Vital Signs

New Resource for Smaller Membership Congregations

I spent part of last week leading a seminar on smaller membership congregations at Union Seminary, Richmond, Virginia campus.  I always enjoy getting together with church leaders who are passionate and love serving smaller membership congregations.   Smaller membership congregations need leaders who love and embrace the dynamics and challenges of small church life and ministry!  

The Small Church and Community Ministry Office has produced another new resource for smaller membership congregations.  Stepping Out In Faith tells the stories of nine smaller membership churches that have journeyed on a path leading to transformed congregational life—from the perspective of the congregation and pastor.  Spiritual discernment, changing demographics, pastoral leadership, and church building issues are addressed.   Discussion questions follow each story and the resource concludes with a Bible study.   You can order this resource from the resource page on our webpage at www.pcusa.org/smallchurch.

  

Congregational-Based Community Organizing - A Resource For Congregational and Community Renewal!

There has been a lot of bad press lately about community organizing work due to a few bad apples being reported.  For some folks, in their minds it seems that anyone who is associated with congregational based community organizing is somewhat evil or corrupt.   If we were to apply this same reasoning to the few bad apples who took the lending industry and our economy down or for the few clergy who have committed serious offense against their congregations, do we dare conclude that all who are associated with the church or lending industry are somewhat corrupt or evil?

The Presbyterian Church (USA) has been engaged with community organizing/congregational-based organizing work for over 50 years.   There are many Presbyterian Church (USA) congregations across the country who are engaged with their local congregation-based community organizations working faithfully to transform their congregations and communities.

One example of this is Grace Memorial Presbyterian Church that is active with Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network (PIIN).  Check out this story from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about Grace Memorial Church 's partnership with PIIN to transform and build up their community -

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09244/994597-53.stm

 

 

Building Relationships

The following quote comes from a recent article from the Emerging Leadership initiative - "Out of the Culture:  A Process for Starting New Churches" -

"The first thing you must do to start a church out of the culture is build relationships - it's imperative.  Incarnational ministry has become one of the many labels in the 21st century American church - it's one an out of the culture church would wear proudly because incarnational ministry demands relationship.  The first thing a leader or group of people must do if they hope to make disciples in postmodern, post-Christian groups is build relationships.  These are not casual relationships; these are real life, share life with one another kinds of friendships. Church planters and their teams must pour themselves into people in their neighborhood, at the coffee shop, at work, on their teams or in their clubs.  Where they find open doors, they must forge friendships by opening their homes and intentionally and regularly doing life with the people they meet.  If your friends are not becoming the church you're starting, something is very wrong."

Reaching out with one's community and building relationships with one's neighbors are also key steps with the congregational redevelopment/renewal process.  Having a 1,000 friends on your Facebook or 1,000 followers on your tweeter network do not necessarily build deep and transforming relationships. 

So it is important whether you are doing new church development or church transformation work that you get out of your car, hit the streets and go out and meet and talk with your neighbors!

 

ADAPTIVE CHANGE VERSUS TECHNICAL CHANGE

September 28, 2009

Adaptation

Hudson: creating change environment challenges pastors, congregations

by Jerry L. Van Marter
Presbyterian News Service

LOUISVILLE — Most Presbyterian pastors are not adequately equipped to lead their congregations through the changes that are necessary to adapt to 21st century life, the Vocation Committee of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s General Assembly Mission Council (GAMC) was told here Sept. 24.

“Most people have a ‘change threshold’ — a point past which they just can’t handle it,” the Rev. Jill Hudson, middle governing bodies coordinator for the council and the Office of the General Assembly, said in a presentation she entitled “Barbecueing the Sacred Cows: creating the change environment.”

“So do congregations,” said Hudson, who has worked at all levels of the PC(USA) in the areas of leadership and congregational development, “but most pastors don’t really know where that threshold is or how to identify it.”

There are generally two types of change, Hudson told the committee — technical and adaptive. Technical changes are usually simple, easy to identify, can be fixed quickly and don’t require much new knowledge or skills-development. “They’re kind of like real life,” Hudson explained. “A light bulb burns out so you just replace the light bulb and go on.”

