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A Discipling Mid-Sized Community/Parish Model
Through the last half-dozen or more years attempts by me to help congregations bend their membership-based organization to fully embrace what discipleship means start fast, then slow and eventually derail. About six months ago I came to the stark conclusion that discipleship and membership are oil and water. Try to make a member a disciple at the same time and you learn first hand what Jesus meant by trying to put new wine into an old wineskin. The old wineskin cannot hold the new wine, and the longer you try to live with it, the more it backslides into complacency.
Congregations taking bold transformational steps always risk alienation from ELCA Constitutional Review Committees. But since the Post-modern Age arrived even before the new century/millennium with its major challenges to old paradigms, we have been left little choice. The obvious easy path is to continue the current complacency of watching our congregations grow older, greyer and smaller, maybe trying this congregation renewal or that, and all the while continue laying the groundwork for a next generation to shut us down.
If you can see that membership and discipleship are oil and water to each other, and can see that all we are presently doing is treading water as members, consider that the only viable future for the church from here to the parousia is self-denial, dying, repentance, reformation and at the same time welcoming the transformation of the Holy Spirit.
Last month in an article titled, “Unshackling Christ’s Church,” I cited how we can get out of the present paradigm and realize transformation/reformation if we 1) Develop new parishes without membership as the basis, and 2) Provide a life-line to existing congregations with mid-sized discipling communities as a way to accomplish the same result. Mid-sized communities are currently reigniting the church in Europe. The article sparked considerable discussion both on and beyond our website. I personally ended up promising to more flesh out a model which is what this article is about. Mind you this is not a blueprint; it is offered to raise a number of important concerns.
America’s experience with small group ministry has taught us a lot about group dynamics, going all the way back to sensitivity groups forty and more years ago. Small group ministry has been most effective and flourished where it has been supported from beyond the group with leadership training and other resources and guidance. A beautiful discovery has been the realization of how much more effective the small group can be in ministering to one another than can the entire congregation including the pastor. Countless instances have shown the group’s pastoring better than “the pastor’s.” Fellow pastors, please do not get bent out of shape over this observation.
Mid-sized Communities, 35-50 disciples, while they don’t need quite as extensive a support system as small groups do, will still more often struggle without the support and resources provided by the parish. My unabashed goal has become to put member congregations as we have known them out of business. When I look at how congregations struggle to realize their Christ-given mission that connects with their DNA and is not just words or phrases chosen as sounding spiritual, it spotlights the role a KEY spiritual leader has in helping that happen. Without such leadership connected to independent mid-sized communities, they will stumble equally or more than we presently see with congregations.
It will also be nearly impossible, at best an exception, for independent mid-sized communities to possess the sufficiently varied base of spiritual gifts needed to comprehensively pursue Christ’s mission by themselves. Once each mid-sized community begins casting their ministry vision they will attract mostly similar gifted people who share passion for that vision.
In addition, taking into account the significant number of individuals blessed with a complexity of spiritual gifts, their passions will naturally push them to seek ways to use those gifts beyond the mid-sized community at the same time. All of this builds the case that the parish (previously congregation) remains just as viable to Christ’s ministry as the mid-sized community.
I have no doubt that the dominant ministry focus for all will be in the mid-sized community. Not just in “pastoring” one another, this is where the greatest amount of growth in discipleship will occur. The parish will be the setting for the ministry of individuals and gifts with wider vision, supporting such as leadership, training and resources for all the communities and addressing responsibilities and partnership in other wider-ministry.
Many traditional areas of ministry that currently belong to the congregation will transfer in large part to the community, areas such as education, evangelism, outreach and giving. Worship will be shared. Festival, high mass sacramental and planned celebrations will mostly stay with the parish.
With the likelihood of only 14-20 parish gatherings for worship a year, and otherwise needing only team and training gathering space that could easily be arranged anywhere, the property needs of the parish can easily avoid ownership. Occasional rented space and a small trailer that stores chancel furniture, a folding table or two and a few folding chairs would be far more practical and easily fill the bill.
While the key spiritual leader could certainly be a layperson, possibly commissioned, the preferred track would be calling one ordained pastor per parish. This calling remains defined by Word and Sacrament ministry, with the greatest amount of time likely spent as spiritual coach/trainer, mission developer and principal caster of the mission and diversified vision.
