UMC seeks younger clergy candidates

United Methodist News Service
NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Rocio Del Carmen Ramirez sported green hair and a punk look when she played piano at her inner-city Chicago church.
Her style rubbed many older church members the wrong way.
“The pastor always said God wanted her to give me time,” said the 26-year-old student at Pfeiffer University, Misenheimer, N.C. “I’m grateful for the compassion of that pastor.”
That pastoral support gave Ra-mirez time to hear and accept her own call to ministry.
That makes her unusual in a different way. At a time when just 13 percent of United Methodist clergy members in the United States are under 40, Ramirez is studying for a bachelor of arts degree in youth ministry. She plans to attend seminary and seek ordination as an elder.
With half of all ordained United Methodist clerics older than 50, church leaders are looking for more candidates like Ramirez.
The Rev. Meg Lassiat, director of student ministries, vocation and enlistment at the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, said the church has an opportune moment for developing young clergy leaders.
“As more and more conferences look at the statistics, it’s becoming an issue of more importance across the general church,” Lassiat said. “I think (the board), just by creating this position, is working actively to increase the number of young people entering ministry.
“I’m trying to look at annual conferences and local churches that produce a lot of ministers and see what they are doing right.”
And national events like EXPLORATION, set for Nov. 17-19 in Jacksonville, Fla., are to let those interested in ministry explore their options with others of like mind.
North Broadway UMC, Columbus, Ohio, has sent a number of young people off to seminary. The Rev. Ed Lewis, senior pastor, said he believes the church inspires by showing inclusive ministry.
North Broadway has on staff or in the congregation people who represent a broad range of ministry roles—elder, deacon, deaconess, student pastor and diaconal minister.
While he agreed young pastors are needed, Lewis said it was important to remember that ministry and vocation come with God’s call.
“We can’t get to a place where recruiting people becomes a job search,” Lewis said.
Many second-career candidates for ministry may have heard God’s call when they were younger, Lewis said. But they ignored it in favor of secular work.
“We need to create a culture and atmosphere where it’s OK to accept the call,” Lewis said.
Other factors creating opportunity are generational, said the Rev. Jack Terrell-Wilkes, coordinator of ministerial recruitment and nurture for the Oklahoma Conference.
Terrell-Wilkes, who is also minister of youth for the Nichols Hill UMC, Oklahoma City, says the Gen X-ers—those born between 1965 and 1981—don’t want to join institutions.
“The upcoming Millennials, however, do want to belong to something,” said the 29-year-old.
And, Lassiat pointed out, Generation X was much smaller than either the 80 million-strong Baby Boom generation or the Millennials—76 million born between 1982 and 2002.
“With just 46 million in Gen-X, you have a smaller pool to draw from in the first place, and they are children of the Baby Boomers, who had rejected church,” she said.