Category Archives: Liberal religion

Classic church growth methodologies (that don’t work)

An earlier post on Carl George’s church growth books: Link

This past week, I was leafing through Carl George’s book Prepare Your Church for the Future. I was particularly struck by some of the things George says in the second chapter of this book, a chapter titled “Tally What You Inherited.” George claims that every church “embodies growth strategies that can be both identified and analyzed.” Then he proceeds to list sixteen different of the most common church growth methodologies. To my mind, four of these methodologies are of particular relevance to Unitarian Universalist congregations. These four existing and common growth methodologies are Sunday school, feeder and receptor patterns, next-door-to-the-right-institution syndrome, and capture by committee involvement.

Below you’ll find my brief notes on these four popular Unitarian Universalist growth strategies. Unfortunately, as I’ll detail below, these have not been effective growth strategies for us. We have also managed to screw up so-called Small Group Ministry, a growth strategy based on Carl George’s work, and I have some thoughts on that as well. But first, four classic growth methodologies that don’t serve us very well….

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Roremian snark, and an anecdote.

I’m reading Settling the Score: Essays on Music by Ned Rorem, the American composer. Rorem, who was brought up a Quaker, writes with equal parts snark and common sense. Amidst all the snark about musicians and composers, he comes up with some snark about religion:

Insofar as the church becomes action it dispenses with ritual. Catholics react, Quakers act. Quakers never use music and are the most social progressive of church groups. By underplaying the motionless symbol of the Trinity, Quakers emphasize the need for political movement. When they reinforce that need politically, they do so in silence.

Wow! Take that, Mother Teresa.

Then, a little later on in the same essay, Rorem offers this delightful anecdote from his childhood:

Although Quakers, our parents used to send Rosemary and me to other denominational Sunday schools from time to time. That was squelched when we came home and confectioned crucifixes. Nonetheless, on holidays our family attended Catholic or High Epsicopal services “for the pageantry.” One Christmas, arriving late at Church of the Redeemer at 56th and Blackstone, Father asked the usher: “What time did the show start?” “We don’t refer to it as a show,” was the chilly reply.

Ahh. I now have a vivid image of that usher in my imagination….

There’s a peculiar thing about racism in the United States. Racism is obviously real, and there’s plenty of research that documents its effects on individuals and groups of people. At the same time, the concept of race itself isn’t real; that is to say, race does not have a biological basis. Looking more closely at the legitimate research on racism, it seems obvious that the study of racism properly belongs in the domains of political science, sociology, perhaps psychology; but not in the domains of physiology and biology. That leads me to the unsurprising conclusion that race exists as a social phenomenon which is a result of racism;– it’s not that racism emerges from biological differences between races; instead, racism is existentially prior, and the concept of race is a social or political product or result of racism.

In theology, we could make a parallel argument. Race does not exist at the level of theological anthropology; when we ask, “Who and what are persons?” we do not find that race is an essential attribute of persons. Instead, we find that all persons are of infinite value (to use an old Universalist formulation); persons are not valued differently based on alleged racial attributes. Racism, however, clearly exists as damaged or perverted relationships between persons; racism, then, should be addressed as a problem of ethics and morals. Indeed, racism is so damaging to persons and to society that it can only be classed as an evil existent within the social order. Here the insights of the social gospelers becomes useful, as we attempt to gain an adequate understanding of “the sinfulness of the social order and its share in the sins of all individuals within it”, and further as we attempt to “redeem the permanent institutions of human society from their inherited guilt of oppression and extortion.” [Theology for the Social Gospel, Walter Rauschenbusch, p. 5.]

I find making such a theological argument to be quite useful (although obviously as it stands, it needs to be refined quite a bit). By showing racism to be a species of sin or evil, we make clear that religious persons are in some sense required to put an end to racism. From the point of view of my Universalist theology, racism is a particularly egregious evil, because of the multifarious ways in which it denies the infinite worth of each person. Not that this theological understanding gives us any practical means for putting an end to racism; but it shows anti-racism work to be a strong moral imperative.

The coming revolution

I’ve been rereading Carl George’s book The Coming Church Revolution: Empowering Leaders for the Future. Carl George is a church consultant, and he is the most prominent advocate of so-called “Meta-Church,” a church organized primarily around small groups. The Coming Church Revolution is one of the books that inspired the “Small Group Ministry” movement within Unitarian Universalism.

I decided to re-read George’s book because I noticed that current Unitarian Universalist approaches to growth through the formation of small “cell groups” are simply not working. For example, the most recent issue of Interconnections, the newsletter for lay leaders published by the Unitarian Universalist Association, makes the following statement: “First Unitarian Society in Newton, MA (385 members), may have one of the best Small Group Ministry (SGM) programs around. The program began in 2001 with ninety people in nine groups. Today there are seventy-two members in eight groups.” [Link] In other words, the best small group ministry program within Unitarian Universalism is losing members, not gaining members for the congregation.

