The Congregation attendance is around 30 adults. The long tenured patriarchs and matriarchs are entering true old age with complicated health and mobility issues. Their children live in different cities or states. The small congregation is now made up of folks who do not have extended families in the area. This is very different than the small church that Schaller wrote about in ‘Creating your own Future’:
One reason is growth [is difficult is that it ] usually means attempting to bring strangers into a small, intimate, and warm fellowship that is reinforced by longstanding kinship and/or friendship ties.
That observation is fifteen years old. The longstanding kinship does not exist here. How true than are other assumptions about the small church? I wonder how many small congregations in the new millenium will be facing a completely different dynamic. The influx of young adults, unchurched and new to UU’sm. And retired Baby-Boomers. I'm a first wave Baby-Boomer. Over the next ten years, there will be hundreds of thousands of us moving south/west to small towns. What will happen to the small church when we descend upon it - experienced, professional, and with a need for meaningful work. Gives me a chill - sounds like invasion of the baby boomers.
I studying articles at SmallChurch.com.
Side Note: My husband attends the local Mormon congregation. Member numbers are high but actual attendees are more in the 100 to 150 range. He commented that many of the church officers and leaders are related to each other upon which . I imparted a bit of church theory about small matriarchal (in this case patriarchal) churches. He did not have an 'aha' moment.
Reporting in from a UU Outpost
Nancy
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