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Home | News > Wanted: Younger members of Annual Conference

Wanted: Younger members of Annual Conference

10-25-2009

By Mark Manzi, Chair, Annual Conference Committee

The Northern Illinois Conference needs participation of members at Annual Conference by people who represent all people of our Conference. We need members from all of our churches. We need members who are of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. We need members of all age groups. Unfortunately, the results of our Annual Conference Survey this year show that only 14% of our clergy members and 3% of lay members are age 40 or younger.

While we appreciate our older members, their service and their perspective, having more younger members provides a better representation of the diversity of age groups found in our conference. Encouraging more diversity in our discussions and debate may generate new and different ideas for meeting the needs of people in our churches, as well as those who we may yet have to reach.

Overall, the 2009 Annual Conference was a gathering of older adults, primarily over 60 years of age. Nearly half the members, 49.6%, were age 61 or older. Only 23.1% were under 50 years of age with less than 7% of the total under the age of 40.

When we look at the separate results for clergy,
deacons, local pastors and laity, there are some striking results:





86.2% of the lay members are over 50 years of age compared to 57.9% of the clergy group. 59.7% of the laity are over age 60; only 29.5% of the clergy are of that age group.

Where can change begin? The answer, of course, is our local churches. We must be deliberate in our focus on asking our younger members to participate not only in local church leadership, but district and conference wide leadership. One place for that to happen is Annual Conference. As Lay Leadership committees work to select members to fill leadership roles for the coming year, I would ask that they be very specific in their efforts to include younger members on the churches Annual Conference membership.