Opening George’s book at random, I happened to find myself in the middle of the chapter on worship. At this point, those accustomed to Unitarian Universalist Small Group Ministry programs are probably asking themselves what does SGM have to do with worship? Unitarian Universalists are accustomed to think of SGM as another church program, but George makes it clear that Meta-Church is not another program you add to your congregation, it is instead a different organizational model, a different way of organizing and empowering leaders in your congregation.

In the context of his overarching organizational model, George sees worship as an artistic celebration that can involve many lay people in the congregation. The Meta-Church model of organization is scaleable, that is, it can be scaled up from small churches like ours here in New Bedford, to very large (over ten thousand members) churches. Therefore, George believes that worship should involve more than just the preacher — indeed, while he respects preaching and believes it is central to worship, he also believes that preaching is not always necessary for successful worship: “I’m not preaching against preaching. I’m not even questioning the legitimacy of long sermons…. Rather, I’m affirming that there are times when… God’s message is communicated as effectively — or perhaps more effectively — by elements of the service other than preaching.” [p. 145] At the same time, Gerore asserts that his Meta-Church organizational model is “transparent to worship style” — Meta-Church will work with any worship style.

But the Meta-Church organizational model insists on empowering lots of lay people to participate in worship services, through developing the skills of lay people, bringing those artistic skills to worship services, and also out into the community. So there are Guilds in which artistic skills are cultivated and developed — guilds might include group music lessons (e.g., some choir rehearsals), a conservatory for vocal music, an acting academy, etc. Then as people develop skill and talent, they are organized into troupes — troupes might include an a capella choir, a handbell choir, a liturgical dance troupe, a sound team or video production team, etc. These troupes perform at worship services, and also out in the community (e.g., a Christmas concert at a local mall).

One of George’s most interesting bits of advice relating to empowering lay leaders seems counter-intuitive at first. When hiring staff, he does not necessarily recommend hiring staff people who are good performers themselves. Rather, he urges churches to hire producers: “Don’t hire any more music directors; you can usually get volunteer artists to do that for free. Hire worship-service and pageant producers and make sure they have an impressario flair about them; that is, do they know how to create a solid, flowing sense of worship that is put together and produced by various worship groups?” I don’t mean to anger the Unitarian Universalist Musicians Network (UUMN), but I think George is right, while the UUMN is heading in the wrong direction — we don’t need more paid musicians, nor do we need more paid music directors, but we do need producers who can facilitate and empower lay people to succeed in worship.

Of course, by now you’ve figured out some obvious things. Lay worship leaders are supported and trained by paid staff, and lay worship leaders have an outward-directed ministry that makes them feel great. Troupes of lay worship leaders can function as support groups, and troupes can draw new people into a congregation. In fact, these troupes probably do a better job of supporting individuals and promoting growth, than do the small groups of typical SGM programs. It’s an old truism that if you want to grow your church, one sure bet is to have a great choir — because great choirs make people want to come to church, great choirs attract newcomers who want to sing in the choir, and the members of great choirs provide excellent support to one another.

So there you have my thoughts after re-reading just one chapter of The Coming Church Revolution. I’d be curious to know what you think about this….

Where we’re coming from?

Theology comes from the week-to-week actions of a worshipping community far more than it comes from academia. Attend some Unitarian Universalist worship services and listen what is being preached, what is being sung, and what is being prayed, and you’ll learn more about Unitarian Universalist theology than if you read books by academic theologians like Thandeka and Paul Rasor. This isn’t meant as a put-down of academic theologians, it’s simply what I feel is true.

So when I read in our denominational magazine that one of our “most beloved hymns” is a song by Carolyn McDade called “Spirit of Life,” that makes me think that if I listen to that hymn, I’ll learn something about where mainstream Unitarian Universalist theology is these days.

“Spirit of Life,” says the hymn, “come unto me.” It’s a hymn written in 1981, one of the peak years of the feminist revolution, when women were really finding their voice and finding their power — the hymn is calling the power of the divine into women who had been too long ignored by Western religion. Or we could reframe that same idea with the insights of third wave feminism: “Spirit of Life” was written when second wave feminism was at its peak, when affluent white college-educated middle-class women were claiming additional power and influence for themselves by putting and end to discrimination against affluent white college-educated middle-class women — but the hymn assumes individuals will have a certain level of power and influence, and includes a cultural bias towards individualism. So if “Spirit of Life” is one of the most popular Unitarian Universalist hymns, we could probably conclude that the feminist theology we have hasn’t been particularly good at including women of color and working-class women.

(However, don’t take this a commentary on Carolyn McDade’s theology. Her earlier hymn, “We’ll Build a Land” from 1979, is far less individualistic, calling for solidarity with all persons with phrases like, “Come build a land where sisters and brothers/ anointed by God may then create peace/ where justice shall roll down like waters….”)

One really good suggestion

Bill, Carl, and I were standing around talking with the architect who’s overseeing the repair work at our church. She had come to tell us how much it might cost to remove an underground oil tank, and she stayed to inspect the repairs to our fire escape. Afterwards, the four of us stood around chatting. Since she’s a church-goer too (she’s active in a nearby UCC church), our conversation turned to churches.

