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PRACTICAL WISDOM FOR LEADING CONGREGATIONS
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R. Alan Rice: The Demise of Haystacks and the Future of the Rural Church
Do you remember haystacks?
Along with pumpkins, black cats and witches flying on broom sticks, haystacks were the de rigueur for Halloween crayon drawings in 1950s southern rural Appalachia. Haystacks were also high value targets for climbing children; but only once at Grandma Buchanan's. Only once, because when Grandma saw the offence or the evidence of trampled hay, she became scary. No! We did not realize the work it took to rake and pitch the hay up against the pole until it formed a hay stack. No! we did not understand that the cows needed to be able to eat the hay in the winter and they could not do that if it was trampled and rotting on the ground. No! We would never do it again! Who knew haystacks could be such a source of conflict.
The demise of labor intensive haystacks was bemoaned by few. Square bales of hay were a great improvement. It was still sweaty, itchy, work to load the bales on a wagon and then stack them up usually in the loft of a barn.
There was little lament over the gradual disappearance of square bales either. They have been largely replaced by much larger round bales that do not need to be put in the barn nor touched by hands. They are moved by a tractor.
Like haystacks, small rural churches are largely a strategy of the past. After all, they are not efficient, too labor intensive and not a strategic use of dwindling resources. But from the rumbling around the nation from small towns and rural areas, apparently many did not know that, like haystacks, "hayseeds," "hicks" or "hillbillies" could become such a source of fierce conflict -- I say this as one.
Unlike haystacks, the conflict is not simply ignorance about the transgression of trampling on other's hard work. Education is not at the center of the conflict, but ethics are. For the small/rural church, the ethical construct is that small matters, rural matters and neither is subject to devaluation because others are not mindful of the intrinsic worth of simply being.
In contrast, denominational officials are guided by outcome. No doubt, faith must be authenticated by works or outcomes. But must congregations be authenticated by their ability to fund, at least in part, a seminary graduate, to contribute to the upkeep of the ecclesiastical machinery and all of that in addition to providing for their own operations and mission? Is this not an outcome-based ethics of value? It is at least the duty-based ethical construct of obligation.
These two ethical constructs not only steer denominational evaluation, but as well can stigmatize those who fail to measure up. Value-based evaluation should find mega churches meritorious as they excel at having. Seven-day-a-week program churches likewise should find commendation with an obligation-based valuation of doing. But the small, the rural, the fellowship and kinship congregations are somehow convinced that these two construct are not the basis for what is meaningful or most valued. Their primary ethical construct is virtue – being is what matters. Who knew being in Christ could be thought to be not enough? What is known is that value conflicts in the USA and denominations are raging over the rights of immigrant, LGBTQ persons, women, and the rights of unborn babies. What is seemingly unknown is the value conflict of the rights of small and rural church. When an ethic of value or obligation becomes the basis for action, the construct leads to devaluation of the organization and de-obligation of resources. Only the sufficiently-large congregation, located in non-rural areas with significant income can measure up in evaluations of labor hours per member, or market potential, or effective rate of return for the investment for expensive ecclesiastical machinery. Simply put to the “hayseed,” “hicks” or “hillbillies,” round bales are only practical way to go. And who could question that this strategy is the right thing to do? Let it be noted that those who question this assumption are not selfish. Their contrary opinion is that rural people or the folk who have chosen a small church are of greater worth than the sum of their outcomes. Their ethic is that being is primary. In Biblical terms, fruit is the proof of the heart that the person has. No doubt, there must be fruit or the branch is cut off or the tree cut down, but the fact that an orchard has only six trees is no call for immediate destruction. An alternative call to action would be to deploy the gardeners who agree three years of barrenness is a problem but who carry the hope of Jesus’ story and believe that, with a prayer and shovel in hand, “‘maybe it will produce next year; if it doesn’t, then chop it down.’” (Luke 13:8-9 MSG) As in Jesus’ story, the pressing need for the small, rural church is the deployment of loving gardeners, those more concerned about the tree than the years when it bore no fruit. The kinds of gardeners these churches need are:
- Gardeners with a virtue ethic that declares “being” is the beginning.
