This is from an article A Small Church Redefines its Mission Chicago
You can read the article uncensored and in its entirety at: http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2878
What is a great church? For many Americans, great is synonymous with large, volume equals vitality quantity means quality. But a countertradition is quietly emerging. As more churches grow to stadium proportions, small congregations are coming to see their diminutive size as an asset for mission.
The majority of Unitarian Universalist congregations are small. Whereas the average UU congregation is small, the average UU goes to a large church. Half of UU’s are members of the largest __ percent of churches. One NonUU church official put into words what many silently believe: "A small church can be defined as one in which the number of active members and the total annual budget are inadequate relative to organizational needs and expenses. It is a church struggling to pay its minister, heat its building, and find enough people to assume leadership responsibilities."
Yet small churches are not dinosaurs destined to lose the struggle for survival. And it is not true that small churches don’t have the resources to do effective mission. As Carl Dudley writes, "When church size is measured by human relationships, the small church is the largest expression of the Christian faith," And David Ray reminds us that "small churches are the norm, primarily because many, many people still find them to be the right size In which to love God and neighbor. I expect they will continue to be the norm."
Small churches often have a laundry list of complaints: there is no choir, the board is exhausted was exhausted, no one could remember the last "successful" canvas all our neighbors are Baptists, bigger churches have better programs, and both the church building and the congregation were aging.
I just read this wonderful article about UU Annapolis. But no matter how beneficial these churches are as models of mission, they are both a blessing and a curse for leaders of small congregations. Leaders studying these churches often succumb to the myth that large, dynamic, growing churches are the healthy churches. Not only is bigger better, "growth" is obligatory. The myth of size assumes that small churches are de facto struggling, parochial, maintenance-oriented, at risk, and not able to compete in today’s church marketplace. "How do churches grow?" is the question that dominates the literature of church renewal, not "How are churches to be the church?" Breaking the myth of size means realizing that small churches are not necessarily premature, illegitimate, malnourished or incomplete versions of "real" churches. Small congregations are the right size to be a Beloved Community. They are not, of course, always beacons of faithfulness. A church board used to joke that anyone who did not like organized religion would love their congregation. Besides being disorganized, churches are not necessarily faithful, effective, friendly or relevant.
However, small congregations can more easily go through processes of spiritual transformation than larger ones and can be made "free for real missionary adventure and apostolic self-confidence," Bigger congregations are almost always adept at tapping into significant cultural norms, values, movements and technology. This is their strength, but it is also their weakness. At least one reason for their growth is that they are culturally sensitive. They work hard to know their constituency, their area, their "target audience." Some of the most popular workshops at any megachurch conference today are about how churches can offer culturally relevant worship, engage in culturally sensitive outreach or use culturally sensitive media. Bill Easum, a consultant to many growing churches, goes further than most in emphasizing the relationship between growing churches and culture when he advises, "Study more sociology than theology. Learn how people think and feel and how systems operate." Few churches grow large by being countercultural or living on the margins.
Small churches are usually somewhat out of step with culture. They are, so to speak, sociologically challenged. This can be its own blessing. The small church tends to be shaped more by the dynamics of its own small community than by the dominant culture. While this can separate some churches too much from society, it can also assist the small church in living on the margins of society, where opportunity for mission knocks. A small church can incarnate a particular way of living in the world learned from the margins. It can go places and risk ministries that larger churches would find undesirable or impossible.
Being on the margins can provide fresh opportunities for offering bold witness. It is often a better position for discovering mission than is the center.
To become a church in mission, we need to let go of clericalism and convert the members into ministers; let go of the myth of size and develop a vision of what a small church can do; move beyond "coffee fellowship" in its conception of worship and food; and leave behind traditional notions of church in order to focus on the congregation’s mission on the margins.
Some small UU churches place hope for renewal on the pastor. "We need a charismatic leader to turn this thing around". But small churches can turn things around only if the people take complete ownership of the church’s administration and ministry.
Some churches have even abandoned the idea of having a full-time minister in favor of having specialized leadership teams. These congregations are served by teams of three to five bi-vocational ministers. One carries the responsibility for preaching, another for the teaching ministry, a third for pastoral care and a fourth for administration, with perhaps a fifth responsible for evangelism and missions. The combined compensation for the team, including reimbursement for expenses, is usually less than the amount required to pay a full-time resident minister.
Often small congregations do not attract full-time ministers who wish to serve a long pastorate. A minister may start small for experience, but the next career move is larger and bigger. Would the small congregation be better served with bi-vocational ministers; and would this also be a better match with second career/semi-retired ministers.
Two factors that Nancy Ammerman, in her study of congregations and change, identifies as critical to congregational vibrancy: worshiping and eating. Whatever else church members do as they cope with change; they must worship well and eat together.
"Don’t let any opportunity for a meal slip by" has become our unwritten rule. These meals, at evening or small group gatherings, at council meetings and before and after worship services, are meaningful because they involve four critical dimensions: prayer, personal witness, learning and attending to tasks -- all while eating.
Meaningful worship and meaningful meals are critical to any attempts at renewal, and one doesn’t work well without the other. Never trust a fellowship where members regularly worship together but don’t like to eat together, or where they eat together but neglect worship.
Because we are a community, not a collection of individuals, we work to promote fellowship. We explore together what it means to be disciples; this specific identity didn’t emerge from a retreat, a seminar with a consultant, or even a very long board meeting.
This ministry taught us that our call is to the neighborhood, not just to the church. Almost none of "our" seniors are members of the congregation. We also found that having people carry out the ministry was more rewarding than paying a pastor to do it. The strong community response to the ministry made the church known and respected.
We have learned that building a multicultural community is as difficult as learning a new language. It is not for the faint of heart. It may, however, prove to be our congregation’s best witness to a community where almost all other churches are ethnically or racially "pure."
Finally, our focus has turned toward outreach to the unchurched. In some ways, we cannot compete with the many big, dynamic, well-run churches in our area for the church shoppers. They would almost never choose us. So we decided to try to attract unchurched people. Our goal was to establish an atmosphere of hospitality for the unchurched.
But I am convinced that the churches that will be most effective in recapturing their life as missional communities will discover their identities at the margins. And the communities that can best serve from the margins will almost always initially be small groups or small churches like St. Andrew
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