Can Methodism Reach America’s Reviving Cities?

on October 12, 2014

Will United Methodists ever get serious about reaching America’s cities with the Gospel?

This question again struck me over the last two weekends when travels placed me in historic downtowns. When traveling on Sundays I always look for and nearly always find good United Methodist congregations. There are after all over 30,000 United Methodist churches in the U.S. Generally these visits to local churches, with worship that typically is traditional and orthodox, are encouraging.

Last week in Boston I searched for a United Methodist option. Remarkably there were only three United Methodist churches within reach of my hotel. Examining their websites on Saturday eve, each was clearly committed to the LGBTQ etc agenda. Instead I worshipped at the hotel with the conference I was attending.

This weekend I’m downtown Richmond, Virginia, attending the baptism of a friend’s baby on Saturday eve at the beautiful Catholic cathedral. Bizarrely, there are only a couple United Methodist churches nearby, although Virginia is United Methodism’s heartland. Sadly, the historic downtown church is “reconciling” and spiritually dormant. So I attended a church a couple miles away in the city’s charming Fan District, which I attended two years ago, and whose website evinces no direct signs of heterodoxy.

About 50 were in the beautiful sanctuary, which seats several hundred. During the sharing of “joys,” one person praised the “full” house this morning. The pastor later smilingly acknowledged that visitors likely were surprised by this remark, but the crowd was indeed larger than the previous week. It was also about the same from what I recall two years ago.

Another “joy” shared by a congregant was the state of Virginia’s having embraced “marriage equality” this past week. Of course, Virginia’s voters and legislature never accepted same sex marriage. An activist judge imposed the decision. There were a few murmurs of approval in the congregation, and the minister repeated the praise, as she repeated other praises and prayer concerns.

Perhaps the minister at that point was only being polite, I thought. But later she repeated “marriage equality” in her own prayer. Of course, she didn’t mention that The United Methodist Church disapproves same sex marriage, both civil and ecclesial.

Some insistently claim that embracing social liberalism is absolutely key to attracting young people to churches. Their evidence is typically slim to nonexistent. Richmond’s Fan District is full of young people. Virginia Commonwealth University is right there. The church I attended this morning had maybe a few people young enough to be students.

Generally the liberal predominantly white United Methodist churches that predominate in urban areas are sparsely attended and unsuccessful with young people. With some notable exceptions, it’s often hard to find the orthodox Gospel from a United Methodist church in America’s urban downtowns, except for some of the historic black churches. Boston was never an area of great strength for Methodism, despite or perhaps due to the presence of United Methodism’s mother seminary of Germanic Hegelian liberalism, Boston School of Theology. But Richmond?

Of course, some outer neighborhoods and suburbs of Richmond have strong United Methodist congregations. Richmond’s downtown, like other cities, is experiencing an ongoing rebirth. But Methodism is not meaningfully there, having long since focused on the suburbs and abandoned the downtowns to niche liberal theologies with limited appeals.

I suspect non-denominational churches are church planting in downtown Richmond. A young black man stopped me in my hotel lobby last eve, identifying himself as a youth pastor, and gave me a flier for his new church. Very likely LGBTQ isn’t a theme for his congregation.

What is true in a Richmond is even more so in Washington, DC, where there are very few options for experiencing orthodox Christianity in a United Methodist congregation. The nation’s capital is experiencing a church planting boom, like many cities, and these churches are attracting thousands of the Millennials who are flocking to the Washington’s growing downtown population. But none of these new churches are Methodist. They are Anglican, Presbyterian Church in America, Assemblies of God, Southern Baptist and non-denominational.

Of course, many of these church going urban Millennials are socially liberal. But they’re not attracted to socially liberal churches. Likely they, like most people, imagine that religion is about aspiring to loftier transcendent standards, not unfulfilling self-affirmation that echoes the secular culture.

What a missed opportunity for United Methodism. Our official denominational channels have almost no meaningful capacity to address this challenge. They are captive to bureaucratic inertia and the reigning secular ideologies of diversity, multiculturalism and post-modern self-empowerment.

So what if evangelical United Methodist congregations on their own organized to found 100 new church plants in America’s urban centers? What better way to motivate congregations, renew our denomination, and bring Wesleyan Christianity to a new generation with wider cultural impact?

Too much of United Methodism’s national conversation, including among Evangelicals, is despairing, negative, and inward focused. Reaching America’s cities, especially young people, with the Gospel, would offer a needed spiritual corrective.

FYI, the Catholic cathedral in downtown Richmond last eve was quite full, with many baby baptisms. And the priest never offered any thanks for “marriage equality.” Engraved across the cathedral portico are Christ’s words from John’s Gospel: “If ye love Me keep My commandments.”

  1. Comment by Trish Martin on October 12, 2014 at 10:24 pm

    It is heartbreaking that in the several months we have not been attending church at our local United Methodist Church – and we are members – the only communication we have received from the church has been more than 6 letters asking for money.

  2. Comment by localhistorywriter on October 13, 2014 at 9:20 am

    Mark, having lived in Richmond’s Fan District years ago, I could’ve told you it is as boho and pro-gay as you can get, and any church in the Fan is certain to be pro-gay. Most of the orthodox Christians attend church in teh suburbs.

  3. Comment by MarcoPolo on October 14, 2014 at 3:33 pm

    Just curious…What is boho?

    Over the last (nearly) sixty years, I’ve noticed people’s opinion of Methodism as being one of the “middle of the road” denominations.
    Compared to Catholicism, Judaism and Southern Baptist, the Methodists always seemed like the kind of church ‘family’ that accommodated the lethargy of those who didn’t want a ‘demanding’ religion. I know, as I was one who attended from birth through college.

    Finally realizing that the Methodist church hierarchy is now attempting to make the denomination more strict in their interpretation of God’s law, I’m not surprised that many young people will seek a more socially conscientious church that seeks to unite people, rather than divide them.

    It seems, I should know what boho means?….Bohemian?!

  4. Comment by John S. on October 14, 2014 at 7:19 am

    Isn’t this the heart of the current problems the UMC is experiencing? “there are very few options for experiencing orthodox Christianity in a United Methodist congregation.”

  5. Comment by Kent on October 14, 2014 at 7:49 pm

    Just curious, Mark, how you decided that the church in downtown Richmond was spiritually dormant? Did you judge that from the website? Make a rash judgment based on one position they take that you disagree with? Do you even know the pastor, a graduate from Oral Roberts University?

    Which one of “my commandments” is your judgmental and vitriolic attitude based on…

  6. Comment by Rachel on October 20, 2014 at 10:20 pm

    Grace and peace to you, Mark. Rachel, here. I’m sorry that worshipping with us in Richmond was not a hopeful experience for you. I do, in fact, incorporate the joys and concerns of my people into each Sunday’s pastoral prayer. The joy that I quoted–alongside of the other joys–was, ‘a step toward equality’. The insertion of “marriage” is yours. Your critique offered directly, first; that might better assist us, the critiqued, while still allowing you to speak truth in love.

  7. Comment by Vegan Taxidermist on November 20, 2014 at 12:47 pm

    I don’t want to belittle that downtown church, but getting 50 people together is something we could probably pull off any day of the week, and we don’t have the luxuries of a paid minister or a building.

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