Counting
Often, when people discover I'm a pastor (and after they've gotten some idea of what an Episcopalian is!) their next question is usually, "How big is your church?"
I've been tempted to answer "Oh, currently a shade over 2 billion people," since this is the approximate number of Christians worldwide and we're all a part of Christ's Church (whether we recognize each other as such or not). Fortunately, I've long since given up the need to explain that the church belongs to God and not to the pastor and/or the congregation. So, with those two caveats in mind, I usually answer by saying something like, "We have between 140-160 people in attendance at the Sunday liturgies each week." This explanation in numbers seems to be sufficient for most people.
For a long time, average Sunday attendance (ASA) was a sufficient answer for me as well. Much of the literature around congregational development focused on Sunday worship attendance as a barometer of congregational vitality; of how a congregation embodied its mission and ministry. People who study congregations discovered certain trends and commonalities exist amongst churches with this or that number of attendees at worship. All so scientific. All so statistical. All so seemingly "objective". And...all so flawed.
The purpose of all of this counting seemed to be figuring out how to get more people to count. The question I've been wrestling with of late is, "What does it mean for a congregation to 'grow'?" Just numbers? Just an increase in people in the building so the singing sounds better? So we feel better about ourselves? So we can offer more (God forbid!) "programs"? So we can increase our giving to the judicatory? So we can hire more staff? To what end is such growth?
Some would say at this point, "But didn't Jesus command his disciples to, 'Go into the world'? Aren't we supposed to make disciples?" And of course the answer is, "Yes!" What we church-goers sometimes lose sight of, though, is that Jesus doesn't tell his disciples, "Build buildings so you can hide out inside of them, confusing church work with discipleship, and then have to invest all sorts of time, energy and money to maintain them. Oh, and while you're at it, accumulate an ecclesiastical heirarchy of religious professionals who will require salary and benefits."
Let's be clear. Making disciples isn't the same thing as making good, pew-sitting, pledge-paying church members. The fact is, a local congregation may be strong, vibrant and doing a fabulous job of serving the larger community and still be numerically small and economically challenged. A community of faithful disciples may be bearing each other's burdens, visiting the sick, caring for the widows and orphans, studying scripture, "proclaiming by word and example the Good News of God in Christ" and still not be able to afford to support a "full time" clergyperson. It may not possess the full compliment of necessary religious goods and services to appeal to the discriminating (and highly individualistic) palates of the sophisticated church shopper. It may not be able to compete with the high-fallootin' Ecclesiastical Superstore across town. But such a fellowship might very well be the future of a healthy conregation -- as offensive as that might be to the American sensibility that "bigger is better".
Am I anti-church growth? By no means! But I am beginning to question growth for growth's own sake. I am having doubts about numerical growth that does not lead to a deepening of relationships between people who are a part of a worshipping community or a broadening of compassion toward those on the margins of society. I am increasingly uncomfortable with the language of marketing being substituted for a theology of evangelism. We are not selling a product, we are preaching the paradoxical Good News that the way to find life is to lose it in the service of Someone who came as a servant to all. The same Someone who gave himself up for all people -- even the ones who betrayed and rejected him.
Two thousand years after the fact, the Jesus movement is more than 2 billion strong. But it started with an unlikely assembly of a few dozen people. And the movement gained ground one person at a time. For all our focus on big numbers, Jesus insisted on working with small ones -- "Where two or three are gathered, there I am in the midst of them," he said. Two or three. Even I can count that high.
Often, when people discover I'm a pastor (and after they've gotten some idea of what an Episcopalian is!) their next question is usually, "How big is your church?"
I've been tempted to answer "Oh, currently a shade over 2 billion people," since this is the approximate number of Christians worldwide and we're all a part of Christ's Church (whether we recognize each other as such or not). Fortunately, I've long since given up the need to explain that the church belongs to God and not to the pastor and/or the congregation. So, with those two caveats in mind, I usually answer by saying something like, "We have between 140-160 people in attendance at the Sunday liturgies each week." This explanation in numbers seems to be sufficient for most people.
For a long time, average Sunday attendance (ASA) was a sufficient answer for me as well. Much of the literature around congregational development focused on Sunday worship attendance as a barometer of congregational vitality; of how a congregation embodied its mission and ministry. People who study congregations discovered certain trends and commonalities exist amongst churches with this or that number of attendees at worship. All so scientific. All so statistical. All so seemingly "objective". And...all so flawed.
The purpose of all of this counting seemed to be figuring out how to get more people to count. The question I've been wrestling with of late is, "What does it mean for a congregation to 'grow'?" Just numbers? Just an increase in people in the building so the singing sounds better? So we feel better about ourselves? So we can offer more (God forbid!) "programs"? So we can increase our giving to the judicatory? So we can hire more staff? To what end is such growth?
Some would say at this point, "But didn't Jesus command his disciples to, 'Go into the world'? Aren't we supposed to make disciples?" And of course the answer is, "Yes!" What we church-goers sometimes lose sight of, though, is that Jesus doesn't tell his disciples, "Build buildings so you can hide out inside of them, confusing church work with discipleship, and then have to invest all sorts of time, energy and money to maintain them. Oh, and while you're at it, accumulate an ecclesiastical heirarchy of religious professionals who will require salary and benefits."
Let's be clear. Making disciples isn't the same thing as making good, pew-sitting, pledge-paying church members. The fact is, a local congregation may be strong, vibrant and doing a fabulous job of serving the larger community and still be numerically small and economically challenged. A community of faithful disciples may be bearing each other's burdens, visiting the sick, caring for the widows and orphans, studying scripture, "proclaiming by word and example the Good News of God in Christ" and still not be able to afford to support a "full time" clergyperson. It may not possess the full compliment of necessary religious goods and services to appeal to the discriminating (and highly individualistic) palates of the sophisticated church shopper. It may not be able to compete with the high-fallootin' Ecclesiastical Superstore across town. But such a fellowship might very well be the future of a healthy conregation -- as offensive as that might be to the American sensibility that "bigger is better".
Am I anti-church growth? By no means! But I am beginning to question growth for growth's own sake. I am having doubts about numerical growth that does not lead to a deepening of relationships between people who are a part of a worshipping community or a broadening of compassion toward those on the margins of society. I am increasingly uncomfortable with the language of marketing being substituted for a theology of evangelism. We are not selling a product, we are preaching the paradoxical Good News that the way to find life is to lose it in the service of Someone who came as a servant to all. The same Someone who gave himself up for all people -- even the ones who betrayed and rejected him.
Two thousand years after the fact, the Jesus movement is more than 2 billion strong. But it started with an unlikely assembly of a few dozen people. And the movement gained ground one person at a time. For all our focus on big numbers, Jesus insisted on working with small ones -- "Where two or three are gathered, there I am in the midst of them," he said. Two or three. Even I can count that high.
posted by FrGaryB | 2:57 PM
1 Comments:
Growth for growth's sake usually ends up as an abnormality - a wart, a cyst or worse.
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