United Methodist Focus | September 12, 2026
When my book , An Aura of Hope: United Methodism’s Next Chapter in the United States , came out in March, one of the first interviews I gave was with a fine reporter from Religion News Service. My response to one of the questions led to serious criticism from some pastors on social media.
I was asked, “If you were a bishop now, what would you do first?” While the published version of the question is a bit different, I remember being struck by the qualifier in the question – “do first.” I answered, based on my research and informed by our Methodist heritage, that I would identify the counties where two-thirds of the population lived, the churches within those counties that worship 251 or more, and review what has happened in those churches in the last ten years. A primary concern would be to give attention to professions of faith among those churches.
Pushback
The criticism of that response came from those who interpreted that answer as disregarding smaller churches, which was not my intention. Among those raising questions was one of the strongest and most able advocates for rural and small churches, Allen Stanton. He is a United Methodist pastor and Senior Fellow for the Town Square Collaborative at the University of the Ozarks. His books include Reclaiming Rural: Building Thriving Rural Congregations and The Gift of Small: Embracing Your Church’s Vocation. His Substack newsletter is Reclaiming Rural.
This summer Allen and I had the opportunity to do a podcast for the Lewis Center for Church Leadership of Wesley Theological Seminary. In the podcast and a subsequent Substack article, “The Future of the UMC: A Conversation with Lovett Weems,” Allen asked provocative and thoughtful questions and shared his perspective around issues related to rural and small churches and also concerning my response to “what I would do first.”
Allen and I agree on many things. The work of ministry must always be attentive to context. Many denominational assumptions need to be questioned and more sharply. The challenges of fewer people and resources will continue, and the church is always in danger of trying to return to previous forms. Negativism and pessimism do not serve us well, and, perhaps most importantly, everything the church does should move us closer to the purpose for which we exist.
Beginning With the People God Has Given Us
Following thoughtful conversations about concerns for all sizes and locations of our congregations, I thought it would be helpful if I shared what had led me to the answer about the importance of larger churches, counties where two-thirds of the populations reside, and attention to professions of faith.
John Wesley, Frances Asbury and our founding as a denomination are crucial sources.
The beginning point for ministry for John Wesley was not clergy, churches, or even doctrine. He began with the people. Francis Asbury followed that legacy in the United States. Fearing clergy would all stay in New York and Philadelphia, he utilized a “sent” ministry based on the frontier where people were going. That served us well for a hundred years. As recently as the early twentieth century, 80 percent of the people lived in rural areas. Today about 80 percent live in non-rural areas. There are over 3,000 counties in the country, but two-thirds of the people live in just over 300 of those counties.
To begin with the people means seeing your context as you discern how God views it. For a congregation, that means including the makeup of the surrounding community. For conference leaders, that means viewing the makeup of the population within the geographical bounds of the conference. These are “the people God has given us.” It is the way John Wesley looked on the world as his parish-- understanding parish as encompassing the whole community, whether church members or not.
When we begin with the people God has given us, we see immediately that they are both similar to and different from those we know and who are part of our United Methodist movement. When we compare our membership with the surrounding population, we often discover that the people outside our church are younger, more diverse, with less education, less well-off, and less likely to be married or previously married. And many of them we do not know despite their being in our “parish” we are seeking to serve.
New Disciples of Christ
John Wesley’s lifelong passion was for people to experience the love of God revealed in Christ and begin their lifelong discipleship pilgrimage. It was at the forefront of all that he did, much of which did not seem obviously “religious” to casual spectators. Wesley embodied a witness not easily captured in narrow ecclesial or theological terms, but it always included engaging the people God had given him and connecting them with God’s love. With all the blessings wrought by the Wesleyan movement, it was at its heart a religious movement that was inviting the world to experience God in ways more welcoming for those who previously had little place for faith.
Given this passion John Wesley lived, I think he would want us to pay attention to how we are inviting persons to begin that lifelong discipleship pilgrimage. That is, how much attention do we give to new faith commitments or “professions of faith”?
And my experience as a pastor and my work with many church leaders have led me to believe we often lack sufficient focus. We try to do too many things without discerning the “one necessary thing” that Jesus reminded Martha to choose in Luke 10:41-42. I came to see new faith commitments as an appropriate focus since that grows from John Wesley’s passion, and those commitments are connected to the heart of our mission. They are something we need to improve, and something that, if successful, will bring fruitfulness throughout the fullness of our ministry.
To say that we focus on faith commitments is not to say that we will make that all that we do. My answer to the “what you would do first” question is not unlike the way I would respond to similar questions throughout my ministry. For example, as a pastor, if I wanted to enhance the prayer life of the congregation, I would “begin first” with those in the church who are known to have a rich prayer life, but I would not stop there. A focus is a starting point—that then will guide us to expanding our ministry.
Our Methodist History of Professions of Faith
United Methodists use the term professions of faith for people declaring their faith in Christ for the first time, though we may use other language as well. We may find another image especially helpful: Wesley’s passion was for people to experience the love of God revealed in Christ and begin their lifelong discipleship pilgrimage. Whatever our choice of terms, we can look back on generations of Methodist history in which professions of faith were marked and celebrated.
