Last night at the table tennis club, I talked for a while with a United Methodist minister named Dave, a tall, gregarious fellow you have to like. I've known for months that he was a minister, but I hadn't yet outed myself as another fulltime ministry guy. So after I gave him a 3-1 whooping, we sat down and launched into an interesting discussion. I explained our common roots, how we split off in 1889 with a group that later merged with the Methodists to become today's United Methodist Church.

Dave admitted that the UMCs have been losing members regularly for a long time. He said the same was true of many other denominations, and he assumed we were probably experiencing the same thing.

"Actually, we haven't been losing members," I told him. "We've just been staying at the same basic level for way too long."

Dave asked how many members we have in the United States. "Probably less than you have just in Indiana," I told him.

"Well, how many?"

"About 23,000 members," I said.

"Oh, wow, you are small," he said. He actually grimaced. "We have 200,000 members just in Indiana."

For the record, at that point I felt like I was part of something that was excruciatingly small. A carnal, pride-driven feeling, I know.

Dave mentioned something about a large Missionary Church near him. I told him that we had recently considered merging with the Missionary Church denomination, but our group voted against it.

"What was the issue that stopped it?" he asked. "Ordination of women? Homosexuality?"

I chuckled. "No, there was no big issue," I said. "On just about everything, we line up almost perfectly."

"Then what stopped it?" he persisted.

And I had to think. What did stop it? It seems like the distant past at this point. I honestly drew a complete blank. I couldn't articulate anything, and even now, I can't identify any Overarching Prevailing Objection why the thing failed. I guess I've moved on. Don't want to think about it.

Instead, I began telling Dave about the whole "joining" thing--that we proposed to the Missionary Church that our group disband and become part of the Missionary Church. "Rather than have both groups dissolve and form something completely new to both groups, with study committees and strict attention to proportional representation and all that stuff, we wanted to just give ourselves up and become part of them. We would merge into what they already have in place, so there would be as little disruption as possible."

Dave thought that was really cool. Imagine that--a United Methodist admiring us for something. But you would expect that from a United Methodist. You know how they are, all ecumenical and stuff. "So why did your members vote against that?" It seemed to him like such a great idea, and he wouldn't quit until I provided an answer.

Fortunately, someone came along and challenged him to a match, and our conversation ended.

For the record, Dave and I have played many times, and he has beaten me only once. So I can hold my nose high.