- Gardeners with a “faith working through love” strategy that invigorates.
- Gardeners who are happy to abide and thrive with calloused hands and knees in a rural or small garden.
Specifically instead of metaphorically, the clergy deployment needed for the small and rural churches begins with those who want to be there because of the trees. Serving the rural or small church is not for those wanting to serve because of the number of congregants, the location of community amenities, or the strength of the budget and compensation package. The measure of outcome for these pastoral leader/gardeners will not be dollars earned or distributed but in the satisfaction of lives transformed and fruit born from being in Christ. This is not advocating for the return of haystacks. But it is a call to stop the exploitation of haystacks as training ground for those climbing to better locations. It is a plea to imagine a clergy deployment model that is not dependent upon a non-rural population density coupled with moderate or higher median household income that are the prerequisites to sustain a today’s compensated professional clergy. It is a plea to consider a model akin to the circuit rider who came quarterly not to be the leader but to guide and encourage the gardener and congregation to bear the fruit that comes from abiding in Christ. Hand-pitched stack, square bale or round bale…if it is not hay, the size or shape does not matter. Likewise for congregation, being in Christ is the authenticator: “for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; (there is no longer rural or urban, there is no longer poor or wealthy) for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. [Galatians 3:26-28 NRSV]
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IDEAS THAT IMPACT: SMALL MEMBERSHIP CHURCHES
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The strength and beauty of small churches
VOCATION
Lisa G. Fischbeck: The strength and beauty of small churches
In a time of extraordinary transformation, small churches are a resource and a gift to the wider church, says a North Carolina vicar. They are the ones best-prepared to enter the way of revitalization and renewal, and to report back to those who will follow.
One afternoon, my daughter texted me from college with a quote: “Evolutionary innovation occurs most easily and quickly in small populations.”
“Relevant to the church?” she asked.
“Yes!” I texted back. “Where did you hear this?”
“In my paleo-stratigraphy class.” she replied.
After almost 10 years as vicar of the Church of the Advocate, a small mission church in Chapel Hill, N.C., I know well the insecurities that can plague small churches. Compared with large churches, with their many programs, resources and staff members, small churches can easily feel overshadowed and somehow “less than.”
 But my life and ministry at the Advocate has also taught me the strength and beauty of small churches. At a time of extraordinary transformation, when the whole church is looking for new ways of being for a new generation in a new world, small churches can be an invaluable resource and a gift to the wider church. In many ways, small churches are the ones best-prepared to enter the way of revitalization and renewal, and to report back to those who will follow.
The church certainly has no lack of small congregations. In virtually every denomination, most churches are small, with an average Sunday attendance of less than 100, even less than 50.
Are they -- are we -- ready to hear and to answer the call to lead? If so, we have much to offer the church and the world.
Small churches can be places of extraordinary community, the very thing that people today long for. In a small congregation, an individual can often find a sense of belonging more readily than in a large church. In a small congregation, Paul’s metaphor of the church as the body of Christ comes alive, with each individual essential to the whole (Romans 12:4-8(link is external), 1 Corinthians 12(link is external)).
At the Church of the Advocate, we say every Sunday that the liturgy will be what it will be because of whomever God has called together in that time and place. The liturgy literally would not be the same if each person were not there.
What is true for the liturgy is even truer for the community and its life together. Each person brings her or his particular needs, history, skills and passions. The gadget-adroit teenager, the writer, the prisoner, the singer who can sing the tenor line, the rambunctious child, the chef, the chronically mentally ill adult, the carpenter -- each brings something essential to our life together.
With scant resources and fewer people to make things happen or support a budget, small churches are inherently vulnerable. But as sociologist Brené Brown has pointed out, both in her books(link is external) and in a popular TED talk(link is external), vulnerability is not a bad trait to have. In vulnerability lies great strength -- for vital people and, as Brown made clear in a talk to the Consortium of Endowed Episcopal Parishes earlier this year, for vital congregations.
