Archive: Rise Up and Walk

By Bishop Richard Wilke

September/October 1985

Bishop Richard Wilke, of United Methodism’s Arkansas area, brought sobering words to the Council of Bishops’ meeting held several months ago in Seattle. Wilke presented in bold relief the picture of United Methodism’s decline and warned that, if not reversed soon, it could be fatal. The following article is from Bishop Wilke’s remarks to the Council of Bishops.

Last month I attended a civic luncheon in Little Rock. I went because Arkansas’ distinguished senior senator, Dale Bumpers, was to speak. A member of our church. He stood and acknowledged my presence. That made me feel good. Then he proceeded to say that like the blue whale and the whooping crane, he is a member of an endangered species: he is a United Methodist. That didn’t make me feel so good.

“… there was a feast of the Jews. and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda. having five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame. and withered …. And a certain man was there, who had been 38 years in his sickness. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition. He said to him, ‘Do you wish to get well?’ The sick man answered Him, ‘Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming. another steps down before me.’ Jesus said to him. ‘Arise, take up your pallet, and walk”‘ (John 5: 1-3. 5-11).

We lie beside the pool, you and I and the United Methodist Church. We lie beside the pool, and the waters are stirring. We lie beside the pool with the blind and the lame, as a paralyzed man, withering and weak. The King James version uses the word “impotent,” and I suppose the translators meant lacking in power to walk or to do, but the word means for us today the inability to reproduce. Actually we United Methodists are both, impotent and unable to reproduce as well as paralyzed and weak.

Once we were a Wesleyan revival, full of the Holy Spirit, running like a young man, tackling a whole continent with Scriptural holiness. Now we’re like a runner out of breath, like a withered old man lying – in our case – 20 years beside the pool. Since 1964 we have been lying there, withering away. Twenty years of paralysis, unable to reproduce. From 1960 to 1964, 4.2 million people came to our Sunday schools every Sunday morning. Today 2.1 million attend. Half of all our Sunday school is gone. And these are not just membership figures. These are your sons and daughters and our friends.

Our youth program, too, has withered. I remember being challenged to enter the ministry by Richard Raines and E. Stanley Jones. They brought an idealism to the youth of our denomination. I had visions of thousands of young people in Christian service. Now I watch two young Mormons dressed a lot like I am, walking down the street, house to house. I called last week to see how many US-2 [short-term. U.S. based] missionaries we have. We have 27 now.

People argue whether our membership decline of over 1.7 million is caused by our inability to retain members or by our inability to reproduce. The answer is both.

Fifty thousand lost

The average United Methodist Church has 287 members. For 20 years we have closed the equivalent or 300 such churches a year. Last year at the General Conference in Baltimore, late at night, seemingly from an unknown source, someone said, “Let’s have 20 million members by 1992. All in favor say ‘aye’.” And we all lifted our hands. Since we set that goal we have lost another 50,000 members. We’re paralyzed.

What was the matter with that fellow beside the pool at Bethesda? I don’t know, do you? The Bible doesn’t say why he was withered and weak and impotent and paralyzed. And I don’t know why our church is in such a condition. Lately we’ve been asking every church consultant and knowledgeable church-growth person, and we’ve gotten a hundred different answers. I think about 57 of them are right. I don’t know what is wrong, but I intend to find out.

When Lee Iacocca became president of Chrysler, he immediately began to ask for data about simple things. For example, he asked, “What is the unit cost of production’!” Chrysler didn’t know. Do you know how many young people attend Methodist Youth Fellowship on Sunday night in our denomination? No one knows. Do you know how many young people attended our church camps last year or any previous year? Nobody knows. Do you know how many men attend our United Methodist Men’s meetings? Nobody knows. I called New York to ask how many women attended United Methodist Women meetings last year. The reply: “That statistic has never been deemed significant.” Nobody knows.

How many new churches have we started in the last 20 years’? I asked an official. and he said. “I can give you figures since 1977, but we’re researching the ’60s and the ’70s.” Nobody knows.

This reminds me of when my father was dying. The doctor said all his signs looked good. “He has a strong heart,” the doctor said.

I said, “Yes, but he’s dying.”

The doctor said, “He has a good color.”

I said, “Yes, but he’s dying. What’s the matter with the man? He’s lying there on the bed. That’s not like my dad.”

The doctor said, “I don’t know.”

“He’s dying,” I said.

After my dad died, an autopsy was done and a lace-like cancer of the adrenal gland was found, but while my father was dying nobody knew why he was so weak and withered. And so it is with us. We’re not sure.

But the water is swirling, all right. The Holy Spirit is moving. In some places with explosive power, people are being healed. People are being converted. Churches are being formed.

Some say that we are in the third Great Awakening in America. We see more interest in religion today than at any time for a hundred years. Even the secular media asks questions about religion. For the first time in my ministry, newspapers and television care what the Church is doing.

People are hungry. The spiritual vacuum in our land that calls for the Gospel is indescribable. Whether you’re talking about teenagers in Plano, Texas or about the brokenness of homes anywhere. Yet, we have a half-time person in our Board of Discipleship working with marriage and the family.

Forty percent of all American adults are single. Yet we have not devised a strategy of ministry to singles.

The baby boom is here – 80 million Americans between the age of 17 and 34. And those baby boomers are producing a baby baby boom boom! I’m a new grandfather, and across the land families like my son’s who delayed having children are now having them. Yet, we don’t even know how many pre-school children are in United Methodist Sunday schools. Nobody knows. Who is minding the store?

