Chapter Five
A common concern among clergy and church leaders right now, as in 2018-2019 and heading for 2020, is what Thom Rainer has identified as a very general phenomenon and that pastors see every Sunday when they step onto the platform or into a pulpit. People don't come to church as often.
This is very different than people leaving a church. That's not what he and we are needing to talk about. The reality of work scheduling changes, personal options, a medical science, means that people are simply gone more often without leaving the rolls.
Look at it this way: if you have 100 AWA, and then your four Sunday a month attenders start to average themselves three of four Sundays instead, your AWA will drop to 75, but your membership will stay the same. Your officers may be at the same numbers, but their presence in worship, and at meetings, will be more sporadic.
And as your Stewardship chair might have already told you, good solid giving caring people tend, often without meaning to, to give less if they're there less. They forget, mean to catch up, and often don't. So a new challenge in managing budgets. But also a new challenge in teaching ministry, in small group management, in general operations of the church.
Thom says more at these two links, and you can search his site using "attendance" for many such insights:
https://thomrainer.com/2019/01/why-your-church-attendance-may-vary-25-each-week-rainer-on-leadership-503/
https://thomrainer.com/2018/05/church-members-attending-less-frequently/
The really good news here in Newark is that we have seen significantly less of this than many of our peers, both in downtown Newark, around the area, and across the Ohio region among similar Disciples congregations. Our worship attendance and giving both have been remarkably stable; we have surely brought too few new members into baptism and discipleship, but holding our own is something to mark if most around us are losing . . . in many cases, dramatically.
But there's a strong and faithful sense that growth is needed, and important. We should, if we are doing what a church should be doing, be seeing growth in worship attendance and general as well as outreach giving, correct? That's what we need to unpack more to get at the confusion over our "wicked problem" of growth and future as a church.
So, let's say for the sake of argument that Newark Central is a Pastoral/Relational size church, and it has been in the past, and is again, growing up around that "in-between church" size Alice Mann talks about, one that really struggles with what it takes, what it means, and how it feels to become a Program/Managerial-Corporate size church.
And in fact, doesn't really want to become one.
Now this is where the questions get sticky and the problem indeed becomes wicked. Because you rarely find any good Christian leader willing to say out loud "I don't want my church to grow." (Although Thom and Lyle and Bill Easum and myself will all tell you it does, in fact, get said -- bless those leaders for their honesty, whether you agree with them or not.)
A common frustration of clergy is that they are invited, called to come to a church by a search committee which almost invariably says "our church wants to grow, we need you to help us do that, and we are willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen." And you arrive and unpack and . . .
Look, our parlor recently had the furniture re-organized. Not new furniture purchased, just moved around in the parlor. This move has been discussed, nervously, for seven years that I know of. It has happened, and I say hallelujah! But . . . seven years for something most folks agreed needed to happen? Moving sofas around?
Drip by drip, that's the sort of water torture by delay and deferral that both ministers and lay leaders know all too well. We want growth, life, change . . . sort of. And not really. Except when it suits us, feels comfortable for us. This is the work of sin, and we know it. We call on God to change our hearts, and show us the way, but we can all of us harden our hearts as fast as a Pharaoh when our own preferences are on the line.
There are plenty of lovely, shiny rationalizations on the lot for us to jump into and drive away from the possibility of growth and renewal. A very popular model is the "it's not about numbers" response, which I see on my Facebook & Twitter feed, mostly from fellow ministers, whenever I talk about trends and growth and outreach and . . . numbers. "It's not about numbers!" they cry, and they're correct, up to a point. If we pursue numbers for the sake of numerical increase, we're probably pursing pride and self-image and bragging rights. But if we're thinking about the fact that you can say the number 12, or you can point to a dozen disciples -- that numbers represent people -- then in a very real sense numbers ARE people. So lack of growth, and decline, means people who are not hearing the Good News, reveals that we're not sharing who we've come to know in Jesus with others.
Another similar reply to questions about growth is to say piously "only God can give the increase." True enough, and if we think an influx of visitors or baptisms is due to our skill or cleverness, we're missing the mark. Which in Greek is "hamartia" and is usually just translated as sin. We miss the mark if we think growth always means we're aligned with God's intention (a sign saying "Free Beer" would boost numbers), or that shrinking attendance definitely means unfaithfulness (I always think of Jonathan Edwards in that sort of reflection, who saw crowds in worship at one point in his ministry, but just when his preaching hits its stride the people walked away and ultimately asked him to leave).