Those who minister in small churches have long known this vulnerability -- and the hidden strengths that it brings. Vulnerability helps us identify with the poor and needy. It helps us understand the vulnerability of Jesus and our dependence on God and one another. Vulnerability helps make us faithful.
In addition to the gifts of community and vulnerability, small churches are blessed with the capacity to try new things more easily than our larger counterparts. They can in the right circumstances be nimble and agile.
Sure, small churches are known for being averse to change. They often have members who are reluctant to give up control of some particular aspect of the congregation’s life, whether worship, music, outreach or finances. They can be closed systems with well-identified role players, each doing what he or she has always done, leaving little if any room for newcomers or for change. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
With fewer people in the pews to satisfy or mobilize, small churches can move and even experiment more readily than larger congregations can. Small churches can take a worship service outdoors or down the street on a moment’s notice. They can easily change how they do processions for a season to see whether another approach might be more meaningful.
Small churches can change their meeting time or the way they engage with the surrounding community with surprising swiftness. They can more readily talk about and explain, discuss, and even argue about changes with each other, and then break bread together in fellowship.
At the Advocate, for example, our relatively small size has enabled us to find times and ways throughout the church year to name and celebrate the ministry and vocation of the laity in the world. Through commissions, prayers and celebrations, our people are better able to connect their faith and their work.
Not far away, in Oxford, N.C., St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church, a small, once-struggling historically African-American mission, offers an object lesson in change. After years of slow decline, the church embraced a call to be a place of reconciliation, healing and hospitality in a town with a notably racist past. The transformation of the congregation and its surrounding community has been palpable.
To some, words like “evolution,” “innovation,” “change” and “experiment” are frightening, distasteful, even heretical. But if the Spirit is moving in the church, we need to be alert to the ways the Spirit might be calling us to change.
Both as individuals and as congregations, too many of us have grown accustomed to certain ways of being and doing church. As with any change, the prospect of doing church in new and different ways seems uncomfortable, even frightening. It can require a deep and painful “letting go.”
Small churches have been letting go for years. They know what it means to be part of the body of Christ, and to have the gifts of vulnerability and flexibility.
They are called to lead the way. I pray that they will answer the call. And I pray that the wider church will find ways to encourage and nurture that call.
The paleontologists are right: Evolutionary innovation occurs most easily and quickly in small populations.
Read more from Lisa Fischbeck » |
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Reclaiming the distinctive gifts of a small church
Faith & Leadership
CONGREGATIONS
Dave Odom: Reclaiming the distinctive gifts of a small church
BigStock / Alexeys |
Few places in the U.S. support the conditions for small churches to act like big churches. So they have an opportunity to focus on the activities that both foster the particular gifts of the congregation and make a distinctive witness to the community, writes the executive director of Leadership Education at Duke Divinity.Small-membership congregations are often worried about the future. They struggle to get visitors to join them in worship. Those that do attend come only occasionally. The cost of maintenance, salaries, benefits and more is ever-rising. The children of the congregation grow up and join the fast-growing big churches. Data from the National Congregations Study(link is external) indicates that the majority of small churches are feeling this pinch. Between 1998 and 2012, the number of regular participants, both adults and children, in the average congregation decreased from 80 to 70. The study confirms the suspicion of many small-membership church leaders that since 1998, more and more people are gravitating to larger congregations. In the 2012 study, half of all church attenders go to a congregation of more than 400 in regular participation, with an annual budget of $450,000. But such large-membership congregations represent only 7 percent of all American congregations. What are the leaders of struggling small-membership congregations to do? First, remember the distinctive gift of being a small church. I first heard this idea in the first edition of Anthony Pappas’ classic Alban Institute text “ Entering the World of the Small Church(link is external).” In small-membership congregations, Christians are formed through relationships. The children learn by being with the saints of the church. The classes and programs are more like back-porch conversations. Relationships are important in any church, but their formational power is the central, defining characteristic of the small church. During the 1950s, the culture in the United States created conditions in which congregations