By Bill Mefford
This post isn’t what you think it is. This is not a disgruntled, ex-United Methodist wanting to give a written tongue-lashing to the leadership of the church. No, this is actually a plea. It is a plea for the UMC to start doing things that actually create real change. Rather than well-crafted prophetic statements that emanate from hours of staffers who are often detached from local communities and local churches facing injustice head-on, this is a plea to the church to actually BE prophetic and invest the massive resources of what still lies within a behemoth institution into the hands of people who are really leading the movement to defend Black lives. I do not hold out a lot of hope, but I do have hope that something could be different this time.
Recently, the council of bishops, along with 4 or 5 agencies of the United Methodist Church all came together to start a campaign directed against racism. I sort of smiled when I read it because it was so familiar. AIDS, malaria, gun violence, immigration, poverty, you name it, it seems that at least some of the episcopal and agency leadership has so often declared a major new campaign to create real change and in the end, they amount to little more than institutional shouting.
From my experience, these campaigns have almost all ended with:
a trail of massive expenditures in money,
agency turf battles and long conversations about agency responsibilities that never really got settled,
centralized committees made up of people gearing to move up the hierarchical, corporate ladder that is the ecclesiology of the UMC and whose reports are focused on the ladder-climbing rather than actual results,
long, expensive meetings in 5 star hotels eating 5 star food while word-smithing documents by people who too often have no idea how the issues impact real people, and
little if any concrete change.
So much money and so much time and so little accomplished. I have moved on from my time in the United Methodist Church, but it still pains me to see such waste.
But enough of my griping. There are ways that the UMC – a somewhat aimless, dying institution that is seeking to hold on to power for all that it is worth – can not only have an impact, but that impact can be rather sizable.
From an ex-United Methodist whom no one is listening too, this is what I suggest. Let me list a few things as dot points might be easier to read and I am really interested in someone reading this:
The United Methodist Church is still sitting on HUGE reserves of money, agencies especially. With the institution slowly dying it is time to empty the barns and storehouses. There is no sense in keeping it for a rainy day. It is pouring outside if anyone has noticed. I have no idea why organizations sit on millions and millions of dollars in the first place, but now, more than ever, is the time to empty the tills.
Now, who should the money go to? This is where the headaches usually are, but it is not that difficult. It should go to local churches in predominantly communities of color with a focus on UM churches led by people of color as well as AME, AMEZ, and CME churches. In addition, money should be poured into local organizations like Black Lives Matter, United We Dream, Jobs with Justice, and others, especially where there are not local churches taking the lead in fighting to defend Black lives.
The biggest challenge to unleashing the funds is who decides where the funding goes. Keeping the decisions captive to agencies and episcopal leaders is tempting because that is frankly what has always been done, but this has resulted in very little fund released to the churches and organizations who really need it and the leaders of those churches and organizations who do not have time to play the political games within the UMC to be known by those making the decisions. Inherent in the United Methodist institutional structure is a deep chasm between the hierarchy and local communities. Placing the decisions for giving away the money into the hands of those who do not know local communities is a recipe for failure. Not coincidentally, this is the exact recipe that has been followed for years.
So, what can be done differently you ask? Ask local communities create teams made up of local Black-led organizations and Black-led churches (UM, AME, AMEZ, & CME to start off, but include other denominations and independents as well) into make the decisions for where the funding needs to go. They know better than anyone and certainly better than those in general church positions.
Are the agencies and bishops relegated to the role of just writing checks? Mostly, but not entirely. Unfortunately, church titles are important to politicians so this is where the titles that are so eagerly pursued and lusted after by institutionalists actually come in handy. Now, in past campaigns, excessively large sums of money have been spent on add agencies to create catchy campaign themes. Please, once again, give ALL of that money to local churches and local communities. Instead, let ALL of the campaign language come directly from Black Lives Matter. Just focus on Defunding the Police. If the United Methodist Church came out in force and said publicly that we must Defund the Police, and then followed those repeated statements with meetings with lawmakers at the local, state, and federal level you would see real change. I promise you. Just say it: Defund the Police. Just issue statements void of catchy phrases and carefully worded hair splitting and just say it long and loud and repeatedly. Defund the Police. Defund the Police. Defund the Police.
I do not have a tremendous amount of hope any of these suggestions will be heard much less followed. But I cannot resist speaking out as a plea to do something real when I see a massive institution once again follow the road to certain failure. It’s not too late.