Eliminated from the pastor’s calling would be confirming youth, removing it from being the hurdle it has become to disciple growth. Also the pastor’s calling would no longer allow the obvious or subtle mistake of being defined as congregation caretaker. Much of what presently occupies a pastor’s day, such as hospital calling and counseling, becomes the ministry of the community. With parish and community teams there are also no committees to even think of having to attend.
Assuming the granting of some pragmatic latitude by the ELCA regarding the Model Constitution, and the continuance of logical parish administration and record keeping, satisfaction of ELCA’s need for records should not be an issue. The latitude, however, would need to recognize that disciples cannot be counted with the same definitions as members. Congregations already transitioned experience more disciples attending worship than members anyway. At the very minimum, though, the ELCA would need to accept an “Alternate Model Constitution.” If the parish relinquishes its need to own property, it can avoid incorporation with the state and accomplish what is needed with just non-profit status.
Parishes would be organized with two or more mid-sized communities. Once communities reach the size of fifty they would immediately plan for how they might subdivide with initially as close to thirty-five in each community as possible. Two can divide into three, etc. The temptation will be strong not to take this step; it will be worse than present congregations trying to divide into two worship services. But this multiplication is absolutely critical, not only for the sake of advancing Christ’s mission, but also so that the needs of each in the community are not increasingly compromised.
There is currently no model for if or when it would be advisable to subdivide parishes. There will be. An obvious consideration will be that the wider a parish spreads geographically, the more its effectiveness is reduced. While we currently have regional congregations we should not have regional parishes. That’s not to say that parishes cannot be yoked. The principles of this model intentionally avoid any encouragement that bigger is better, and stay focused instead on how best to grow disciples who do definitely reach out to grow disciples.
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Comments on this Entry:
Thanks for fleshing this out, Roger. There are several things I'd like to follow up on, some of which are specific to the ELCA and may not be worth posting here for a general readership. I think my main question though centers on whether the pastorates are actually small enough to support the massive cultural shift from membership to discipleship.
You describe them as being 35-50 people in size. Yet what I understand of small groups is that the quality of the relationships really drops off when you get past ten or twelve people in the group. My own experience with a couples' group some years ago was that the difference was like night and day when we (reluctantly) broke into two groups of 5 when it came time for discussion. With 35 or more in a group, I'm thinking it would still be easy to retain a relatively "membership" oriented involvement, simply because you could readily be present without being a significant participant/contributor to the life of the group. So if the primary experience of the community comes in groups that are large enough to foster "belonging" without "contributing", it seems like that would set the stage for a sense of membership and undermine the expectation for discipleship.
(And on a related note, where would the pastorates gather if they have to accommodate 35-50 people? Seems like most homes would be too small for that to work well.)
Posted by: Tim Thompson at January 10, 2009 12:25 AM
The ELCA Constitution seems to revolve around "membership" and discipleship is not even considered. The assumption seems to be that Baptism equals discipleship.
I hope the Transforming Church network grows in size and influence so the ELCA has a chance at a future.
Posted by: Dennis at January 10, 2009 09:13 PM
Thank you for your vision and encouraging words, Roger. As is so often true, the Holy Spirit moves in many different circles at the same time with the same script before the actors have had a chance to meet!
Your concept of the "Mid-sized community" reflects the growing House Church movement, currently exploding in developing countries--and significantly--coming on stronger even in the USA.
The "mid-sized community," as a "tethered community" to a larger congregation, has demonstrated a very successful track record at Holy Trinity Brompton, in central London (an Anglican Church). HTB, as you may know, is the home of the Alpha course. The key DNA at HTB is not the Alpha course, as most would think. It's actually "the Pastorate"--their mid-sized communities of 15-35 people. Recently, HTB numbered about 80 pastorates in their congregation. Each pastorate has a leadership team of lay people who lead and oversee it. Each meets in homes, primarily. Some meet in the church building. They squeeze in and pack out most homes, which are smaller than our homes in USA. There are few "programs" in the congregation, outside of the Alpha Course and the Marriage Course. Most of the "programming" is done in the pastorates, which meet bi-weekly, and resemble early New Testament meetings... eating together, worship, prayer, short teaching, discussion in small groupings of 3-4, and prayer ministry with and among each other. Each pastorate is on their own as to pastoral care, teaching content, social projects, worship, child care, etc. Small groups (3-5 people) grow out of the pastorate and are managed by them rather than the congregation as a whole
The Pastorates have been responsible for dozens of new Alpha courses being planted in churches all throughout London and England, and recently in India. These mid-sized communities are leadership development factories--par excellence. Outreach and service in the neighborhoods and among people who battle poverty, lack of education, limited or no access to medical help, etc is all handled by the mid-sized communities. It's hands-on ministry. Making a difference with real people, face to face. Which is what so many of our young people want/desire, and even some of us older folks.
