MAXIMIZING SMALLNESS
Our culture trains us to look for numbers. Bigger is better. Success is a full house. Too big to fail. We equate dynamism with hugeness.
When something is small, we assume powerlessness. When something is small, we assume it to be ineffectual. When something is small, we jump to seeing the limitations.
In other words, we see things negatively.
Through that lens, the PC(USA) is dwindling, irrelevant, aging toward death, shrinking toward inviability, and on a downward arc toward oblivion. Through that lens, small churches gain an air of desperation. We are too few to do anything. We have nothing to contribute. We are one bad winter away from closure. As long as that lens continues to be the primary one through which we interpret the times and our condition, we really are stuck, and it becomes harder and harder to make the necessary reforms and revisions to meet the challenges before us.
We need to change glasses.
That is the core point of adaptive change--the change, not in tools or procedure, but in mindset advocated by writers like Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains--a book arguing that we have hit the mountains on the journey prepared only for the flatlands--you need an entirely different skill set and outlook to meet the context.
So how do we shift from seeing only the scarcity and lack before us into seeing instead the potential and giftedness in being smaller?
First, we need to celebrate who we are as we gather together. One congregation in Sacramento has begun an annual celebration of the oldest members within it--a group of stubborn, stalwart 90-somethings. Here is living collected wisdom to be tapped. Here is life experience that can be used to help others as they meet the same crises and challenges again. Here is a lifetime of faith that brings joy to existence. It is not just a one-Sunday event, but rather one Sunday to renew the vigor with which the church taps into one of its best resources. Another small church--official membership of three (yes, 3!!)--knows they are totally unified in wanting to be a presence in their community as a walk-in center for all sorts of groups and work directly addressing the needs to their small mountain community. They may not personally run all the programs, but they know who can among their friends, so they go out and get them, and--voila!--the tiniest church in the presbytery becomes a vibrant faith community.
Which leads to the second point--let go of being all things to all people. Instead, focus on what folks really enjoy doing and find meaningful. In a small church, that is easier to do because through simple conversation there can come a general consensus of this is what we like, this is what we are good at, and this we can do. Look at many community organizations--they are centered on a particular interest or work. The library guild is about libraries! The homeless shelter is about homelessness. So, too, can a church center its life on a particular ministry. For example, Farm Church, a Presbyterian New Worshipping Community, in Durham, NC is what is says--a farm community aimed at alleviating hunger in the Triangle region of North Carolina. Focused, they have a strong vision and direct connect to other people interested in the ministry--it will never grow into a megachurch, nor should it; yet, it remains viable for years to come.
Centering leads to another point--a small community can be just that--community. Simply because of the size, people center on each other. People notice one another and when one is absent or in trouble. Stories move from individual into more familial. Closeness fosters intimacy. In our age of connected isolation--electronic relationships are more prevalent than actual ones--the small gathering offers communion in the fullest sense of the word. Actual people having actual conversations. Real people sharing real lives. Direct experiences of our interconnectedness and our interdependence--these are offered in spades in the small church.
So, what is the role of a presbytery in such a transformation of view?
First, foster the outlook. Presbyteries can become desperate as well as member churches, focusing on loss. However, Committees on Ministry, Congregational Life Committees, and other entities within a presbytery can instead walk beside churches to help them see their gifts, strengths, and potential launch pads for ministry with what they have in them. We accept that we are smaller, but then we work to maximize smallness.
Second, presbyteries can do what a dear mentor of mine repeated often, Keep the main thing, the main thing. The main thing for any church is Jesus and his community. The goal is not numbers or vast programming, the goal is helping a hungry world find the fullness of Christ and his other-centered, self-emptying compassion. Presbyteries can help congregations remain focused on being the communities in which the embodied compassion of Jesus is the focal point. We can do that through regular offerings on spiritual direction, prayer, Bible study, and discernment in and for our member congregations. Committee meetings can be transformed into first prayer meetings, centering on Christ and his ministry before jumping all into the business of the day. Send participants home alive with the idea that yes, here is something the churches can be and do as communities of Jesus.
Too idealistic? Read Acts. The Upper Room of Pentecost becomes a working model for us at the presbytery level--deep prayer that invites the Spirit to come, opening them to the wonders of being able to connect and communicate with the outside world.