Adaptive change, however, which is needed in response to large-scale rapidly evolving conditions, is amorphous, requires new learnings and skills because solutions are not readily apparent, occurs much more slowly and may require new and/or additional leadership.

“I don’t mean to take a pot shot at seminaries,” Hudson said. “They do a fabulous job of preparing us for pastoral service and care. But pastors tend to come out of seminary prepared for technical, but not adaptive, change,” Hudson said.

Citing Kurt Lewin, one of the foremost thinkers on change theory, Hudson said the three steps in creating change in congregations are to:

• Unfreeze — establish a sense of urgency or necessity for change;
• Change — move from the old state to the new by changing attitudes and behaviors; and
• Refreeze — make the new attitudes and behaviors relatively permanent.

“Refreezing is the most neglected step,” Hudson said. “It’s like bending and stretching a rubber band — as soon as you stop bending and stretching it, it reverts back to its old shape. Real change in congregations happens in increments and seeps into the fabric of the [congregation’s] culture.”

There are many reasons why change fails in congregations, Hudson said. With change occurring in all aspects of 21st century life, churchgoers “desire predictability” and have “a high level of tolerance for ... the status quo,” she said.

Inadequate vision is another factor, Hudson said. “Pastors have been trained as managers, not leaders, and so have not been taught to think about articulating vision and molding it into mission strategy,” she said. “As a result, they don’t believe the vision is enough to carry the change they hope to effect.”

When a congregation’s leaders are successful in crafting a vision, it is usually “undercommunicated by a factor of between 10 and 100,” Hudson said. “Leaders are so sold tha they fail to adequately communicate the vision to church members. A congregation’s vision cannot be overcommunicated.”

Once resistance to change is overcome, patience becomes the problem, Hudson said. “Real change in a congregation takes a long time ... Patience doesn’t come easily in church organizations,” she said. “We either fail to celebrate ‘small wins’ ... or declare victory too soon.”

The pastor’s role differs from technical to adaptive change, Hudson said. While the pastor can be more directive in dealing with technical change, adaptive change calls for “diagnosing the condition and asking the right questions,” she said. “Too often we also expect the pastor to provide the answers as well.”

And while the pastor’s role in conflict situations is to “maintain order and suppress the overt conflict,” when it comes to leading adaptive change that will solve conflicts, the pastor must “expose the conflict, discuss it openly and let it emerge so it can be constructively resolved.”

Sometimes necessary change is so painful for some church members that they simply cannot remain part of the congregation. “At some point each individual has to make a decision to go or stay and then figure out a way to re-engage or disengage in the new life of the church,” she said.

“Our concern is always for the spiritual welfare of every individual,” Hudson continued. “Because for their own spiritual health, people must at times leave a congregation and find another, we need to help pastors learn how to help people leave in ways that are fully supportive of them.”

Resistance to change is normal, Hudson said. “If no resistance is present, it could mean that nothing is really being changed, or people are numb or uninterested, or everyone thinks alike, or resistance is underground — they’re just waiting it out,” she said.

People are going to resist change unless they see a clear payoff, Hudson said. “People are motivated toward what they will get from the change, not by what they are asked to get rid of,” she said.

“We have three choices with our people,” Hudson concluded — “We can increase the drivers for change. We can decrease the resisters. Or we can turn the resisters into drivers. That’s the best option.”

Food for thought

I like to share with you a few excerpts from a book I recently read - Turnaround and Beyond:  A Hopeful Future for Small Membership Churches by Ron Crandall, Abingdon, 2008.

Mr. Crandall cites the following factors impeding revitalization:

1. low congregational self-esteem

2. fear of change and taking risks

3. no vision for the future

4. an "us" versus "them" attitude

5. power cliques in the church

6. lack of finances and/or stewardship

7. apathy and burnout

8. pastors who don't lead

9. closed to "outsiders"

10. unwilling to work hard

Mr. Crandall then goes on to cite what helps churches to experience revitalization:

1. an atmosphere of love and acceptance

2. pastoral initiative

3. new programs and outreach ministries

4. alive, open, inviting worship

5. an attitude of faith and grace

6. a strong bible focus

7. an emphasiss on children and youth

8. hard work and a desire to grow

9. inviting friends to church

10. an evangelism emphasis

11. prayer

12. emphasis on gifts and discipleship

13. laypersons involved in visitation and ministry

14. blessing of God's spirit

15. the church location and growing community

16. special outreach and evangelistic events

17. using a strategic planning process

18. using new people in leadership

19. a pastor willing to stay

There are no surprises here.  I read a lot of books on congregational transformation and they basically all say the same and describe a similar process for revitalization.  More food for your thought! 

