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BY DONALD W. HAYNES
UMR COLUMNIST

So far as we know, the term, "The birds are coming back to their nests" originated with Chaucer in "The Parson's Tale." By the 19th century in American literature, the "birds" had become chickens! James Russell Lowell coined the phrase: "All our chickens sooner or later come home to roost." The metaphor recalled farmyard chickens that roamed freely throughout the day, but, as the evening sun sank in the western skies, the clucking hens and crowing roosters returned to the roosting poles in the hen house. 

Like all metaphors, the relationship between chickens and people breaks down. However, with all its historic twists and turns, there remains some merit in the saying. For our culture, the saying from Chaucer becomes more like the warning in Numbers 32:23: "Be sure your sins will find you out," or the prophecy in Hosea 8:7, "Sow the wind; reap the whirlwind." 

For our beloved United Methodist Church, the phrase might well be a valid interpretation of our U.S. losses in membership, muscle and cultural import. 

Bad choices boomerang as bad consequences. The question facing United Methodism in the United States is whether we are experiencing what Lyle Schaller warned about in The Ice Cube Is Melting. Dr. Schaller's statistics are now over a decade old, but what a shame that we ignored them then. In the last 44 years of the 20th century, the number of new members received decreased from 816,000 in 1956 to 398,000 in 2000. 

Yet when I presented a model for church growth to the General Council on Ministries' staff in 1990, one staffer retorted, "I will support nothing that quantifies my ministry." The refusal to have "ministry quantified" was a prevailing attitude of much of our denominational leadership for the first generation of United Methodist Church leaders in the United States after merger in 1968. And . . . the chickens have come home to roost. 

Dr. Schaller was a walking encyclopedia who spoke to hundreds of leadership groups, wrote dozens of books and developed a high respect for a generation. However, his warnings were a voice crying in the wilderness for the most part. For instance, his research demonstrated that after 1968, the United Methodist Church in the U.S. had two priorities—implementing the merger of two denominations and the assimilation of the former Central Jurisdiction churches; and, reducing the unfunded liability of the clergy pension system. Both goals were pursued with diligence and at enormous expense, but at a high price. We lost our sense of who we are in the marketplace of religious pluralism. We continued to "pass the cup" in response to human need, but we forgot how, with confidence and competence, to "Name the Name." 

While the revivals of Second Great Awakening vintage remained an annual event, from the 1880s through the 1950s, the "queen bee" of the Methodist "hive" was education. Seven of eight new members in the Methodist Church in 1956 came through the Sunday school, even if the final overt action was coming forward to the mourners' bench during the annual revival. The Sunday school was the place where most Methodist children were nurtured to personal faith and discipleship. However, attendance began to decline and after 1968, it declined precipitously when the new UMC dramatically revamped the curriculum and the structure of Sunday school classes, trying to "beef up" the academic quality of the lessons. Our Sunday school attendance has continued to plummet; the fading Baby Boom contributed to smaller confirmation classes, and bringing people to Christ for adult professions of faith is almost a rarity in most of our churches. 

We have postponed reality with two phenomena. Firstly, medical science has dramatically lengthened the years when people are able to come to church. Antibiotics and other wonder drugs have been developed that are simply keeping us alive longer. Hip and knee replacements alone are keeping us in church longer! Secondly, older adults were taught tithing, and pension funds and money markets have provided more discretionary funds for older adults than at any time in the history of the world. In short, we are living longer and many of our churches are being supported by a predominantly "over 65" giving base. 

As for aging, the death rate in America is in a 2003-2018 plateau. Then comes what the Lewis Center calls a "death tsunami." The diseases caused by our increasing obesity, the aging of the Baby Boomers and the population decline of the post-birth control pill era, and other factors will develop into a "death wave" after 2018. The UMC pension funding is on a collision course with history. 

Meanwhile we are bringing embarrassingly few people to personal faith in Jesus as their personal savior. Our culture is becoming more secular; no one will do the church's homework for us. We must look anew at what Wesley called "the primitive church" which was a cultural minority. All these factors will force a "major reset" for mainstream denominations if we begin to bring people to faith and to a form of discipleship that includes local church membership and attendance. Our challenge to thrive, or even to survive is directly related to our faith-confidence and relational competence in discipling. 

I once talked with the Korean Methodist who proposed a doubling in UMC membership from 1984-2000. What on earth was his rationale? He said that in Korean Methodism, if you did not bring at least one person to Christ in a year, you were placed on probation by your local church! My response was that we would lose a lot of members with that criterion. His counter response was, "But Don, a year is 365 days long; can a Christian not bring one person to Christ in 365 days?" I had no rebuttal and have never forgotten the truth of his logic.
Are we ready now to really take seriously Bishop Richard Wilke's 1986 book, And Are We Yet Alive? The book should have sent shock waves through United Methodism. To the contrary, many found it an insult! Listen to his opening words: 

"Our sickness is more serious than we at first supposed. We thought we were just drifting, like a sailboat on a dreamy day. Instead, we are wasting away like a leukemic victim when the blood transfusions no longer work. Once we were a Wesleyan revival, full of enthusiasm, fired by the Spirit. . . . The world was our parish. Our Wesley-inspired directive was to ‘reform the continent and spread scriptural holiness throughout the land.' Now we are tired . . . fueled by the nostalgia of former days, walking with a droop, discouraged, putting one foot in front of the other like a tired old man who remembers but can no longer perform." 

In country language, the bishop documented that the "chickens were coming home to roost." That was 1986! His insight was prophetic. Lovett Weems said recently, "There is no future for U.S. denominations that cannot reach more people, younger people, and more diverse people." We must not always denigrate warnings and reality checks. 

We can rise again. Indeed millions are waiting to hear from us their identity is not their sin but God's love—a love that will not give up on them. They are waiting to hear that our hospitality is not limited to our kith and kin and neighbors with like faces. They are resistant to "propositional evangelism" which is "in your face." They are receptive to "relational evangelism" like Jesus practiced! As Lovett Weems recently said, "If the tsunami comes to a church that has reset it baseline and demonstrated the ability to begin growing, then the losses will not deter the ‘field of energy' already moving in the denomination. The time to make choices is now—while there are still choices to be made." 

As I close this column, I am thinking of the 23-year-old table server with a severe kidney disease, no medical insurance, tens of thousands dollars in medical bills and a textbook case of the "working poor." I remember how tentative she was when I first started table chat with her as she served my soup and grilled cheese sandwich and diet Dr. Pepper! She began to come to church and bring her live-in boyfriend. Then she began bringing his parents and his high school sister—a pew full, every Sunday! Last week she smiled, told me to put their wedding date on my calendar. I promised her a "free church and free wedding." She does not know it, but the small rural congregation that I am privileged to serve has quietly "passed the hat" to help her meet some of her bills. Our Missions Committee chair will privately present her with a check for $3,000. This is what Bishop Wilke called "signs and wonders." Let it be the God-inspired response across our beloved denomination for "passing the cup and naming the Name." 

These are the kind of chickens I like to see "come home to roost."

Dr. Haynes is a retired member of the Western North Carolina Conference. He is the author of On the Threshold of Grace: Methodist Fundamentals. Email: .