So we should probably focus on faithfulness and discipleship and let God take care of bringing in the sheaves, say such folk. Frankly, that sounds more fatalistic than I'm comfortable with in my faith, but it's good to keep our efforts and God's initiative in balance as we do our evangelistic theology. We can agree that we shouldn't ever want to be a church or a minister who is doing stuff just to bring in a body count in the pews.
And there's the myriad ways we all undercut growth and change in our own stubbornness by simply liking what we like, and preferring whom we prefer. The simple side of this challenge is how in the nicest, most loving, best churches you'll find that in fellowship time there's a tendency for all of us to talk to those we already know. That's the sand in the gears of evangelism, and the bigger wrenches into the works can be anything from "we should do it my way" to "I don't know anyone on that committee" or just "who are you?" to a family that's been in church for over five years.
Having thrown all those cautions out in front of us, I have to say that at Newark Central we've done pretty well on this, at least in comparison to churches of our sort. We had an elders' retreat last year where our facilitator was surprised, in a good way, to hear that of those present, we had six elders who had been members less than six years, and six who had been members over twenty years or more. He noted that this is so rare as to be exceptional in his experience . . . and he asked the question "so, what happened twenty years ago?" That's something we're going to work on this coming November with him, but it's a slightly separate issue. It does go to the fact that we have a missing generation in our demographics, and it handicaps us in a variety of ways.
At any rate, we've had about a dozen members die each year for the last eight, but our membership is almost 50 people higher than it was, so do the math. We've had some growth. Our AWA has gone up, modestly (10% or so), level in the last three -- again, a potential source of concern, but in comparison to our peer group, much better than a decline of 20% or more. Our budget in terms of net income has also remained very stable, which also has to be see in terms of losses by death versus what it takes to build new members and their giving. This is why I said in 2012 as I was getting started that I expected at least a decade of stagnant total giving, because the losses could roughly be anticipated, and it would be a battle to keep up income through new tithers and giving versus that unavoidable decrease. So far, we've been successful . . . at staying even. So to do any new spending as well as to cover increasing costs of operations in general, we have had to make cuts.
This is where we tap into both a source of unease, and a potentially flawed reason to work on growing the church -- to pay the bills. If our reason for wanting new members is to cover costs, they will feel it, and our efforts will be tainted by that misguided intention.
All of which leads me to an area of both regional and congregational unease, and some unexpressed or confused worry about a problem that is very simple and completely unsolvable. That will be my next chapter.
This is very different than people leaving a church. That's not what he and we are needing to talk about. The reality of work scheduling changes, personal options, a medical science, means that people are simply gone more often without leaving the rolls.
Look at it this way: if you have 100 AWA, and then your four Sunday a month attenders start to average themselves three of four Sundays instead, your AWA will drop to 75, but your membership will stay the same. Your officers may be at the same numbers, but their presence in worship, and at meetings, will be more sporadic.
And as your Stewardship chair might have already told you, good solid giving caring people tend, often without meaning to, to give less if they're there less. They forget, mean to catch up, and often don't. So a new challenge in managing budgets. But also a new challenge in teaching ministry, in small group management, in general operations of the church.
Thom says more at these two links, and you can search his site using "attendance" for many such insights:
https://thomrainer.com/2019/01/why-your-church-attendance-may-vary-25-each-week-rainer-on-leadership-503/
https://thomrainer.com/2018/05/church-members-attending-less-frequently/
The really good news here in Newark is that we have seen significantly less of this than many of our peers, both in downtown Newark, around the area, and across the Ohio region among similar Disciples congregations. Our worship attendance and giving both have been remarkably stable; we have surely brought too few new members into baptism and discipleship, but holding our own is something to mark if most around us are losing . . . in many cases, dramatically.
But there's a strong and faithful sense that growth is needed, and important. We should, if we are doing what a church should be doing, be seeing growth in worship attendance and general as well as outreach giving, correct? That's what we need to unpack more to get at the confusion over our "wicked problem" of growth and future as a church.
So, let's say for the sake of argument that Newark Central is a Pastoral/Relational size church, and it has been in the past, and is again, growing up around that "in-between church" size Alice Mann talks about, one that really struggles with what it takes, what it means, and how it feels to become a Program/Managerial-Corporate size church.
And in fact, doesn't really want to become one.
Now this is where the questions get sticky and the problem indeed becomes wicked. Because you rarely find any good Christian leader willing to say out loud "I don't want my church to grow." (Although Thom and Lyle and Bill Easum and myself will all tell you it does, in fact, get said -- bless those leaders for their honesty, whether you agree with them or not.)