Passionate Leaders Wanted

"All ideas must have passionate advocates behind them."
—Thomas Davenport *, Professor, Babson College

 

I just read the wonderful story in the August 28, 2009 Presbyterian News Service about the Rev. Devon Ducheneau  and her passionate leadership and ministry with the two small churches she serves, Southpark and Westminster Presbyterian in Charlestown, West Virginal.  She knew that in order to survive, the two churches needed to turn their focus outward and embrace the community around them rather than continue as secluded islands.  The response by the congregation and the community has been great and mutually beneficial.  Read the rest of the story at http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2009/09738.htm.

This story about Rev. Ducheneau and her ministry with Southpark and Westminster Presbyterians churches continues to confirm for me that when you have passionate leaders, positive changes can happen!   In his book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, John Maxwell says in his chapter, The Law of Buy-In, “that people buy into the leader, then the vision.”   He also says that “people don’t at first follow worthy causes.  They follow worthy leaders who promote causes they can believe in.”

Too many churches spend too much time talking about what they would like to do in reaching out with their communities.  They develop mission statements and plans but never implement them because they lack passionate leaders to lead.  If our churches want to experience transformation and renewal, then we need passionate leaders to step forth so that others will step up. 

Small Church Ministry

I have attached the following page from the Presbytery of Pittsburgh's web page on small church ministry.   This is a great description of what should be the life and mission of smaller membership churches.  

Small Church Ministry

Our mission is to be a supportive network for the 72 smaller congregations of Pittsburgh Presbytery that worship with less than 90 people in attendance on an average Sunday.  This mission is accomplished though providing sponsored events, informing churches of grant opportunities and other resources for smaller congregations, and promoting networking between pastors and churches.  

Many of our smaller congregations are in economically marginalized communities where it is very important to have a vibrant Christian witness.  We believe that Jesus has a heart for these communities.  It is our desire to assist and encourage smaller congregations in their ministry of fulfilling the mission of Christ in their communities.  God has a reason for each church to be in its particular community at this time.   Smaller congregations cannot provide programs in which they have something for everyone nor can they be all things to all people, but we believe each congregation has a niche in ministry, a piece of God’s kingdom work to live out and we encourage congregations to discern that niche and find their joy of participating in God’s kingdom work in their community and in the world.

We also believe that small congregations are not problems to be solved but are reflections of the human desire to congregate in a size that is most comfortable for human nature.  When the small church understands that it is not a problem to be solved but an opportunity for significant ministry, then the small church can live into its strengths.  The size and familiarity of the small church can lend itself to individual learning and discipleship in a way that larger churches have to work at creating.  In this way, the small congregation can provide a powerful spiritual setting for those members involved and their communities.  We believe it is time for the smaller congregations to recapture their mission and build on their strength – people matter!

* * * * *

“Small Churches are not errors to be corrected, but intentional choices of members who put a priority on human relationships”
(Carl S. Dudley, Effective Small Churches in the Twenty-first Century, page 11)

* * * * *

Bits, Pieces and some quotes

"The latest Presbyterian Outlook cover story is on Tentmaking ministry.  The future of church pastoral leadership?

USAToday July 20, 2009 issue has a great article - "Evangelism 2.0" - that talks about how evangelicals are doing servant evangelism in Portland, Oregon.  The ministry is called Season of Service and has been "dubbed by the Readers Digest this month as the nation's best group service project."

From an ad in USA Today, July 15, 2009 for British Airways - "95% of business people agree that face-to-face meetings are key to building long-term relationships (Harvard Business Review Reader Poll)."  How does this fact relate to how we reach out with our neighbors? 

"A healthy church is one that moves forward, looking ahead through the windshield and occasionally checking the rearview mirror." - George Goodman, Associate Executive Presbyter for Peaks Presbytery, speaking at the Healthy Ministry Conference at the Big Tent event in Atlanta in June. 

