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VOL. 15, NO. 1

We need to think bigger about ministry in Baltimore

By John Mote

A move to create a so-called central district in Baltimore, as described in the Dec. 3 UMConnection, will plunge the city into worse shape than ever.

Now a retired United Methodist minister, I devoted most of my ministry to serving struggling city churches in Baltimore and Washington. I continue to try to do what I can as a participant in that ministry through Lovely Lane UMC in downtown Baltimore.

There was a time in my early ministry when the conference found funds with which it was able to hire deaconesses to assist ministers serving churches in Fells Point and other areas of the city.

That time is long gone.

There were some good reasons, perhaps, why that investment did not pay off, although Im inclined to believe that one of the chief reasons was because the poverty in the inner city was so great.

During the greater part of my ministry I served churches that were struggling to stay alive as many of their members moved to the suburbs. One of those struggling churches that I served, Wilson Memorial UMC, finally closed its doors, and sold its building for around a million dollars.

Here was an opportunity to make some much needed funds available to some of our struggling city churches. But where did the money go? To probably the wealthiest United Methodist Church in Baltimore. That should not have been allowed to happen.

The UMConnection article begins with the question: How do we rebuild the churches of Baltimore? I have to answer: not by making a city, made up of so many people in poverty, drug addiction or suffering with AIDS, into one district and not by isolating the city, which is predominantly Afro-American, thus further disassociating it from the surrounding suburbs.

One district superintendent suggests that the conference might identify two or three citywide emphases, noting HIV/AIDS and drugs as areas of concern.

Who is going to give the time to seriously deal with such problems? To really deal with them will demand much deeper involvement.

Are the district superintendents, none of whom now live in the city limits of Baltimore, going to get more involved? Or are they going to leave it primarily to the one superintendent who is appointed to such a central district?

If the Baltimore-Washington Conference is truly interested in developing a meaningful urban ministry, might it be helpful to locate our bishop in one of the Baltimore-Washington Conferences two large cities?

I am puzzled by the fact that the conference plan does not include concern about the needs of Washington, which are nearly as serious as those of Baltimore.

Years ago I was appointed to work half time in an urban-renewal project in Washington and the other half serving a struggling city church. Several seminary students were supposed to assist me for six hours or so a week. We were able to perform a few worthwhile things, but that minimal amount was hardly what was needed and that ministry soon dissolved.

I wouldnt claim to know all the answers as to how we can develop a real urban ministry in the Baltimore-Washington Conference. But of one thing I am certain: if we United Methodists are really going to succeed in our desire to develop such a ministry, weve got to think bigger than we have in the past.

The Rev. John Mote is a retired pastor in the Baltimore-Washington Conference. He can be reached at .

Editors Note: Bishop May has offices in Baltimore at Lovely Lane UMC, in Washington at the Methodist Building, and in Columbia.