We are not too small. We are, through the right lens, a community able to meet the time.
When something is small, we assume powerlessness. When something is small, we assume it to be ineffectual. When something is small, we jump to seeing the limitations.
In other words, we see things negatively.
Through that lens, the PC(USA) is dwindling, irrelevant, aging toward death, shrinking toward inviability, and on a downward arc toward oblivion. Through that lens, small churches gain an air of desperation. We are too few to do anything. We have nothing to contribute. We are one bad winter away from closure. As long as that lens continues to be the primary one through which we interpret the times and our condition, we really are stuck, and it becomes harder and harder to make the necessary reforms and revisions to meet the challenges before us.
We need to change glasses.
That is the core point of adaptive change--the change, not in tools or procedure, but in mindset advocated by writers like Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains--a book arguing that we have hit the mountains on the journey prepared only for the flatlands--you need an entirely different skill set and outlook to meet the context.
So how do we shift from seeing only the scarcity and lack before us into seeing instead the potential and giftedness in being smaller?
First, we need to celebrate who we are as we gather together. One congregation in Sacramento has begun an annual celebration of the oldest members within it--a group of stubborn, stalwart 90-somethings. Here is living collected wisdom to be tapped. Here is life experience that can be used to help others as they meet the same crises and challenges again. Here is a lifetime of faith that brings joy to existence. It is not just a one-Sunday event, but rather one Sunday to renew the vigor with which the church taps into one of its best resources. Another small church--official membership of three (yes, 3!!)--knows they are totally unified in wanting to be a presence in their community as a walk-in center for all sorts of groups and work directly addressing the needs to their small mountain community. They may not personally run all the programs, but they know who can among their friends, so they go out and get them, and--voila!--the tiniest church in the presbytery becomes a vibrant faith community.
Which leads to the second point--let go of being all things to all people. Instead, focus on what folks really enjoy doing and find meaningful. In a small church, that is easier to do because through simple conversation there can come a general consensus of this is what we like, this is what we are good at, and this we can do. Look at many community organizations--they are centered on a particular interest or work. The library guild is about libraries! The homeless shelter is about homelessness. So, too, can a church center its life on a particular ministry. For example, Farm Church, a Presbyterian New Worshipping Community, in Durham, NC is what is says--a farm community aimed at alleviating hunger in the Triangle region of North Carolina. Focused, they have a strong vision and direct connect to other people interested in the ministry--it will never grow into a megachurch, nor should it; yet, it remains viable for years to come.
Centering leads to another point--a small community can be just that--community. Simply because of the size, people center on each other. People notice one another and when one is absent or in trouble. Stories move from individual into more familial. Closeness fosters intimacy. In our age of connected isolation--electronic relationships are more prevalent than actual ones--the small gathering offers communion in the fullest sense of the word. Actual people having actual conversations. Real people sharing real lives. Direct experiences of our interconnectedness and our interdependence--these are offered in spades in the small church.
So, what is the role of a presbytery in such a transformation of view?
First, foster the outlook. Presbyteries can become desperate as well as member churches, focusing on loss. However, Committees on Ministry, Congregational Life Committees, and other entities within a presbytery can instead walk beside churches to help them see their gifts, strengths, and potential launch pads for ministry with what they have in them. We accept that we are smaller, but then we work to maximize smallness.
Second, presbyteries can do what a dear mentor of mine repeated often, Keep the main thing, the main thing. The main thing for any church is Jesus and his community. The goal is not numbers or vast programming, the goal is helping a hungry world find the fullness of Christ and his other-centered, self-emptying compassion. Presbyteries can help congregations remain focused on being the communities in which the embodied compassion of Jesus is the focal point. We can do that through regular offerings on spiritual direction, prayer, Bible study, and discernment in and for our member congregations. Committee meetings can be transformed into first prayer meetings, centering on Christ and his ministry before jumping all into the business of the day. Send participants home alive with the idea that yes, here is something the churches can be and do as communities of Jesus.
Too idealistic? Read Acts. The Upper Room of Pentecost becomes a working model for us at the presbytery level--deep prayer that invites the Spirit to come, opening them to the wonders of being able to connect and communicate with the outside world.
We are not too small. We are, through the right lens, a community able to meet the time.
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