Recently my denomination sponsored a successful (depending on your definition of success) pastor, to lead a training seminar for other churches. Now there is nothing wrong with this, we can all learn from each other. The things that were shared specifically about the look and feel of church buildings, has value. However, in the back of my growing cynical mind, questions keep popping up. Not about improving ourselves, we always need to be doing that, but about what our mission should be.
Usually these speakers and presenters are pastors of mega style churches. Again there is nothing wrong with those, but the subtle message seems to be "we are bringing these people in to show you how to do ministry the right way, and their church is the model your church should aspire to be." Again that is never explicitly said, but the vibe usually surrounds the event.
Then we get the resume about how the church started 20-30 years ago with the pastor and their family and 5 people in their basement, or a school classroom, and now they have 10,000 members and a huge building. Or when so and so became pastor of this church, it was a dying congregation of less than 50 people, a mere shadow of it's former self. But now it has 10,000 people in worship 2 satellite campuses etc.
Again there is nothing wrong with these churches themselves. In fact with the right pastoral leadership, they were destined to grow in those ways. New church starts are able to reach new people who embrace a common mission, and in the process write their own history as they go along. Once prominent urban churches that have dwindled down to almost nothing are also again with the right leadership, destined to grow. It is fight or flight for them. The old mission wasn't working and they faced literally life and death. When faced with death the people remaining will do almost anything to survive, including embracing a whole new model.
However, there are a lot of churches who are not like this. They may not be growing, they may not be declining, but going through peaks and valleys. These churches have sometimes over 100 years of history and tradition to pass on. I would argue, the models for ministry that tend to be touted today may not be the best people to be speaking to those churches for 2 reasons, which I will explain.
First, these churches are established. They do not have a sense of urgency like the previous models do. They have been around this long and they have survived and even thrived during much worse, times. A new church start has to grow or it will fail. For the most part everyone must have total buy in to the mission and focus and move in that direction. And they must have total buy in with the pastoral leadership or it will fall apart. However in established churches, many missions and themes have come and gone. Many pastors have come and gone. Some were better gifted to minister in the communities context than others. Some lasted longer than others. But through it all the one constant remained the church itself. If people have a buy in with who they are as a congregation, then there is nothing wrong with that.
Second, these successful churches usually are strategically located in such areas where there is growth. New houses, in developing communities. People and families are looking for a new start in a new community. So a new church plant firs right along with that same ethos. However, that characteristics of communities that make for these "successful" church's do not necessarily translate as a universal truth for all churches. Ministry occurs in context. What works in urban areas, does not always work in rural areas. Suburban churches will have a different way than churches in a large city. The list can go on. The point is that many churches which may have only 300 members but have roughly sustained those numbers for a great many years, are doing well. Why then do we continue to point to something bigger and say this is better? perhaps we can look at the context and say for where you are, you are doing well?
So in the end, I think in our mainline protestant traditions desperate attempt to stymie our ever dwindling membership numbers (that is another matter), we tend to grab onto something that is growing and say "here is the answer to reversing our decline." Instead perhaps what will reverse these trends is to not force congregations to be something they are not meant to be, but instead to recognize the that each congregation has something to offer that is unique.
That is not to say that we should be complacent. That is what makes the 300 member church dwindle to 50. Nor am I saying that we should not celebrate new churches that experience exponential growth, and seek to plant new ones as well. I am saying let's not hold these up as the models only, but realize that there are many models, and support them in the ways that are appropriate. I heard this parable and do not know it's source, but I think it applies. If you judge a fish on it's ability to swim, the fish will always excel in what it was meant to do. If you judge a fish on it's ability to climb a tree, it will never be good enough no matter how well it swims.
0 comments:
Post a Comment