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By Meissa Lauber
UMCONNECTION STAFF

Five Baltimore-Washington Conference pastors have been selected to participate in the national Young Pastor's Network, a 13-month leadership development school led by two of the denomination's premier clergymen, the Revs. Adam Hamilton of Church of the Resurrection in Kansas and Mike Slaughter of Ginghamsburg UMC in Ohio.

Those selected are the Revs. Michael Bennett of Cedar Grove-Oakland Charge in Deale, Jason Robinson of Christ UMC in Washington, Melissa Rudolph of Christ-Ballenger Creek UMC in Frederick, Jennifer Smith of Mt. Carmel UMC in New Market and Kendrick Weaver of Glenn Dale UMC in Glenn Dale.

The Young Pastor's Network is designed as one solution to address a crisis in clergy leadership facing The United Methodist Church.

In the past 20 years, there has been a dramatic drop in the number of United Methodist Elders under the age of 35. The number of young adult clergy declined from 3,219 in 1985 to 850 in 2005.

These statistics were brought to light in a report titled Clergy Age Trends, by the Lewis Center at Wesley Seminary in Washington, D.C.

According to the report, young adult clergy make up only 4.69 percent of the total clergy pool in the denomination.

Within the Baltimore-Washington Conference, 13 pastors, or 2.93 percent, of the 443 active Elders are under the age of 35.

"Churches that have been in decline for decades are not a compelling magnet to draw energetic, passionate younger persons to commit their lives to a vocation of ministry," the Rev. Lovett Weems of the Lewis Center, said on an episode of Religion and Ethics News Weekly, a Public Broadcasting System show.

"The church's overall health is the most important factor determining who comes into ordained ministry. Organizations tend to get the leadership they deserve, not the leadership they need," Weems said.

To help revitalize the denomination, the clergy at the Young Pastor's Network, will participate in a face-to-face and online communities that feature mentoring, networking, spiritual growth and peer-sharing opportunities.

The topics they'll address include leadership, community transformation, evangelism, strategic planning, preaching and worship, stewardship and more.

Within The United Methodist Church, the average age Elder is 52.

While the young adult pastors who are attending the Network are excited, they're not convinced that age is a significant matter.

"I don't really think age is the determining factor of someone's ministry style or success. I believe that the goal of every Christian life is to use what we have to glorify God," Smith said.

"All pastors are different from each other and we can all learn from the successes and faith that we share," Rudolph said.

Weaver agreed, but added, sometimes young adults are "naive enough to think that change can actually happen in places that it has not happened in a long time."

These pastors are looking forward to expanding their already significant leadership skills.

For Weaver, good leadership is about "staying grounded in God's word while aspiring to God's vision for the world."

Rudolph sees a good leader as "someone who is passionate enough about the world to be furious about the injustices and overjoyed with successes enough to inspire others to feel the same way."

Smith's take on leadership style is a little different. "I lead by inviting people along on a journey," she said.

The journey of the Young Pastors' Net-work is expected to be an interesting one.

For Rudolph, it builds on the best of the denomination's connectional system.

"I am passionate about all of our churches working together to share the Gospel, and then using this network to truly transform the world," she said. "In ‘The Tipping Point,' Malcolm Gladwell writes about the early Methodist movement and how it spread like wildfire. If a writer from the New Yorker can recognize that heritage, why do we look so far outside our Scripture and tradition to find models for ministry?"