Beyond Business as Usual, Revised Edition

Vestry Leadership Development, Revised Edition

Neal O. Michell

• Publisher: Morehouse Publishing
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780898699616
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

The revised and expanded edition includes new information, new teaching resources, and perspectives gained in the last eight years, as well as the General Convention resolutions of 2015. Beyond Business as Usual is full of resources for forming the vestry as a learning community. It deals with the "soft" side of leadership that enables the pastor and vestry together to journey along the leadership path. Each chapter can be read and reviewed at a series of vestry meetings or as part of a vestry retreat, and includes questions for group and individual discussion. The book also contains resources for vestries, based upon different preferred learning styles, for the formation part of the vestry meeting or retreat.

Part One

A New Way for Clergy and Vestries to Think

— One —

Defining Reality

Our Churches Are in Decline

“This is not your father’s Oldsmobile.”

—Oldsmobile Commercial, 1988

Parish ministry these days is increasingly complex and dynamic. That is because our society is increasingly complex and dynamic. The conditions today in which church leaders operate are much more demanding than they were fifty years ago, and they require a different approach to parish leadership.

Cultural Changes

In the late 1950s Americans began to be concerned about culture shock. In 1970, Alvin Toffler popularized and made readers aware of the phenomenon of “Future Shock,” which is the challenge for people to cope with the unprecedented changes brought about by new technologies. We understand the problem of information overload. With e-mail, twenty-four-hour news, bloggers, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Cyber Dust, and a multitude of social media, we see the battle being waged between “old media” and “new media.” A recurring question is: who is in control of the flow of information? The answer is: no one. Now anyone with a computer, smart phone, or smart pad, and access to the Internet can be a news reporter and have the world as an audience.

Suffice it to say, much changed between 1960 and the second decade of the new millennium. This is true in all areas of politics, government, and education as well as everyday life. Similarly, running a business has become much more complex, with added requirements, warnings, safeguards, methods of operations, permits, reports to be filed, and government regulations to be satisfied.

This increased complexity affects the local church as well. In 1960, a church with an average Sunday attendance of 250 could function quite ably with a full-time priest, a volunteer Christian education staff person, a part-time secretary, a part-time organist/ choir director, and a part-time sexton. Today that same church will likely have two full-time ordained persons, a full-time secretary, and a full- or part-time administrator, Christian education coordinator, organist/choir director, youth minister, and possibly a new member/evangelism coordinator.

Additionally, the increase in numbers of denominations and non-denominationally affiliated church networks has added greater complexity. Denominational distinctions are more blurred now, with Baptist and Presbyterian churches celebrating Holy Week, United Methodist churches offering “Anglican style worship,” and Episcopal churches having praise bands and projecting words for music and liturgy on overhead screens. Further, it has become easier and more common for people to shift from one denomination (or non-denominational church) to another.

As a result of the changes in our culture and the proliferation of worship styles and choices as well as the blurring of denominational identity and the general information overload that many people experience, it is difficult for the average church to set itself apart from other churches in the area. Churches must do more than tasteful liturgy, good theology, and decent pastoral care in order to minister effectively in the twenty-first century. Your parishioners can turn on the television and hear really excellent preaching. While the average Episcopal priest may not agree with the theology informing the preaching, there is no arguing that these televangelists are compelling preachers. This excellent, easily accessible preaching has put even greater pressure on all local churches.

Decline in The Episcopal Church

A review of the membership numbers of The Episcopal Church since 1965 reveals that, except for a few years in the late 1990s, the denomination has continually lost membership. The year 1965 was the high-water mark for baptized members in The Episcopal Church. From 1965 to 2003 our denomination lost nearly a third of its membership. Further, the average size of our churches has declined as well. In 1960, the average Episcopal parish reported 450 baptized members. In 1965, the year of our highest membership, the average was 480 members per church. The average membership in our churches has declined fifty percent in 2013.

Although specific statistics have attempted to draw conclusions about the growth and decline of churches according to size, these studies are inconclusive and often inconsistent. My own observations from studying Episcopal churches as a consultant over the past twenty years is that while some of our very large churches have gotten even larger, a greater number of middle-sized churches have decreased in size, resulting in more of our churches having fewer members than in years past. In 2002, sixty percent of Episcopal churches had an average Sunday attendance of 100 or less; in 2003, sixty-one percent of Episcopal churches had an average Sunday attendance of 100 or less; in 2004 this number increased to sixty-two percent; in 2014 this number was seventy percent. Likewise, the median average Sunday attendance in 2002 was seventy-nine; in 2003 it was seventy-seven; in 2004 it was seventy-five; and in 2014 the median attendance was sixty. The decline in attendance and membership looks like a ski slope.