A common frustration of clergy is that they are invited, called to come to a church by a search committee which almost invariably says "our church wants to grow, we need you to help us do that, and we are willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen." And you arrive and unpack and . . .
Look, our parlor recently had the furniture re-organized. Not new furniture purchased, just moved around in the parlor. This move has been discussed, nervously, for seven years that I know of. It has happened, and I say hallelujah! But . . . seven years for something most folks agreed needed to happen? Moving sofas around?
Drip by drip, that's the sort of water torture by delay and deferral that both ministers and lay leaders know all too well. We want growth, life, change . . . sort of. And not really. Except when it suits us, feels comfortable for us. This is the work of sin, and we know it. We call on God to change our hearts, and show us the way, but we can all of us harden our hearts as fast as a Pharaoh when our own preferences are on the line.
There are plenty of lovely, shiny rationalizations on the lot for us to jump into and drive away from the possibility of growth and renewal. A very popular model is the "it's not about numbers" response, which I see on my Facebook & Twitter feed, mostly from fellow ministers, whenever I talk about trends and growth and outreach and . . . numbers. "It's not about numbers!" they cry, and they're correct, up to a point. If we pursue numbers for the sake of numerical increase, we're probably pursing pride and self-image and bragging rights. But if we're thinking about the fact that you can say the number 12, or you can point to a dozen disciples -- that numbers represent people -- then in a very real sense numbers ARE people. So lack of growth, and decline, means people who are not hearing the Good News, reveals that we're not sharing who we've come to know in Jesus with others.
Another similar reply to questions about growth is to say piously "only God can give the increase." True enough, and if we think an influx of visitors or baptisms is due to our skill or cleverness, we're missing the mark. Which in Greek is "hamartia" and is usually just translated as sin. We miss the mark if we think growth always means we're aligned with God's intention (a sign saying "Free Beer" would boost numbers), or that shrinking attendance definitely means unfaithfulness (I always think of Jonathan Edwards in that sort of reflection, who saw crowds in worship at one point in his ministry, but just when his preaching hits its stride the people walked away and ultimately asked him to leave).
So we should probably focus on faithfulness and discipleship and let God take care of bringing in the sheaves, say such folk. Frankly, that sounds more fatalistic than I'm comfortable with in my faith, but it's good to keep our efforts and God's initiative in balance as we do our evangelistic theology. We can agree that we shouldn't ever want to be a church or a minister who is doing stuff just to bring in a body count in the pews.
And there's the myriad ways we all undercut growth and change in our own stubbornness by simply liking what we like, and preferring whom we prefer. The simple side of this challenge is how in the nicest, most loving, best churches you'll find that in fellowship time there's a tendency for all of us to talk to those we already know. That's the sand in the gears of evangelism, and the bigger wrenches into the works can be anything from "we should do it my way" to "I don't know anyone on that committee" or just "who are you?" to a family that's been in church for over five years.
Having thrown all those cautions out in front of us, I have to say that at Newark Central we've done pretty well on this, at least in comparison to churches of our sort. We had an elders' retreat last year where our facilitator was surprised, in a good way, to hear that of those present, we had six elders who had been members less than six years, and six who had been members over twenty years or more. He noted that this is so rare as to be exceptional in his experience . . . and he asked the question "so, what happened twenty years ago?" That's something we're going to work on this coming November with him, but it's a slightly separate issue. It does go to the fact that we have a missing generation in our demographics, and it handicaps us in a variety of ways.
At any rate, we've had about a dozen members die each year for the last eight, but our membership is almost 50 people higher than it was, so do the math. We've had some growth. Our AWA has gone up, modestly (10% or so), level in the last three -- again, a potential source of concern, but in comparison to our peer group, much better than a decline of 20% or more. Our budget in terms of net income has also remained very stable, which also has to be see in terms of losses by death versus what it takes to build new members and their giving. This is why I said in 2012 as I was getting started that I expected at least a decade of stagnant total giving, because the losses could roughly be anticipated, and it would be a battle to keep up income through new tithers and giving versus that unavoidable decrease. So far, we've been successful . . . at staying even. So to do any new spending as well as to cover increasing costs of operations in general, we have had to make cuts.
This is where we tap into both a source of unease, and a potentially flawed reason to work on growing the church -- to pay the bills. If our reason for wanting new members is to cover costs, they will feel it, and our efforts will be tainted by that misguided intention.
All of which leads me to an area of both regional and congregational unease, and some unexpressed or confused worry about a problem that is very simple and completely unsolvable. That will be my next chapter.
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