"Congregational transformation is a spiritual journey" - Dan Moseley, author of Living With Loss

"You must love those you lead before you can be an effective leader, General Eric Shinseki said.  You can certainly command without that sense of commitment, but you cannot lead without it.  And without leadership, command is a hollow experience, a vacuum often filled with mistrust and arrogance."   -    General Shinseki was former Chief of Staff for the Army and is currently serving as the Veterans Affairs secretary.

"If we want to create lasting social change, we must be committed to campaigns that place grassroots leaders face-to-face with those in power to negotiate real solutions." - James Mumm, Director of Organizing for the National Training Information Center, Chicago.

Do you see your cup half-empty, half-full or overflowing?

    

     I spent this past Thursday afternoon with member of the Presbyterian urban consortium that includes the 12 Presbyterian Churches in Rochester, New York.  The size of these congregations ranged from over 1,000 members to under 75 members.  This group gathered several months ago to discern how they could support and resource each other, and how they could work together to build up Presbyterian mission work and presence in the Metro Rochester area.  At our gathering, there was lots of energy, ideas and excitement expressed by members from the churches on projects they could do together, e.g., Elders’ training, work projects, be a prophetic voice on issues impacting the Rochester community.  These churches felt it was important to move past the talking stage and to walk the walk!

            On Friday, I drove down to Geneva Presbytery to hear about how the Presbytery and several churches in the Presbytery are teaming up to organize a new fellowship for immigrant Chinese living in Corning, New York.  The fellowship is housed in the First Presbyterian Church in Corning.  Several folks expressed how much this emerging ministry is not only transforming the members who are joining this fellowship but how it has also spiritually impacted the churches that are engaged in partnership with this ministry.

            Over the weekend, I met with the Rev. Judy Hay and members of the urban congregation she serves, Calvary St. Andrew.  Members of Calvary St. Andrew have been involved in addressing affordable housing issues, public safety, community violence and other community issues with faithfulness, imagination and creativity.   This smaller membership urban congregation has never let their size or the challenges that they constantly face in their community overwhelm them. This congregation has developed affordable housing projects, organized their diverse community around a variety of issues and deepen their relationships with their neighbors. This is a congregation that is sharing God’s good news wide and deep with its community.

            Each of these stories reflect congregations who are excited about taking the gifts that God has given them to serve their communities.  These congregations see their cup not half-empty or half-full but overflowing with God’s spirit!  When I visited with each of these groups, I experienced a spirit of hopefulness, enthusiasm and a can-do spirit for doing God’s work.

When I visited these groups, an article written by Michael Lindvall, pastor of Brick Church in New York came to mind.  This article was published in the latest Presbyterian Outlook, June 29, 2009.  The article is titled “Subway Attitude.”  Michael writes the following – “I recently read an article about some extensive research a group of church consultants had done with congregations across the country.  Some of the congregations they studied were growing; some were shrinking.  The research report said that there was only one consistent factor that differentiated the ones that were thriving from the ones that were not. It wasn’t liberal or conservative theology.  It wasn’t traditional or contemporary worship style.  It wasn’t even geographic location.  Consistently, the report said, churches that were thriving operated out of what the report called a mindset of abundance.  ‘We have something to offer, and whether we’re rich or poor, conservative or liberal, praise songs or hymnbook, by the grace of God we have everything we really need to be the church.   On the other hand, the congregations that were not thriving, typically operated out of what the researchers called a mindset of scarcity.’  There’s not enough to go around.  We don’t have enough resources to offer much, and we won’t be able to do a lot until somebody gives us what we need.” 

            So what kind of mindset does your congregation and leaders operate out of - a spirit of scarcity or abundance?

  

Interview with Carl Dudley

I found this 2003 interview with Carl Dudley in SCUPE's archive where he talks about the wonderful qualities of small urban churches (Carl passed away last month).   His words then about small urban churches and also about small churches still  resonate today.  I thought you would enjoy reading and reflecting on his comments.  
****************

Allowing the Small Urban Church to Thrive – Interview With Carl Dudley

CityVoices newsletter: October 25, 2003.  This interview was conducted by Roger Johnson, editor of CityVoices.  CityVoices is produced by the Seminarian Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education (SCUPE), Chicago.