In short, many, if not most, of our churches have not responded well to the changes that have occurred in American culture since 1965. The result is that we have fewer churches than we did in 1965, and those we do have are generally smaller than they were in 1965. Today, the typical Episcopal church is basically a single-cell, non-complex organization in an increasingly complex culture. Consequently, this means that being a lay leader in the church, such as serving on the vestry, is an ever-increasing challenge.

A Word about Church Growth

Church growth has gotten a bad reputation in many parts of the church today. Many of the criticisms aimed at the church growth movement are justified when focusing on how church growth minimizes the call to make disciples. As followers of Jesus we are called to make disciples and not simply to gather a crowd. I like to talk more about congregational development and congregational health than church growth, because our aim should be to form faithful communities of disciples rather than just getting more people to church.

However, as the saying goes, “Please don’t shoot the messenger.” Our dislike or discomfort with the idea of church growth should not make us complacent concerning the decline in membership in our churches. I have heard many people say that we shouldn’t be so focused on numbers, that we leave those things up to God. However, each number represents a person for whom Jesus died. The Lord who left the ninety and nine for the one lost sheep would say that those are not numbers but individuals. Personally, I find it hard to believe that God is honored by a denomination that has lost nearly half of its membership over the last fifty years!

It is natural for healthy things to grow. This is true of both plants and people. Given a proper amount of soil, nutrients, water, and light, plants will do what comes naturally, that is, they will grow. If a plant does not grow as expected, we look for the reason why. The soil may be malnourished, or it may have the wrong mixture of nutrients. The plant may need more sunlight, or less; or more water, or less. Some plants cease to grow because they are root bound because the pot is too small. To discern why a plant isn’t growing, look for an unseen obstacle that is hindering the growth of the plant.

Granted, there are varieties of growth to look for in a local church: numerical growth, financial growth, spiritual growth, and growth in service to our communities or the world beyond us, but our church ought to have some area of growth that we can point to that evidences health and vitality in the common life of our congregations.

Often our churches don’t grow because there are unseen obstacles that have hindered the growth that is otherwise natural to the life of the church. If we, as leaders, can recognize those obstacles to growth and replace those obstacles with healthy practices, the church will grow naturally—with, of course, a life-giving gospel proclaimed and with prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit.

We start with the mission of the church. According to the catechism of the Book of Common Prayer, the mission of the church is “to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.” As the church is accomplishing that mission, one has to assume that individual expressions, i.e., local congregations, of the larger church will grow larger rather than smaller.

If our denomination is collectively in decline, it is because many of our churches are individually in decline. So how do we arrest this decline in our churches? Who is responsible for leading our churches to engage our culture with the gospel in such a way that more and more people, as former archbishop of Canterbury William Temple said, may be led “to acknowledge Christ as their Savior and King, so that they may give themselves to his service in the fellowship of His church”?²

For Individual or Group Reflection

•Is your church in decline, plateaued, or growing? Make a chart of your church’s average Sunday attendance for the past five years. Also, review the ministries that have been started or ended during the past ten years.

•What are the strengths of your church? What has caused the greatest growth or decline in the past five years?

•What are the largest “people groups” in your parish? Seniors, Middle Aged, Young Adults, Singles, Divorced, Married? What is your parish’s ethnic diversity? What will your parish look like in ten years if the current trends continue?

•What is your church’s most effective ministry? Least effective?

___________________________

2. Ben Johnson, An Evangelism Primer: Practical Principles for Congregations (Atlanta: John Knox, 1983), 7.

— Two —

Who Is Responsible?

“Who’s on first?”

—Bud Abbott to Lou Costello

A number of Episcopal churches have experienced remarkable growth over the past fifty years, but as our brief survey of statistics indicates, most of the parishes within the United States that were in existence in 1965 are smaller in 2015 than they were in 1965. The Episcopal Church has been living with this decline for the last fifty years, and at this time, things don’t seem to be improving.

So who is responsible for arresting the decline in membership and attendance in our churches?

In a sense, everyone is responsible for the decline; but when everyone is responsible, no one is ultimately held accountable. I believe that it is the local vicar or rector along with the vestry that can arrest this decline and spur our churches on to greater growth. Let me begin with a true story.

What Use Are Vestries?

In a town that I once served, there was a Baptist church, which we’ll call Hillside Baptist Church. At that time it was the largest Baptist church in town. It originated from a conflict within the downtown church that resulted in a group of dissatisfied members splitting off from the mother church. The “split off” church really didn’t do much in its first several years of existence. It was simply one more tiny congregation birthed out of a church fight.

One day they called a new pastor f...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part One: A New Way for Clergy and Vestries to Think
• Part Two: Exercises for Moving Beyond Business as Usual