grew quickly and were able to build buildings, hire full-time pastors, add other pastors and staff, start programs, and more. Denominations blessed all this activity and urged small churches to become big ones. Often, churches were counseled to hire the staff first and reassured that the members would follow. As a result, small congregations began to do and do and do. Even in the boom days, such churches struggled to fill all the volunteer jobs the programs created. Today, there are few places in the United States that continue to support the conditions for small-membership churches to act like big churches. Most of us live in communities where congregations are ignored, unless the congregation is very large. Visitors don’t come to the doors of most churches. Neighbors don’t welcome visits by church members inviting them to services. A system designed for the 1950s does not work for congregations or their communities any longer. Small-membership congregations have the opportunity to return to the basics by asking themselves some crucial questions. What activities are most meaningful to those who attend? What activities nurture the life of the congregation? What do members do that invites a deeper love of God and neighbor? What would be required to focus more intentional energy on those things? What could be eliminated to provide more opportunity to invest in them? A second set of questions is equally important. What is that one thing the church does that makes a distinctive witness to those outside the congregation? Why is this a distinctive witness? Who are the people it reaches, and how does it address their needs? A church is not a social club, but it must engage the community outside its membership. Its purpose is to be a sign, a taste or an instrument of God’s reign. Being Christian community for one another requires engaging with those outside the church. Ideally, one of the congregation’s most meaningful activities that nurtures its being is closely related to what it can offer to the community. For example, cutting firewood can be a ministry for homebound members of the church as well as a witness and service to neighbors. The purpose of the witness is not to recruit church members. It is to enact the message of God’s grace and hope to a world that is not paying attention to God or God’s congregations. Of course, most congregations already do such acts of witness and service, but to make a difference at a scale that the acts can be noticed, small-membership congregations need to focus their energy on a particular project. Figuring out the focus and scale of activity can be challenging, but it is a way forward that does not depend on a pastor or a certain size building. It depends on relationships and the gifts of the members. With that vision in mind, the church faces questions of what kind of staff, building and more that it needs to maintain a vibrant community life that also serves as a distinctive witness. This is new territory for most congregations, but one that is much more energizing than struggling to keep everything going in a survival mode.
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What can the rural church offer a declining community? Hope.
Faith & Leadership
CONGREGATIONS, CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP
Allen T. Stanton: What can the rural church offer a declining community? Hope
Photo illustration Bigstock / Arrant Pariah / Rubio |
Many rural communities face decline. The church has a unique ability to stand in the hard realities and still preach hope, writes a rural pastor.
About a year and a half ago, I met with a group of pastors, nonprofit leaders and laypeople to talk about how the rural church could strengthen its impact in the community.
We started by sharing stories about the needs that we saw: high poverty, few jobs and limited education. We also talked about what we saw working in the community, like the way the farmers market had begun accepting SNAP benefits.
Finally, we discussed what we thought each group could bring to the table, ending with the question, “What can the church do for the community?”
This is familiar territory for me, since I serve as a rural church pastor in North Carolina and previously worked in public policy.
What surprised me was that the most theological insight came not from any of the pastors but from the county planner.
In a struggling community, she said, where everyone is craving better days, the church does not have the luxury of pessimism. The church has a responsibility to cultivate an atmosphere of hope.
Her frame of reference was practical. After all, a hopeful and optimistic community is more likely to entice new businesses or attract potential residents.
But I think her comments also had a deeper theological meaning. In a community of decline, hope becomes countercultural. While it would be wrong to foster a false sense of optimism or to promise that manufacturing and young adults will return, the church has a unique ability to stand in the hard realities and still preach hope.
After all, our faith is rooted in a hope that comes even while staring at the face of death. We believe that hope persists even when our data and statistics tell us otherwise.
Chatham County, where I serve, benefits from its proximity to the Research Triangle in North Carolina. Still, large swaths of the county are impoverished, and many of the small towns farther from the ever-expanding suburbs are struggling. My parishioners, like their neighbors, are not immune.
