A liberal United Methodist congregation in North Carolina made news this week as it hosted the first same-sex couple in North Carolina to get married – at least publicly – in a United Methodist church. The ceremony, presided over by retired Bishop Melvin Talbert and First UMC Charlotte Pastor Val Rosenquist, is a direct challenge to the denomination’s teaching and timed on the eve of the quadrennial United Methodist General Conference convening in Portland, Oregon on May 10.
(Mark Tooley authored a blog post about Talbert and United Methodism’s future yesterday that you can read here.)
Same-sex weddings – and the use of Methodist church buildings to host them – are against the 12 million-member denomination’s rules, but they also aren’t new in United Methodism: participating clergy usually conduct them outside of Methodist sanctuaries, as Talbert did in 2013 at a United Church of Christ (UCC) church building in Alabama. Depending on where the union is solemnized, there has been an uneven patchwork of enforcement for violations of the Book of Discipline across the UMC.
As the Charlotte Observer notes in its coverage, First United Methodist Church (FUMC) has long been among Charlotte’s gay-affirming churches. It was the first Charlotte church, in 2014, to join the Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN), the unofficial LGBT caucus within United Methodism.
In its vision statement, RMN declares that it “envisions a renewed and vibrant Wesleyan movement” – so does FUMC Charlotte reflect renewal and vibrancy? Demographic data paints a picture of a congregation that is failing to reflect the diversity, growth and youth of the population that surrounds it.
Like most of the Mainline Protestant denominations, the United Methodist Church makes available detailed statistics reported annually from each member congregation. In this case, the 2015 Western North Carolina Annual Conference Journal provides a good glimpse at the church today.
According to the journal, the church has 679 members and is almost entirely white (651 members – 96% — are white). Average Sunday attendance is 175, which is sparse for the sizeable uptown building that the congregation meets at. The Observer reported that 150 were present for Talbert’s Sunday visit the day following the wedding.
The church does not appear to be vibrant: two baptisms were recorded in 2014, and there are only 20 children ages 12 and under. There are few youth (15 ages 13-18) and few young adults (15 ages 19-35). There are even fewer in those age groups enrolled in Christian Formation groups. The entire vacation bible school had only a dozen children participate.
To provide context, I went back to the 2006 Annual Conference Journal, which reports statistics from 2005. That year, the church had 969 members and had average attendance of 240, with 7 baptisms all year. In the past decade membership has dropped 30 percent, and attendance has dropped 27 percent.
In fairness to Rosenquist, her first Sunday as Senior Pastor was last July, so she didn’t overlap with any of these reported statistics. But the congregation has been on a graying, declining trajectory for some time.
Let’s review: in a city that (according to U.S. Census data) is 45 percent white, First UMC Charlotte is 96 percent white. Population growth in Charlotte has boomed (395,934 residents in 1990 to an estimated 809,958 residents in 2014) while First UMC has lost approximately a third of its membership and attendance in only the last decade. Charlotte’s population is young, with 25.2 percent of residents under the age of 18, yet only 5 percent of First UMC’s reported participating membership is in that age range.
In short, if you envision “a renewed and vibrant Wesleyan movement,” look elsewhere.
UPDATE: The United Methodist Reporter is reporting that charges have been filed against Talbert and Rosenquist for their participation in the same-sex wedding: “In response to the filed complaint, Bishop Goodpaster has begun the process outlined in paragraph 363 of The 2012 Book of Discipline.”
UPDATE [10/19/2016]: Newly-released 2015 membership statistics from the Western North Carolina Annual Conference show that Charlotte First UMC has continued to decline, from a membership of 977 in 2005 to 573 in 2015 (-41%).
Comment by Dan on April 26, 2016 at 12:57 pm
You’re being very rigid and not inclusive in your thinking. I bet a large proportion of the congregation identifies as people of color and young persons. Who are we to arbitrarily restrict ourselves to mere biology! 😉
Comment by ConfessionPastor on April 26, 2016 at 3:00 pm
It just goes to show you that they have no desire to address the real problem. Instead of looking to our African brothers and figuring out what they are doing that causes such dynamic growth. They thumb their noses at the Book of Discipline and say we need to marginalize the African bishops. Go figure?? The only way this changes is with a change of heart, God needs to intervene.
Comment by DannyBoyJr on April 26, 2016 at 7:03 pm
Show me an outspoken gay-marriage affirming church, and I’ll show you a declining church. That is true in the UMC and that is true in the other mainline churches. The UCC doesn’t even have a million members, and this is at a time when the sitting US president is UCC. The ELCA and TEC are both in rapid decline. The UMC is also declining in the US but not as rapidly. Let us pray that fidelity to the Gospel will help us counteract this trend.
Comment by Bob on April 28, 2016 at 12:33 pm
I am not sure what all the hub-bub is about really. Not that I condone same sex marriage — I don’t, it’s a sin, but I think the UMC’s response is really just PR and nothing more. I say this because a member of a local UMC church in my area received a notice from the UMC denomination (presumably they all did) stating a change in their official position on same sex marriage. The UMC’s new position is that it still will not condone same sex marriage — but wait — the notice then went on to say that an amendment was added that states the UMC will allow each local congregation to make the decision themselves, and that no one will be disciplined. The notice went on to state that the UMC will now ordain openly gay ministers, and will no longer discipline those within the denomination who come out as gay.
Comment by Janju on April 29, 2016 at 7:19 pm
Where was this??? I’ve not received such a notice.
Comment by Bob on April 29, 2016 at 11:49 pm
Nebraska
Comment by Rev, Vaughan Hayden on April 29, 2016 at 7:22 pm
any such notice in unofficial and in direct conflict with the only body that can make such a declaration, the General Conference. This may be the position of the church in a month, but it is not so today.
Comment by Bob on April 29, 2016 at 11:50 pm
It is my understanding that this was a message from the denomination itself, and distributed to members by the local church leadership.
Comment by Rev, Vaughan Hayden on April 30, 2016 at 9:22 am
Could I ask what conference distributed this?
Comment by Bob on April 30, 2016 at 10:56 am
To be honest, I have no idea. I attend a CM&A church. There is a UMC church a block away and one of their members approached our pastor about it as they were very concerned. This is in Nebraska.
Comment by gobmom on April 29, 2016 at 10:53 pm
This is not going to stop. It not only flies in the face of the UMC Book of Discipline it is a direct affront to the teachings of Christ. My adult children and their spouses do not attend the UMC. I am actively looking for another church as well. I know our UMC pastor believes the Bible to be a compilation of “stories” useful for righteous living but certainly not actually from God or Jesus. This is beyond sad.