CHURCH CHANGES

This past week I have been (again) reflecting on the many changes at St. Christopher's --- and the many changes likely still to come.

There is a theory about churches, and other human groups, which says they function in various ways depending on their size. For churches the term "family size" is used for the smallest churches. These are churches which do not have full time clergy, frequently do not have any consistent clergy presence, and therefore the leadership tends to be by one or more of the families.

As the church grows the role of the clergy grows and the next size is usually termed "pastoral" -- with more leadership by an ordained pastor.

Next comes the "transitional stage" (more in a moment)

The "program size" describes churches big enough that individuals, even clergy, cannot be active in everything. Therefore the "programs" of the church provide a great deal of the leadership.

Finally the largest churches are known as "resource" or "corporate" size churches. These are churches which function similarly to a major corporation with a CEO and a Board of Directors.

St. Christopher's was in the "family" size just a few years ago. You could hold a congregational meeting around the Sunday morning coffee pot! And it seemed as if every family was represented, or recently been represented on the Vestry.

We now are somewhere in the "pastoral" and "transitional" stages. This change is the most difficult to make. Largely that is because people are used to the centrality of the clergy so keep looking to the clergy. The problem is that the clergy can only juggle a limited number of activities! The challenge therefore is to raise up a new leadership structure.

BUT -- the even bigger challenge is to raise up a leadership structure which is permission giving and not power controlling. Too often the leadership becomes focused on their ideas and interests rather than the ideas and interests of the people involved. (St. Christopher's has done a great job minimizing this problem but we need to be ever vigilant.)

The best term is "servant leaders". I keep emphasizing to the Vestry that 99% of the time our response to someone should be: "How can I help?" and not "do it this way". Trying to come up with extreme and somewhat crazy examples --- if the person leading the pancake supper says "this year we will have triangular pancakes to symbolize the trinity" -- we may think "that's not how it has been done before" or even think "that's going to be difficult to do" but we don't call a committee meeting and vote on the shape of pancakes!

At the same time if someone steps forward and says "we are not going to have Sundy School for the kids anymore --just a play time", then the leadership does need to say "that is not consistent with the goals and vision of this church. Therefore Sunday School will continue."

The difference of course is that the shape of the pancakes does not conflict with the goals and visions of the church whereas eliminating Sunday School very much does.

So we need to move into a new leadership stage but we need to avoid the pitfalls which have destroyed other churches. The rule in business is to be structured as if you are 20% larger than you are and you will grow into the structure. If you structure for your current size you will never grow.

And yet if the business (or church) discourages entrepreneurial thinking - which tends to mean doing things in ways we never did it before -- that too will create negativity and a lack of growth.

The best part of all this is that ultimately it is about doing the many wonderful things we do, even better. It is about making more outreach and spiritual growth possible. It is about encouraging and enabling people to do what they feel called by God to do. St. Christopher's is a fantastic church and the growth is about being more fantastic as we live into Jesus' commandment to reach out to all people.