Still our Savior speaks the probing words, “Do you want to be well? Do you want to be healed?” And we are not so sure. Do we want to learn from the Koreans? They don’t form churches quite like we form churches. And the itinerancy seems a little strange to them. Are we willing to take into our fellowship these kinds of people and bend our rules?

Lyle Schaller says our whole system is designed for failure. We penalize the growing church by  increasing its “taxes,” and we make it easier on the declining church by easing off on apportionments.

I just came from our conference’s cabinet meeting where I had conversations like this:

“That’s a good pastor at that church. Pull him out of there. We need him somewhere else.”

I say, “He’s only been there three years.”

“Well, we ought to give him a $1200 promotion.”

First in the Water

We have so many excuses for our impotent condition. The man at the pool said, “Someone always gets  into the water before me …. ”

The Southern Baptists in Texas have projected a five-year plan. This is not the Southern Baptist Church across the nation, mind you, just in one state. In the next five years the Southern Baptists intend to plant 2,000 churches in Texas!

That denomination has 20 full-time church planters. Not planners, but planters. Furthermore, one-half of those church planters are ethnics. They are targeting the black population, the Hispanic population, the blue-collar worker. Somebody is always getting there before us.

In Houston a massive meeting was held last month sponsored by 20 denominations. Its purpose was to formulate strategics to reach Hispanics for Christ. Someone who was there asked me why, with 20 denominations represented, none of our United Methodist leaders were present. I think the reason was because some of those folks who came to the meeting use dirty words like “born again” and “praise the Lord.”

Our conference is trying to start a new church near Rogers. Arkansas. I am excited about it. The population studies have been done, the surveys have been made, and after several years of work we are now able to purchase a piece of land.

I went out to help inspect the site. When I looked up the street. Three blocks away I saw an Assembly of God church. It had been there for 11 years, thriving and nourishing in this new population area.

“Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up … while I am coming another steps down before me.” And the Lord spoke the word of power. “Arise,” He said. “take up your pallet, and walk.” Another time he said. “Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or to say. ‘Rise up and walk”!”‘

Our sins are many. I leave it to you to catalog them. But we are not impotent because we are skinny: we are impotent because we are fat. We are not unable to reproduce because we’re unimaginative. But because we’re misfocuscd. We are like modern couples who decide not to have children because they want to fulfill themselves.

Our timetable, I think, is the word of Jesus in the parable of the vineyard. A certain man has a fig tree in his vineyard and he comes to look for fruit from it. He says to the vinedresser, “I’ve come here for years seeking fruit and lo, there is none. Cut it down. It is using up valuable space.” But the vinedresser answers, “Lord, don’t destroy it this year. Let me dig around it and fertilize it. And if it bear fruit, good. If not. then you can cut it down.”

Our real danger is not that we fail to have 20 million members by 1992. (In fact, that idea is ridiculous. Never in our history have we had an increase like that. The Southern Baptists, with all of their intensity, project just a one percent growth.  For us to more than double our denomination is a ludicrous goal.) Our true danger is that we cannot even turn the ship around. My fear is that we have only another year or so before the Lord will let us die for lack of bearing fruit.

Our Lord, in His final imperative, made our mission so clear. In Luke 24 He said, “repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations.” In Mark, the Lord commanded, “go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all creation.” And in Matthew, I think the correct translation should be, “as you are going into the world (as you are about your life in the world), make disciples.”

We have been preaching ethics for 30 years (and I believe in the ethics of the Gospel and its social implications), but we have not been rooting that preaching in the faith in the atoning work of Christ and the mercies of God and Jesus.

Dear friends, we are impotent, lying beside the pool. Make no mistake about it. But the Spirit is moving in the waters. It is no longer adequate for us to make excuses or bemoan the fact that others go into the water before us. Our cry is for the word of the Savior to give us power and to Say, “Your sins are forgiven.” To say, “Rise, pick up  your bed and walk.” To say again,  “As you are going into the world, make disciples.”

Post script

Bishop Wilke’s words to the Council of Bishops were words not only of sober assessment but of guarded optimism. That element of hope springs, in part, from his success in helping First UM Church of Wichita reverse its membership decline. He told the bishops:

” … All across America, the great churches of our cities had begun to die. First Church Wichita was among the ‘dyingest’ … Sixty percent of the membership was over 65. Membership had dropped in 11 years from 3,800 to 2,300. Sunday school was down 50 percent in the children’s department. The senior-high fellowship had seven members. So we began to pray ….

“The Wichita church, which Wilke pastored until his appointment as bishop in 1984, also tried 18 different ways to start growing again. None of them worked. The church tried various evangelistic strategies, including “2 by 2” lay evangelism – all to no avail.

When finally the membership decline did begin to turn around, much of the new growth came through the  Sunday school. In 10 years it grew from 9 adult classes to 19, with 700  adult members.

Under Wilke’s leadership the church began to reach out more to downtown people in the lower economic brackets. “We had tried reaching the prosperous and the wealthy,” he said, “but they didn’t come …. Those people  tee off about 9 a.m. every Sunday, or they have a boat on the lake …. ”

In an interview with The United Methodist Reporter, Bishop Wilke said, “New-style Sunday school classes and congregations that have more fellowship, more  are for one another, more discipleship, and where people come not to hear a lecture but to meditate on the spiritual life … those are the groups that will attract more members.”

If his recent remarks are any indication, Bishop Wilke has hope for the church. But it is a hope tempered by a realistic view of the current state of United Methodism.