A couple of weeks ago, one of my lay leaders and I shared a five-hour car ride. During the drive, she told her story of starting a small business. Like many during the Great Recession, she lost her job when her position was eliminated. Along with her husband and son, she started a business making and selling jerky. They perfected a recipe and began producing the jerky in a community kitchen.
She learned how to get a small-business loan for rural entrepreneurs and how to pass a USDA inspection. Eventually, the product was stocked in retail stores across the state.
She said that she thought it would be worthwhile for her to help others learn to create effective business plans. After all, hers was successful, and she knew what it took. She could share that know-how with others.
Slowly, the conversation wound its way back to our church. We thought about all the resources in our small parish. In my congregation, we have retired teachers, small-business owners, nurses, scientists, a retired farmer and a salesman, among others.
Many other organizations, we realized, worked hard to amass a group like that. For us, though, it’s just our church. We gather at least once a week to show the world exactly what a community looks like.
As we drove, we dreamed about how our congregation might leverage those resources to help our community. We imagined what it would mean to deepen our participation in the conversation on the future of our county.
What if we could help others develop skills? Or connect people to job opportunities? Recently, we received a funded summer fellow from a secular nonprofit with whom we had previously partnered. With that resource, we hope to move those dreams toward reality by creating sustainable plans to capitalize on our existing partnerships.
I am convinced that churches can and should learn a discipline of evangelism that confronts difficult realities yet still teaches the hope that God is at work in our world. On the surface, it might feel weird to talk about evangelism in places of decline, particularly since many rural communities are struggling with a shrinking population.
At its core, though, evangelism is about inviting people to participate in the kingdom of God, to see and experience what Christ is doing in the world around us, with us and through us. Our rural churches have the ability to present good news -- to offer hope -- in places that have given up on it.
Before I began my pastorate, I worked for a public policy organization that linked statewide resources to rural churches. In my conversations with those policymakers, advocates and nonprofits, I always heard the same thing: we need churches to be at the table.
As a small-church pastor, I’ve discovered just how serious those voices were. My congregation lacks the resources of a tall-steeple church; I am keenly aware that I am the single largest expense of our budget.
Yet other organizations and community leaders constantly remind me of the value that churches hold in community development.
A local food bank requested our fellowship hall for a food distribution program, because we have a large, centrally located building with willing volunteers. Youth empowerment agencies have asked what works in our church, because our small parish offers our youth space to exercise leadership, fostering their self-worth and highlighting their potential.
Community leaders recognize the value of the rural church, whether for securing the faith community’s support for a bill that funds grants to rural convenience stores or providing volunteers for a community outreach initiative.
Usually, these conversations and partnerships come about simply -- arranging a phone call with another organization, talking to a community leader over coffee. Oftentimes, organizations already have programs designed to include churches in the conversation, and they are eager to bring new congregations into what is already happening.
In that car ride with my entrepreneurial congregant, I once again recognized what that county planner had implored me to see: our small congregation has a lot to offer our community, because we can offer hope. When rural churches embody and give that hope, we provide leadership in even the most challenging of settings. And that, I am convinced, is a worthy and needed ministry.
Read more from Allen Stanton »
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Imagining the Small Church: Celebrating a Simpler Pathbears witness to what God is doing in small churches.
Steve Willis tells stories from the small churches he has pastored in rural, town, and urban settings and dares to imagine that their way of being has something to teach all churches in this time of change in the American Christian Church. Willis tells us in the introduction, "This book boasts no ten or fifteen steps to a successful small church. Instead, I hope to encourage you to give up on steps altogether and even to give up on success, at least how success is usually measured. I also hope to help the reader imagine the small church differently; to see with new eyes the joys and pleasures of living small and sustainably."
The joys and sorrows Willis helps us see through the compelling stories of faith in the small church puts flesh and bones on the possibilities that lie ahead for congregations in the future as well as the here and now. There will be a variety of paths as the Church seeks new ways of being in this time. Willis knows this. In Imagining the Small Church, he presents us with one that embraces a life of faith on the periphery and challenges church leaders to do the same.
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