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Commentary
WESLEYAN WISDOM: Creatively rethinking the smaller-membership church Donald W. Haynes, Nov 11, 2009
Donald Haynes
By Donald W. Haynes UMR Columnist
Bishop Larry Goodpaster, president-elect of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, has shared with his cabinet a concern we are feeling across this beloved connection. The bottom line: It now takes 150 in average attendance for a local church to be what we called a “station” appointment. Should this be translated into appointment-making, thousands of local churches and pastoral appointments would be dramatically affected.
I do not know the bishop’s rationale, but it is undoubtedly connected to the rising cost of medical insurance premiums, which are now in the $10,000-per-year range just for the pastor.
A second likely concern is that many conferences have abandoned older pension apportionments, in which larger churches carried more than their fair share and virtually subsidized the pension program for pastors in smaller churches. When those formulae are revised to apportion to every church its own pastor’s pension, the cost can go up astronomically for the smaller-membership church.
For years of service since 1982, United Methodist clergy have enjoyed a very generous pension income; the question is how much longer churches can afford to support it.
Smaller-attendance churches are also threatened by the declining membership and the increasing age of United Methodism. We are now 19 years older than the general population. Medical science has been the church’s best friend just by enabling us to live longer!
Many of our churches have enjoyed a prolonged postponement of fiscal reality because of octogenarians who still tithe. But the death of a few older adults in a smaller-membership church can cripple the budget.
How many people does it take to support and challenge the pastor of a local United Methodist church? In the heyday of the 1950s, every conference chapter circulated the figure of 450 members as a “challenged workload” for a full-time, trained pastor and an “adequate giving base” to provide a parsonage, an equipped church office and funds for program ministries, conference apportionments and missional giving.
Every seminary had a faculty member who focused on “Town and Country” churches. These men, like Marvin Judy of Perkins, Rockwell “Rocky” Smith of Garrett and Earl D.C. Brewer of Candler, wrote prolifically and lectured widely on how to stop the hemorrhage of the rural churches.
Among the creative proposals of the mid-century years was a series of departures from the older circuit patterns that provided worship in each church each Sunday, saved overhead, provided smaller-membership churches with ministries associated with larger churches and eliminated small, struggling stations.
Has the time come for these to be considered by cabinets and laity across our connection?
Extended Parish
The Extended Parish was logical for a connectional church. A smaller-membership church in geographic proximity to a large church was included in the staff’s responsibility for worship, pastoral care, program ministries and missional service to the whole community. It often gave the associate pastor of a larger church a place to preach!
This provided an opportunity to mentor probationers just out of school. It was also effective for part-time, non-itinerating local pastors who were retired from other professions and held in high esteem. Smaller-church members came to the larger church for music, drama and “high holy days” of Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter. Confirmands and Vacation Bible Schools were often combined into a larger group.
The Larger Parish
In this pattern, a strong church with an ordained pastor would be linked with several surrounding smaller-membership churches. The parish would secure a church office that was equipped to produce bulletins, newsletters and mailings, and be a phone center 24/7. The parish would have a full-time secretary, a director of children’s ministries, a director of youth ministries and a parish nurse. These laity would augment the pastoral work of an ordained pastor and local preachers for each of the smaller membership churches. (Today that could be a lay minister or a part time local pastor).
If we resurrected the Larger Parish today, it could be more efficient with one office, one inventory of computer and other communication equipment, and a staff who had differing program gifts but would be deployed on Sundays to “fill” every parish pulpit. Part-time staff would often be retired from vocations that provide pension support, relieving the church of this moral obligation.
The Larger Parish provided missional projects that today would include Habitat for Humanity, mission teams, Walk to Emmaus, Disciple Bible Study and a plethora of other programmatic and missional ministries. There were weekly staff meetings of the parish, just as in the largest local churches.
Group ministries
Group ministries linked together several churches of similar size in an economic area. These brought together several churches from the horse-and-buggy days, when Methodists located a church in every cove of the mountains, every tributary and every industrial mill village. As good Methodist families sent their children to college, the religious demographics shifted to denominations that did not emphasize higher education, had larger families and accented evangelism.
The “parish office” of the Group Ministry looked much like that of the Larger Parish. A major weakness was that appointing a Group Ministry Director was more challenging since all the churches had similar size, strength and influence. However, ministries like day camping, Vacation Bible Schools and mission building teams built a lot of Christian fellowship. There was also a great savings of investment in office equipment and a deepened sense of camaraderie for both laity and clergy.
Federated Parish
The Federated Parish links two or more churches of different denominations in the same geographic area to be served by the same pastor. Right now, I am serving Kallam Grove Christian Church, whose doctrine is Wesleyan and polity is congregational. In the same community are two United Methodist churches being served by non-resident retired supply pastors. Members of all three know each other and have similar cultural values.
We have scrapped the creative connectionalism of the old Town and Country Movement for a variety of reasons.
First, bishops and cabinets either did not understand the concept or rejected it. Most bishops were elected and district superintendents were selected from large churches, seminary faculties or denominational staff positions. They could not appreciate the ethos of the small-membership church. They treated the rural and mill village churches patronizingly or with benign neglect. In more recent years, some superintendents have even gone to “cluster Charge Conferences,” not even respecting the smaller-membership church with a single annual visit to the premises!
Secondly, the itineracy worked against the parish concept. Incoming clergy were often given no orientation, no training and no consultation in moving from a traditional station church or rural circuit to the leadership or association with an extended parish, larger parish or group ministry. Their appointment to one of these was often motivated by a salary increase, not a new paradigm of missional ministry. Consequently, the new pastor often set about to dismantle the parish.
Thirdly, pastors of large churches resisted the “extended parish” as a symbol of reduced status among their peers. They did not want responsibility for the smaller-membership church and it was often given only marginal attention and leadership.
Fourth, laity were stuck on wanting their own pastor, parsonage, office and staff. They wanted to avoid the stigma associated with earlier circuit patterns. The economy was booming, incomes were rising and people could afford larger budgets. Thousands of former “circuit churches” built a parsonage, sponsored fundraisers and funded a full-time pastor.
Fifth, our seminaries dismantled the entire Town and Country network. The small-membership church often has no one on a seminary faculty who has “been there.”
Finally, the megachurch seems to be the new darling of our denomination.
Rethinking our heritage
We are now launching Rethink Church because we have dropped from 11 million to less than 8 million in membership. We are much older and the costs are skyrocketing for pensions and medical insurance. Realistically, thousands of our smaller-membership churches could be closed by conference action or fiscal insolvency.
I would plead for a resurgence of innovative and creative commitment to the people who brought us to the dance. Our heritage is in the smaller-membership church, established in the frontier and the backwoods. From that cultural periphery, the children of Wesley shaped and gave moral fiber to America and sent missionaries to the developing world.
Today the work of those missionaries is the brightest spot in our global demographics. Surely we will not abandon the rural and rust-belt community in the interest of denominational survival.
Research has shown that major denominations followed corporate America into a bureaucratic and hierarchical organizational structure. The circuit rider concept of servant leadership was gradually replaced by ecclesiastical professionalism.
The time has come for us to “redig the old wells.”
Dr. Haynes is an instructor in United Methodist studies at Hood Theological Seminary. dhaynes11@triad.rr.com.
Donald Haynes