We compared horror stories about how churches neglect routine maintenance, which neglect always leads to costly repairs. Our architect had one really good suggestion that I can’t resist passing along. She said when she served on her church’s board of trustees, she would make them do a complete walk-through inspection of the building and grounds once each year. When the board members confronted building problems face-to-face, they realized just what the money is going to, and routine maintenance was less likely to be neglected.

We also talked about when would be the best time to do such a walk-through. I suggested that maybe November would be the best month for our church, because we try to start planning the next fiscal year’s budget in January — do the walk-through in November, and it would allows you to get estimates in time for the budget planning cycle. Bill added that it’s best to do a walk-through when the leaves are off the trees.

No such thing as a honeymoon…

The church office went back on regular office hours today. I spent the morning in meetings and reading mail; I spent the afternoon doing pastoral calls and returning phone calls; I hadn’t a moment to relax between nine in the morning and six at night. In other words, summer’s over and I’m back in the regular rhythm of the church year.

This will be my third year at First Unitarian in New Bedford, and everything is going much more smoothly. Over and over again, I hear about the “honeymoon year” — in popular imagination, the first year a minister spends at a new congregation is the “honeymoon year,” when supposedly the new minister can do no wrong and everyone is happy and joyful. I’ve never experienced such a honeymoon year — the first year in a congregation is when you do things wrong (“Umm, knocking the candle over is not the way we usually do the Christmas eve service…”), step on people’s toes (“Umm, Eliza Hubbard always chairs the Holiday Fair Committee, and she’s really peeved that you suggested that someone else chair it this year…”), and generally flail around trying to figure out a new order of service, a new filing system, a new everything.

If you survive that first year (assuming the congregation is relatively tolerant of your flailing about), I suppose the second year could be more relaxing. Although that wasn’t the case for me here last year, however, because last year our new Director of Religious Education resigned the week before Sunday school was to start, and that came on top of three deaths in the congregation in September, and I never quite got caught up again for the rest of the year.

What I hear over and over again from ministers is that the third year is when the congregation and the minister have gotten to know each other pretty well and some real trust starts to develop, and that’s when things can start to happen (or, sometimes, the trust doesn’t develop on one side or the other and the ministry starts to unravel, but that’s another story). And the church experts tell us that it really takes five years for trust to develop, so if there is a honeymoon year in ministry, it probably takes place in that fifth year.

The first year of a ministry, a honeymoon year? I think that’s just a myth.

Universalism for such times as these

Did you know that a recent poll shows 69% of United States residents believe in hell? Maybe it’s time to dust off some of those old Universalist beliefs — you know, those old beliefs that there is no hell and that each person is of infinite value. This is a longish video — 9:56 — so set aside some time to relax and enjoy it.

Note: I think Web videos should feel like you’re having a one-on-one conversation with someone. Most of the sermons I’ve watched online have been pretty unsatisfactory because they show the preacher talking to a big crowd — not to me personally — and because they’re too long. This video is my attempt at presenting this Sunday’s sermon in a shorter and more personal form. However, I admit that it’s an experiment I won’t repeat very often, because it took three hours to rewrite the sermon and to shoot and edit this ten-minute video.

Note: video host blip.tv is defunct, so this video no longer exists.

Parallel

While researching this week’s sermon, I came across this paragraph in Hosea Ballou’s Treatise on Atonement (1805):

To say God’s revealed will is contrary to his eternal and unrevealed will, would in me be blasphemy of the first magnitude; yet I do not doubt the sincerity of those who frequently say it. But is it not in a direct sense charging God with hypocrisy? However shocking it may seem, I know of no other light in which to view it. [link]

Isn’t this vaguely reminiscent of Theodore Parker’s distinction between permanent religions, and transient religion? In Parker’s famous sermon, “The Transient and Permanent in Religion” (1841), he writes:

Looking at the Word of Jesus, at real Christianity, the pure religion he taught, nothing appears more fixed and certain. Its influence widens as light extends; it deepens as the nations grow more wise. But, looking at the history of what men call Christianity, nothing seems more uncertain and perishable. While true religion is always the same thing, in each century and every land, in each man that feels it, the Christianity of the Pulpit, which is the religion taught; the Christianity of the People, which is the religion that is accepted and lived out; has never been the same thing in any two centuries or lands, except only in name. The difference between what is called Christianity by the Unitarians in our times, and that of some ages past, is greater than the difference between Mahomet and the messiah.[link to full text]

Obviously, Parker and Ballou are making somewhat different arguments, for somewhat different purposes. Ballou distinguishes between God’s “eternal and unrevealed will” and (conventional) revealed religion. Ballou’s purpose is quite specific:– to support his argument that, in contradiction to then-current Christian tradition, eternal damnation does not exist. Parker wants to show how religion as we experience it in day-to-day life changes and evolves. Parker’s purpose is more general:– he makes a general distinction between historically situated religion, and eternal permanent religion. Nonetheless, it’s interesting to see this parallel between two 19th C. religious liberals.