One way to think about the number of professions of faith each year is to compare that number with the number of deaths in the churches of our denomination. Think of professions of faith as “births” (those committing to Christ for the first time) and compare that number to deaths. The Methodist history in the United States has been one where professions of faith almost always exceeded deaths. The United Methodist Church regularly showed more professions of faith than deaths in the years from its formation in 1968 until 2019. While the gap between professions of faith and deaths has been narrowing for many years (see chart), it was in 2019 for the first time that there were more deaths than professions of faith. Keep in mind that 2019 was before both the pandemic and disaffiliations.
Larger Churches and More Densely Populated Counties
Two statistical variables, research indicates, primarily affect congregations’ rates of professions of faith: church size and population concentration. Different-sized congregations often report significantly different patterns in both professions of faith and deaths, frequently driven by the demographics of smaller congregations, such as older memberships. As congregations become smaller, on average they have more difficulty receiving new professions of faith, and their death rates relative to professions of faith increase.
There are exceptions, of course, but generally the United Methodist pattern has been that larger churches are more effective proportionately in reaching new faith commitments, with such results being less productive among churches as their average worship attendance becomes smaller. In recent years, the only attendance size cohorts of churches that have shown, as a group, more professions of faith than deaths are those with worship attendance of 251 or higher.
A second variable that affects the likelihood of more professions of faith than deaths is the congregation’s location in more densely populated areas compared to more sparsely populated locations. Not only do these areas have more people with whom to engage, but these are likely to be areas with population growth.
So What About Smaller Churches in Less Populated Areas?
In the preceding discussion, I set out to explain my answer to what I would do first--based on research and especially my understanding of Methodist history and tradition. What I would do first is not all there is to say. How do we now continue the conversation with those for whom small churches and rural communities are of special concern? And how do we ensure that the constituencies and congregations of these communities are never forgotten in our future as the United Methodist Church?
Since most United Methodists live in less populated areas and attend churches with far less worship attendance than 251, my answer to the “what would you do first” in no way is intended is forget the centrality of small churches and rural communities in our Methodist heritage. I grew up in the country and attended a small Methodist church on a three-church circuit. My first pastoral appointment was to four small churches spread over two counties. One of the churches had two in attendance when I arrived. When I left, there were still two people there, for which I was thankful! I served larger churches, but only after many years in smaller and rural churches.
In my book that looks toward the next chapter of United Methodism in the United States, I wrote of the focused phase (what I would do first) and then turned to the inclusive phase in which the constituency is all the churches and pastors in the conference. None of the targeted efforts take away from the broader inclusive conference effort. Every congregation in the conference can be an important agent for extending the United Methodist witness.
Population dynamics are not deterministic. Among the third of congregations that grow each year are many that defy expectations based on their locales. Those who defy the odds love and serve all the people of their communities. They change to meet the needs of a new day. They give opportunities to lead to the few younger people they have. They revise some of their practices to be more inviting to those they seek to reach. They put aside old assumptions and commit to learn more about the people God has given them, including their hopes and dreams, their gifts and their needs. They discover their next faithful steps that their neighbors may know the love of God and begin their lifelong discipleship pilgrimage.
And, finally, the numbers may not grow, but the United Methodist witness in the community will have multiplied many times. It may be through the support group for the whole community you started for grandparents rearing their grandchildren. It will be the joy of the Sunday when the congregation celebrated the confirmation of a young person for whom your church had designed a “one person confirmation class.”
Shared Concerns and Looking Forward
Allen Stanton did a good job of putting his concerns for small and rural communities in a central place in the podcast conversation we had and his reflections that followed. He insightfully notes that one of the important mission fields for today is in rural and sparsely populated areas. Expanding areas of the country are becoming “frontier” again, using an early American definition of “frontier,” as having 6 or fewer people per square mile. Some states have more frontier counties today than a hundred years ago. Those counties are filled with United Methodist churches and people, though not as many of either as in the past. These are also the people God has given us, along with the whole populations of their communities.
I think what we can agree upon is that the priority must be what God has called the church to be and do and to serve those God has given us. That always is the beginning point rather than church size or population density. I came to focus first on church and population size on my way to seeking clues to how we can best help more of those God has given us begin their discipleship journey with Christ through the United Methodist Church.
If we are to begin with what God is most calling us to in the next chapter of our church life, then we must take account of the context (church size and community) and ask how best to implement God’s vision in this context. That is the test of any questions we ask, systems we set up, practices we encourage, and metrics we measure. We will always need help from those with experience in and a dedication to small and rural churches to guide us based on the lessons they learn from the people in these contexts.
Churches of all sizes and locations need each other. The question for each church is, “Given our mission and context, what is the next faithful step to which God is calling us?” A small, rural church prays that the large suburban or urban church is strong, knowing their small church cannot do what those other churches are called to do. Likewise, all large churches pray for those small and rural churches because if those churches are not fulfilling their callings where they are, the large church cannot do it for them. Each size church seeks the well-being and fruitfulness of the others. We are, indeed, one body.
The Rev. Lovett H. Weems Jr.
Wesley Theological Seminary Photo
United Methodist Focus is the Substack blog of the Rev. Dr. Lovett H. Weems, Jr., distinguished professor of church leadership emeritus at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. He came to Wesley in 2003 as the founding director of the Wesley’s Lewis Center for Church Leadership after eighteen years as president of Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City. Previously he was a pastor in Mississippi for many years. He is the author of many books on church leadership that have had a broad appeal to a large constituency of leaders in both the public and private sectors.