Mid-sized groups offer congregations the chance to penetrate communities with the gospel in ways that our traditional congregations that are tied to large, non-mobile buildings, can’t. I don’t see it as an either-or option, but a both-and. I’d like to see new models of doing church that develop the use of mid-sized groups that are tethered to congregations.
Posted by: Steve Gartland at January 11, 2009 04:26 AM
Tim - in reply to your comment, I’m confident our readers are able to “read around” or “read through” the ELCA stuff; all of us have to deal with church body issues. Since this was not intended as a “definitive model” but principally to raise issues for discussion, it’s only fair to respond in front of everyone.
1. When the MSCs (or pastorates) are formed, the initial reason to start them is to shed member thinking in favor of disciple thinking. The objective is so that everything disciple can happen. Pitfalls would be avoided, even safeguarded against, that could restart member thinking.
2. MSCs would have a hard time being fully effective if they did not break up into small groups for study, discussion, etc. The reason for the 35-50 disciple size is so they can function as pastorates and not just small groups. Also they will hopefully have resources that pertain to the “full” scope of discipleship. With the primary mission of growing disciples who grow disciples, we have realized that that happens through the seven faith practices, all of them. One of those is “giving” which fully embraces stewardship, with the hoped for exception of capital appeals for property ownership. I have no doubt that distracts from discipleship.
3. I envision MSCs having passion for contributing but not needing to be concerned about belonging that lead to benefits of membership. When MSCs in Europe were allowed much past 50 in size the priorities of passion began to fade, whether measured in attendance, participation, or whatever. Besides thinking of MSCs as pastorates, think of them as extended faith families. My personal initial experience with this came in the 1990’s when we left the Modern Age’s traditional graded Sunday School classes in favor of extended multigenerational families that gathered each Sunday. At that time we kept those families in size to 12-17 disciples, spending some of their time with the other faith families but most of it within their own family. I believe that was a forerunner of what we are talking about today.
4. As to where would MSCs meet, mostly in borrowed or rented space. The same would be true for the 12-15, even 20 annual gathering of the Parish for worship, training, etc. We have used space in schools, office complexes, community rooms at banks, association buildings, twice used restaurant back or side rooms for extended periods, a dance studio, former hardware store, even a cemetery chapel. Until they disappear there would be plenty of traditional congregation-owned churches to borrow/rent space within. True, we have paid as much as $175/week, but in a surprising number of situations we were blessed with “for free.” In Europe, seasonally they have even used soccer fields.
Posted by: Roger Ganzel at January 11, 2009 09:37 PM
In reading about the organizational structure of MSC the thought of Philanthropic Educational Organization (P.E.O.) came to mind. This is an organization comprised of women awarding scholarships and grants totaling $62M and loaning over $100M to women for the purpose of higher education. This group of nearly 80,000 members meets in homes across the the world, primarily the USA. It is a membership based organization of course. Once a chapter reaches 45-50 members they are encouraged to split. So how do 45 members meet in a home? They don't, there is typically only half of the membership in attendance. It doesn't matter if you are a chapter of 50 or 20 it is typically half. I would hope that with a discipleship focus you would keep people drawn in as long as they feel they are in relationship and growing spiritually. However I think even with MSC of 30 it could be easy for a sheep to be lost and go astray without the support of a small groups of the MSC. I didn't quite read that here.
This is a group that cares for one another in good times in bad as well as a grass roots effort of supporting the organization and it's foundation.
As for structural buildings as far as I know there is one, in Des Moines, IA. The is one state meeting a year as one national meeting using all rented space. For state meetings of boards and such interestedly, churches are used. There maybe some lessons learned from this organization that was started in the late 1800's, grew and about the time we started to see a drop in the church, P.E.O. also saw a decline of membership.
Posted by: Ann Railsback at January 19, 2009 11:51 PM
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