but I tend to think that if we began allocating GC representation by attendance, then folks would find a way to game the system for that, too. Power corrupts and we are corruptible humans.
I am surprised to hear that some conferences allocate apportionments without considering membership. West Ohio gives 2/3 weight to operating budget and 1/3 weight to membership, puts those numbers into a full page long formula and then gives each church a number. I thought every conference considered membership to some extent.
On apportionments, I advocate looking at operating budget, taking 10% of that figure, and saying that is the congregation’s apportionment total for the next year. Most churches would see a dramatic decrease in apportionments, while a few larger churches would see an increase. But I think it would be more just.
Within the first two years of my last appointment we “declined” from ~590 to ~370 members, because no one had, perhaps ever, done a membership audit. About 30 of those were people who had died and had never been removed (one had died in the 1930’s).
I’ve run into that at every single appointment. Not quite to that scale – but it’s always there.
I’m going to be honest here, given some of the “management” issues we’ve seen coming out of some of the African Conferences, I’ve always had concerns about the accuracy of their counts. They so totally fly in the face of what everyone else is seeing, it just seems strange the remarkable growth there.
Every time I go into a new appointment I do a membership audit. What I generally find is it hasn’t been done for several years. That means I am generally removing several the first and second year. Most recently 200-300.
I also try to get an accurate count on attendance. I sometimes find that is being misreported also. So everytime I go to a church, on paper it like looks like everything tanked when I got there. It’s tempting to continue the pattern so it does not reflect badly on me.
There is more than one reason these things are fudged. I have a Lutheran colleague and if a member has not been in church and tithed they are dropped. It seems membership doesn’t mean what we say it means because anyone can stay a member regardless of activity.
I have “members” who attend other churches but do not want to change membership. They do not come, give, or otherwise participate in the life of the church, but it’s their home church so they don’t change. Churches get cranky if you try to remove people.
You have misinterpreted the numbers you were given. I don’t know how without seeing what you were given but you are simply wrong on all counts. Many, many more churches than one percent (or even 6.5%) remove people by charge conference action. What many have recognized, including Bishop Devadhar in his Episcopal Address to Greater NJ in 2010, is that there is something wrong when we are removing more people by human hand than are removed by the hand of God.
Perhaps instead of being so intent to remove people who are lost sheep, we should be doing everything we can to bring them back into the fold and at a minimum leave a space open for them.
When GCFA would publish membership statistics summaries showing a number of years and the inflows and outflows of members, you could see that if we “merely” held our charge conference removals to no more than the number of deaths instead of being so intent to “scrub” the rolls (which is far, far more common) then we would actually have a membership increase.
A few years ago, when Greater NJ was exploring a change to its apportionment formula, I studied the formulae used across the connection and a number used membership. I don’t know how many (particularly in the Western Jurisdiction) use membership as a part of their formula but as other commenters mentioned it is certainly an incentive to “scrub” the rolls.
I am a fan of accurate membership, Jeremy. I’ve always pursued that in the churches I’ve served. I agree that many churches do not.
I wonder, however, if maybe people who are being “dropped” from membership are being coded as “withdrawn” and not taken through the 2-year (now) process for removal through charge conference action. As someone pointed out, people are impatient with the process that is necessary to remove members. Also, in my experience, laity hate going through the process of removing members. They think it is cruel and unusual punishment. Some of my lay leaders absolutely refused to remove anyone! To avoid the discomfort, the pastor may just report them as withdrawn rather than go through the hassle of the charge conference process.
So it may be that many more churches are removing members, but it’s not obvious because they don’t appear in the “removed by charge conference” category.
As for whether this unfairly affects representation, if 95% of the churches are not doing audits, then that would be a near universal reality that would not affect the relative representation of one area versus another.
Good to meet you this week in Portland!
Jeremy, something to consider. We do an annual membership letter each year where folks are invited to recommit or otherwise change their membership status. We often have changes including people removing themselves, asking to be transferred, and changing their membership status but still remaining friends of the church. You assume that if their is no name, there was no audit. We would be the exception that to that case.
Thanks Greg. I would ask if that has been the case for five years? For five years you accounted for every single member? My data only goes back that far so it’s a rather arbitrary question.
However, I don’t think the exceptions discredit the problem. Even if 200% more churches are like yours, that’s still only 20% of Methodism that is doing these audits. You have to get a lot of exceptions to get anywhere close to an amount where this “isn’t anything to worry about.”
More than 300,00 UM churches?! Your overall point stands, but I think you need to restate your numbers.
GCFA says the number of churches is about 10% of what you stated.
Well crap. Absolute crap. I have no idea how I misplaced the comma. Will re formulate in a few hours.
Very embarrassing. Thanks for pointing it out so it could be corrected, Chris.
Done. Still 11% of United Methodism. So still a critical problem. Thanks for helping me out.
Thanks for correcting. As I said, your overall point stands and is an important one that gets little to no attention at the top levels of our power structure, which has always baffled me.
I’d like to write about this issue myself when I get a chance. There are several hopeful possibilities to be explored for renewal as new lIfe springs fourth from the aging edifice of UMC polity and process, especially as identified by the representational conundrum you identified here.
Jeremy should post his work because there is a flaw somewhere.
More than 300,000? Missed a zero. Kindle, I blame you!
I’m in the process of moving from California-Pacific annual conference to Virginia. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that membership audits are just not done here on a regular basis! I’ve served here three years now, and my church conference is done with two other churches. None have reported a single person for removal since I’ve been here. Neither DS has asked, so it seems this is status quo. In Cal-Pac, my experience serving four churches and talking with colleagues was that the rolls were audited every year. And the Southeast is the biggest Jurisdiction?
I think all of these responses must be from pastors. I cant figure out why people are in such a hurry to get someones name off the church roll. I left a UMC 15 months ago that I felt like I had poured my heart and soul into for 22 years. Was there every time the door was open and sometime the one the had unlocked the door. Went to another denomination. After being gone for 3 months got a letter from pastor stating since it had been quite sometime since we had been there and involved in ministry so our name would be added to list to be read out at charge conference. The last week i was there i slept at the church everynight got up at 5 to fix breakfast for mission camp staying at our church and my husband came and replaced light bulbs in education building knowing we were leaving. The pastor couldnt wait to get our name off the roll. Tomorrow I will call the church office to tell them they can officially remove our name since we joined another church today. That along with many other reasons are why we are no longer UM. When church audits and votes at General Conference are what is important that might explain declining numbers in UM church.