Trying to understand 6 questions

The young clergy of the UMC are trying to help the denomination think about serious questions. The tool for this is a web-based effort to generate a list of 6 key questions for the denomination as it moves forward.

The questions – as fits the Internet generation – are being assembled through a system of online voting that you can join in here. I voted and added a few questions, but the process of participating leaves me less clear about the whole enterprise than I was before.

Reading the questions, I am not at all clear how different people are thinking about the audience. Who will answer these? Many seem written as if they were the kinds of questions that you might ask a person in face-to-face conversation. While such questions might be useful, they are not really well crafted to foster a denominational and  - dare I say – institutional discussion about what the UMC is all about.

Many of the questions are written with an obvious answer in mind or even in a “when did you stop beating your wife” kind of way that does not really foster discussion. Many more demonstrate the particular anxieties and concerns of younger clergy – which makes sense given the sponsors and the medium but raises the issue of whether this is a mechanism for airing youthful complaints against the UMC or a way of engaging in a broad dialogue.

Lastly, I count the votes and wonder whether this really adds up to much of a clear agenda. The leading vote getter now has something like 70 or fewer total votes.

I do not expect them to listen to me, but I would urge the young clergy to engage in a little less “organic” and self-organizing activity and a little more coordinated discussion. Rather than this somewhat disjointed process of voting, why not get a dozen of so of the brightest and most passionate young clergy together to draft some issuess to lay before the denomination. Such a document could go before a larger gathering of young clergy before being passed on to the bishops and annual conferences.

If you want to get the whole denomination talking, then give them something to talk about. Like Martin Luther tack your theses up on the doors of the denomination. But make them your ideas – not some melange of whatever got votes from whoever happened to show up at the site.

Such a process might be to hierarchical for the post-modern sensibilities of the young clergy, but I – for one – would be eager to see the product of such an effort.