For many years, Dr. Carl Dudley has served as a professor and congregational analyst, most recently at Hartford Seminary and the Hartford Institute for Religion Research. In 1978, while teaching at McCormick Seminary in Chicago, he wrote “Making the Small Church Effective,” establishing his place as one of America’s experts on the dynamics of local church life. He has now published an update to that volume, “Effective Small Churches in the 21st Century.”

Many city churches (neighborhood, ethnic or storefront) are small churches. What should we understand about these small congregations?

The small churches, let’s be clear, are the oldest form of Christian faith. When you say “small,” it’s usually in comparison to something else which is bigger. And the bigger churches are what have grown. What is new in the 20th and 21st century are the large, and now the megachurches that dwarf anything else. But in fact, the small churches are becoming more numerous.

The press likes to concentrate on the churches large enough to maintain a professional clergy and a program, and that kind of thing. Probably, only one-third of congregations in the United States are large enough to comfortably maintain a staff. Somewhere around two-thirds of the churches are below 125 in regular participating adults, fifty percent are below 100 in regular participating adults. So, it shouldn’t be thought of as unusual to be small. They’re the oldest and the most universal form of Christian faith.

Where the statistic is interesting, is a ratio that I call “50 to 15.” It works in two ways. Fifty percent of the members of most denominations, are in the largest 15 percent of the churches. And 50 percent of the churches have about 15 percent of the members, that’s 50 percent of the smaller churches have about 15 percent of the total membership of denominations. And they are served by about the same number of clergy.

So you’ve got a disparity that organizational types want to “clean up.” The reason it can’t be cleaned up is that small churches are not a continuous flow of congregations from large to small. Small churches are a different breed. They’re a different experience. It’s not like people don’t know they could go to large churches. They just decide they want to maintain small churches. And they do it because of intimacy. Because of the kind of caring that is typical in a small congregation.

When I say intimacy, caring or extended family, it doesn’t mean people are necessarily nice to each other. It just means they’re genuine to each other. They’re vulnerable; they’re exposed to each other. They accept diversity. Not only that, they don’t let people change. They almost enforce diversity. Somebody wants to be different than they used to be, and they still call them by their old name and put them back in the old box. They accept characters and they accept “kinkiness.” It’s just part of who somebody is.

What about the expectations of a new pastor coming into a church like this, especially if they feel they can make that small church grow?

It’s a different kind of experience because in the large congregation you can join a group. In the small congregation, you have to join the whole thing. In fact, it’s a lot more difficult to join the whole culture than it is to join a particular activity. Furthermore, you can’t earn your way in. One of the things that small churches do is exploit energy of outsiders as organizers, but never let them into the group. Yes, they can grow but they grow in a different style. They grow by adoption – people join the past, not the future. The pastor has got to help the church open up the past and be proud of it, before any joining takes place.

Carl, years back I heard a figure concerning small groups saying that about 11 percent growth in one year was about the most they could handle.

Small congregations can only absorb as many people as they can get to know. That means you introduce them fairly slowly. I’ve heard pastors tell me that they could take in half a dozens families a year, but that’s about all they could get in. The point is that they don’t grow fast, but they grow intimately. They want to know everything about the person. The nature of the small church is that they know, or they think they know, everything there is about everybody else. Or they’ll want to know it, or they’ll invent it.

You can make or help a small church to grow if they are willing to give up the essential character of being small. If you can break the church up into groups, if they will permit groups to exist in which they don’t know everybody, they can grow. And you can break them up by fracturing them, but that destroys the thing that many people like about being part of a small church. So they’ll fight it something awful, and they’ll fight it on a very emotional basis. The small church is hard to kill. One executive said to me, “They won’t grow and they won’t go away. They just stay there.” Sometimes they even come back in a different form. What sustains small churches is not organizational structure or even finances. Emotional ties sustain them, and that’s pretty powerful stuff. They can be rational about wanting to change, and still not able to do it.

Summarize the simple "graces" of the small congregation. What do small congregations in the city in particular, have to teach experts who seek steady, even exponential growth?

