[UMNS-ALL-NEWS] UMNS# 262-Leaders focus on backbone of denomination: small churches

[NewsDesk]

Leaders focus on backbone of denomination: small churches 

Jun. 24, 2008     

NOTE: Photographs are available at http://umns.umc.org. 

By Linda Green* 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS)--The United Methodist Church must focus on small
and rural churches and not simply go where the wealthy are to build new
churches, says a small membership church leader.

"Small churches are the backbone of the denomination," said the Rev.
Julia Wallace, director of ministries with small membership churches at
the United Methodist Board of Discipleship. 

"It is no accident that we have a church every three to five miles. At
that time we wanted to get the church as close to people as we can. Our
job now is keep church as close to the people as we can," she said.

Today, 76 percent of the denomination's congregations are small
churches, which are defined as those having 200 or fewer members and
fewer than 120 in worship. 

More than 40 people working with small churches across the country
participated in three June 2 telephone-conference conversations to learn
about revitalizing small churches and ministries from the Rev. Terence
Corkin, a small church expert and top executive of the Uniting Church in
Australia. The pastors, district superintendents, directors of
connectional ministries, lay ministers and community developers also
discussed emerging issues and challenges facing small churches.

"It is important that we have conversations with people who are trying
innovative things and are learning leaders," Wallace said. Issues like
deployment of pastors, budgetary constraints, the use of lay pastors
versus ordained pastors, lay ministers and licensed local pastors are
issues that the Australian church overcame to be effective in the towns
across the countryside. 

"I see the Uniting Church of Australia as being 10 years ahead of the
curve from us because it is already dealing with some of the dire issues
that we will be facing," she said.

Differences between countries 

Corkin, who served for 20 years in rural ministries before he became top
executive in the Uniting Church eight years ago, described the
similarities and differences between rural churches in the United States
and in Australia and the changes small churches are encountering.

"We have significant experience of congregations that are
self-supporting with a very modest amount of external relationship with
the wider church in ministry personnel," he said.  The congregations are
"stand alone" and are linked together in various ways for mutual support
and resource sharing and grouped into about 30 presbyteries, comparable
to districts in The United Methodist Church.

Corkin described the Uniting Church as a union church formed in 1977
with Congregational, Methodists and Presbyterian churches. "It is a
church that understands itself as a national church in that it has a
sense of place and presence across every part of Australia," he said.

The church's presence is expressed through indigenous ministries, remote
area patrol ministries and community services and through the nearly
1,800 congregations and 1,500 ministers in active service.  Some of the
congregations are linked, with one minister serving more than one
locale.

In many rural areas in the United States and in Australia, there is a
drift toward reduction of services and diminishing capital, aging people
and increasing poverty which impact the ability to sustain
congregational life, he said. Rural areas also have itinerant
populations of people who come in to farm the lands, work in the mines
or other industries and then leave. 

"I do think a characteristic of small churches at this present time is
their morale is not very high," Corkin said. "They have a memory of
being bigger or something else. Some have memory of another time and are
conscious of the changed circumstances in which they live."

Measures of viability 

One of the biggest issues facing small churches is money. Many lack the
resources to pay clergy salary, building maintenance, insurance premiums
and other operating costs, noted the teleconference participants. Some
churches already know they will not be able to pay the heating bills
this winter and will not be able to open their doors.

In The United Methodist Church in the United States, self-sufficiency
and financial vitality are sometimes measures of a congregation's
viability.

Viability, Corkin said, is not measured by a congregation's capacity to
raise enough funds to pay a minister. While church officials may use it
as a strategy to discontinue churches, "it is not one that we believe is
an adequate indicator of vitality," he said.  

There are numerous churches that cannot pay a salary but are
well-connected to one another and "are very effective in bearing witness
to the hope that is within them and inviting people to respond to the
Christ that they know," Corkin said.

The faithfulness of the church should be the measure, he said. The
faithfulness is evident in how the church works in partnership with God
and participates in the mission of God, he said.

Assets for evangelism 

The reality in the United States and in Australia is that churches are
different communities even if they are only 20 kilometers or 12 miles
from each other. The churches, he said, regardless of where they are
located, provide different missional opportunities. 

"Rural congregations are among our greatest assets for evangelical and
missional renewal among the people called Methodist in the 21st
century," said Bishop Kenneth Carder during a rural life celebration at
the 2008 General Conference. 

Corkin agrees. "God has raised people up to call his own in these
communities and they are going to be there whether there is a roll of
members or if we are prepared to support a building continuing to be
there." 

"We don't make the church," he said. The church exists because of the
saving work of Jesus Christ to confront and call people into new life
and those people are called into new life in community. 

Wallace spoke of a church of eight people who feed 150 every day. The
church's feeding ministry launched a partnership with others and caused
all involved to think about ministry in new and different ways. "They
have learned to be that community which pulls other faithful people
together to be in relationship with the homeless. 

"They had to figure it out. I think people today want to figure out how
to be church," she said.  "People want opportunities for ministry."

Using all gifts 

The use of teams for ministry is critical in revitalizing small churches
in the future, Wallace said. "We must move away from being dependent on
one person, whether that is a clergy pastor or a lay pastor," she said.
"We must begin to celebrate being the whole people of God in that place
and use all of the gifts we have been given. The days of clergy
dependency are forcing us to now rethink of the way we are going to be a
church."

Revitalizing existing churches and planting new ones is the focus of
Path One, an organized strategy team on congregational development under
the United Methodist Board of Discipleship. 

Path One seeks to help the church start 650 congregations by 2012. The
emphasis on church growth aims to return the denomination to its
evangelistic heritage of starting a new congregation every day.

"The time for revitalization is a reality," Wallace said. "We happen to
have everything we need." 

*Green is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in
Nashville, Tenn. 

News media contact: Linda Green, e-mail: newsdesk at umcom.org. 

******************** 

United Methodist News Service 
Photos and stories also available at: 
http://umns.umc.org 




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