Some of the discussion at this year’s Annual Meeting will be on work we can do to strengthen congregational development. Nearly every congregation is a completely new community after the Pandemic. By now, we know who has come back and who has not. Natural transitions and new members post-pandemic have also re-shaped us and everybody else over the last five years. As God continues to make all things new, our work is to connect more faithfully and fully with how God is making us new.
I have been thinking about this lately as five different households have come to St. Peter’s and become regularly active in various ways in the last five months. In addition, we are working with six families on baptism, five of whom are new to St. Peter’s. As with many young families, building a regular connection is a challenge because the world does not want us to have time for church, but there is energy among these families that we - as a congregation - have an opportunity to partner with.
Before coming to St. Peter’s, I underwent extensive training in a congregational development process that really resonates with me. It was adopted by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as their primary growth focus, and the Diocese of Coventry in the Church of England has embraced this process strongly. It is called Natural Church Development.
The idea is that each congregation, as a member of the Body of Christ, is like the cell of an organic body. It is hard-wired for growth. Scripture witnesses this with the image of the sower who scatters seed and nurtures it, but God is the one who gives the growth. Just as a body’s growth is a function of its own health, so a congregation’s capacity to grow is a function of its health.
The image Natural Church Development uses to show how this works is a wooden barrel, as you see above. This particular barrel has eight wooden staves of varying lengths. The capacity of the barrel is the size of the worshiping congregation. The staves are the various characteristics of a healthy parish. The water that pours into the barrel is the people that God sends our way.
The confronting reality is that no matter how big the barrel might seem, its capacity is limited to the height of its shortest stave. Translating this to a congregation, our ability to retain those God sends our way is limited to the health of the weakest of our eight characteristics. Our church can hold over 200 people. The current "height" of our characteristics might limit us to a lower capacity.
The eight characteristics are:
* Empowering leadership
* Gift-based ministry
* Passionate spirituality
* Effective structures
* Inspiring worship service
* Holistic small groups
* Need-oriented evangelism
* Loving relationships
While these characteristics can be explained in depth elsewhere, their names pretty much clarify their meanings. Natural Church Development is a process that measures the health of a congregation in these eight areas using a survey. This survey was developed by social scientists, and has since been validated and tweaked through use in over 77,000 congregations of all theological perspectives around the world. When I was working with another congregation in this area, the pollster George Gallup was a member. He had sharp questions, and at the end, he confirmed this survey method works.
Most Episcopal congregations score high in effective structures and lowest in passionate spirituality. My bet at St. Peter’s is that effective structures are lower than in other congregations. So much of our ministry happens through personal leadership and charisma, that it is hard to partner and adapt. This means we may also have room to grow in Empowering Leadership - building leadership capacity in the laity so the same few people are not responsible for so much.
It is way too early for us to figure out what our areas of growth are - anecdotal evidence does not get us there and no one perspective, including mine, can be guaranteed foolproof. However, I do think reflecting on these areas can lead to some dynamic discussion and action.
What confidence does it give us to know that God is sending us people?
Where might we excel?
Where might we have room for growth?
How ready are we to give of our time, talent, and treasure, to work on our growth as individuals and parish?
Finally, how do we feel about change?
I encourage us to start asking these questions of ourselves and in our conversations with one another. Our Vestry will be doing this in February as we prepare for a Vestry retreat with Diocesan staff specializing in congregation development. We will talk about a few areas next week at the Annual Meeting where we can immediately begin to work together.
St. Peter’s was described by our previous bishop as a congregation that can do anything it puts its mind to. Bishop French recognizes our strength and passion and the amazing things we do, while encouraging us to focus on areas we might have overlooked in the process.
Imagine for a moment where we might be if we trust that God is sending us people, if we recognize that we can do anything we set our mind to, if we know that we are able to address and improve facets of our congregation that are ready for growth, and, above all, that as faithful Episcopalians we have what so many in the world right now are seeking. If we can do that, think of where we might be in three years, five years and ten years down the road. Now, that is exciting!