In some sense, they can’t teach them much of anything. The graces of the small church generally get in the way of growth. Now large churches can have intimate groups so long as they’re separate little cells to themselves. Large churches can have the strength of caring if they’ll put it into “caring cells.” But the small church is all one cell. Small churches can emphasize the uniqueness of individuals, and not make people conform either organizationally or structurally. Small churches have an affinity for “kinky” people.

Small churches are generally larger than their membership, and large churches are generally smaller than their membership. That suggests that small churches can grow by something like “kindred spirits.” Which is to say, having an extended membership – an extended group that’s already part of the membership, but doesn’t belong. In many cases, there are “vicarious members” – people that belong to the church by somebody else. Small churches can engender that consciousness.

Small churches have a kind of authenticity that’s very appealing to many people. They have a kind of earthiness and a natural sense of ecology of the rhythm of the soil and the soul. I think they have a kind of biblical basis and foundation. They’re not into great flights of spiritual worthiness. Rather it’s a kind of down-home, basic stuff.

America's cities have always been complex places. Do present urban dynamics (city zoning, big money, increasing technology) allow for continued small church ministry? Or, will more people simply either go downtown, or out to the suburbs for their spiritual needs?

Small churches have a sense of turf, which is related to that earthiness I was just talking about. They dig in, they tend to be very neighborhood, very local and specific in their focus. Now, that can be, and often becomes a kind of ethnic, racial, cultural enclave – our kind of people. But often the church sees itself as a journeying congregation, a pilgrim people, where they’ve been on a journey and they want to accept anybody else that’s been on their journey. They can often share that with another culture. But it’s not the liberal notion of pluralism. It’s a pluralism where people are named by their idiosyncrasies. People can also be called and named by their ethnic backgrounds; and it’s not an insult. It’s an affirmation to be somebody different in a group that accepts differences. I think small churches are really good at that in some urban neighborhoods where there’s a collection of humanity looking like the United Nations. They’ve got one big umbrella, but they keep their own cultural diversity as a gift. It’s not so self-conscious as liberals saying, “Gee, we’re all one.” It’s the recognition of their diversity that makes it possible for small churches to keep going.

Are you seeing any denominations or traditions doing a better job enhancing and supporting small church ministry than others?

I can’t point to any. Some denominations have produced very good literature that’s been sensitive to small congregations. But a lot of denominational literature urges small congregations to become something else, which I think is counterproductive. Some small churches can grow, but a lot of them are just not gonna grow. To say, “You’re small, but you really ought to be bigger,” doesn’t help much. But some denominations have put out some literature that’s really very affirming of the caring qualities of small congregations.

My reservations are that printed materials aren’t all that persuasive within the oral culture of small congregations. Some of the most effective things are done by denominational staff people, local and regional, who really know these characters. In fact, the most effective denominational people are those who know the church so well that when they come they can tell stories about the leading characters in the local church. And when they really know the church well, the stories often have just a tinge of something shady in them. Everybody can laugh about it! It’s fun and it affirms the earthiness of the small church. Now I don’t know where we’re training those kind of denominational people, because the dominant theme (and income) comes from the large, more efficient and more organizational style of churches.

Carl, you've studied, and written about, small congregations for a long time. Will you continue to do that in formal (or informal) ways?

Well, this last spring, I took what was a 30-year-old book and rewrote it (“Effective Small Churches for the 21st Century”). I rewrote it with a lot of new material that I’ve found accessible. One of the things that’s very interesting is how many of these small church pastors, disproportionately have access on the web to all sorts of new resources. When you compare it, you’d think that the large church with its highly technical staff would be quicker on the web, but in fact, by proportion of pastors, the number of small church pastors that use the computer and its tools is proportionately higher.

Any standard (or unsolicited) question or word of encouragement that you like to offer pastors in small urban churches around America?

I don’t have a standard word, but I do have an observation. The small church pastor learns about the whole world by going deeper into the lives of the people in their immediate community. And the deeper that you go with any one person, the more universal the experience is apt to be. Small church pastors have access to that in ways that many organizational and program-driven pastors don’t. There’s an openness and fullness of knowing the lives of your people that just never happens in larger churches. And it’s a grace, a great gift.