HOW DO YOU GROW A LIBERAL CHURCH?

            How do you grow a liberal church? Quick, tell me. I pastor one!

            Lawrence Park Community Church (LPCC) was founded in the dying months of the second world war. It started as a pure community church, but decided it wanted a denominational home. The Anglicans said that that if LPCC joined, they would have to amalgamate with a local Anglican congregation. The United Church, on the other hand, was much more lenient, and let the young congregation stick together on their own. So LPCC joined the United Church. And it grew. With strong leadership, and in an era when to be Canadian was to join a mainline protestant church, a large part of the affluent neighborhood LPCC was built in was soon sitting in the sanctuary every Sunday. Hundreds of people.

            LPCC’s programs were numerous. The music program was wonderful. The pastor was beloved. Money was never a problem. After some time, however, the number of programs declined. The music program remained wonderful, but its traditional tunes appealed to a smaller and smaller demographic. The founding pastor retired and every pastor who followed was seen as a transitional pastor (and, members now joke, will remain so until everyone who remembers the founding pastor finally dies). The church endured some big conflicts around building programs, leadership, theology. The culture became more and more secular. Kids starting playing hockey, baseball and soccer on Sunday mornings. Membership declined. Thankfully, money never became a huge issue. Those who stayed on were and remain generous.

            But there are many fewer of them now than in 1960. Maybe 125 or 140 on an average Sunday. Fewer in the summer and holidays. Many more during Advent, Christmas and Lent. Pretty typical. But LPCC would like to grow. So what now?

            Growth and decline in mainline churches has actually been in the news lately. Some scholars, reports Maclean’s, suggest that it takes conservative theology to grow a mainline church. Others, in response, suggest that what’s missing in declining mainline churches is evangelism . To be honest, I’m really simplifying their arguments, which are from top to bottom, much more nuanced.

            The thing is, I have no interest in following conservative theology, even if it correlates highly with church growth. Having grown up in a conservative denomination, and after I became a well-known leader in that denomination, I changed my mind. It was a life-changing decision after a very difficult and heart-rending process. But I feel good about it, now. So going back to conservative for the sake of church growth would be like selling my soul. I don’t think that even conservative pastors would recommend that I do that!

            So my church wants to grow, and I don’t want to adopt a “strict,” approach to church that seems to correlate with growth (though I note that correlation isn’t the same as causation). What will it take?

            I’m guessing any growing church needs at least a majority of the following qualities—perhaps more:

            ONE: Heartfelt vision or values or mission or whatever you call it. To grow, everyone in church will have to understand what their church is all about and embrace it both at home and in the sanctuary. At LPCC we’re working on that, right now, with a council led, congregation-soon-to-be-involved strategic initiatives process. I know how I’d like it turn out. I think, in their hearts, members know how it will turn out. But we’ll see. The main thing is, we have to own it.

            TWO: A focus. Not quite the same. While setting up her psychotherapy practice, my wife turned up research that suggested a focus on one specialty would be more successful than a generalist focus. This is so because such focus helps drive the therapist’s expertise, and because it is easier to explain (sell, market) a specialty to others. My wife liked this, because she wanted to do Couples Therapy. That singular focus has been good for her practice, Couples In Step. Churches need a similar focus on the right programming that fits their vision.

            THREE: Marketing. Congregational Members have to share the good news about what is happening at LPCC with everyone who matters to them if the congregation is going to grow. The second article, referenced above, is a good place to start thinking about this sort of “evangelism.” Successful church marketing campaigns need things like fliers, newspaper ads, webpages, emails—but the key is real buzz that starts in the pews and is as unstoppable as a tide or sunrise. What I mean, I guess, is that marketing isn’t going to work if the people already in the pews are not sold on what is already happening.

            FOUR: The right preacher. We’ve all had experience of standing at a grocery store checkout line where the clerk didn’t seem to know how to do his or her job with speed, or politeness, or accuracy. And we’ve all had the experience of bringing a car in for repair, and then having to bring it in a second or third time. Not everyone hired to do a job is suited for it. Sometimes they can move to another department. Sometimes not. It can be difficult.

            However, we have all had similar experiences when it comes to church. Few guests will make an effort to go to a new church a second time if they were not moved by the minister’s message, leadership and demeanor the first time. This is a very sticky and difficult issue. As ministers we are pretty defensive, even if we know in our hearts that we’re not all as equally qualified or able. As congregational members, we hardly know where to begin if we’re not being moved by the preaching but love the community.

            Still, the truth is, a growing church very likely has a highly competent, emotionally smart, excellent communicator in the pulpit. Being outgoing and charismatic helps too. Look at growing conservative churches—along with their strictness, you’ll usually find just this sort of pastor. I’m threatened by this reality, but dare not shy away from the challenge.

            FIVE: The right lay leadership. Every church needs leaders and volunteers who love the church, who are not set in their ways and willing to be convinced by new ideas. They take risks and roll up their sleeves when something new needs to be tried. Churches need leaders who are trusted by the membership, who don’t shy away from conflicts and who know how to lead councils and church staffs through tough discussions.

            SIX: Quality music. In a big city like Toronto there is an audience for every genre of music: classical, rock, folk, ska . . . it doesn’t matter. Churches should specialize here (see 2, above), and do whatever they do with panache. If you have multiple services, you should do a different genre at each service to extend your range. But always offer high quality because our culture is immersed in music like never before, and individuals generally don’t respond well to jarring notes.

            SEVEN: A willingness to continue trying things, even after initial disappointments. When you try a new recipe, sometimes it disappoints you. So you don’t use it again. But you don’t then starve; you try something else. Taking programming, staffing, music risks—always measured—is necessary for any church to grow. But when a risk fails, don’t starve yourself by never taking another! Instead, smile and try something else.

            EIGHT: No Guilt. At our church, the marketing materials say things like, “Not Married? Living Together? Welcome!” When people who don’t come very often do, and apologize for being away, I tell them, “When you’re here, we’re glad; when you’re not, we bless you.” I try, as much as possible, not to use the pulpit to wag my finger at the congregation for not giving enough or not being engaged enough on my favorite social issues.

            Ultimately, yes, there are things people should feel guilty about. But it isn’t the minister’s job to name these things and then flail people with them. Conservatives guilt people into insecurity that the church manipulates (scholars call it the strictness hypothesis). I want to challenge people to be who they dream of being.

            NINE: Joy. The flip side of “no guilt,” has to be joy. The minister has to model it, the leadership has to embrace it, the staff has to revel in it. If people are not happy in church, they are not going to come. Period. Party! Eat! Dance! Do Tai Chi! Succeed at outreach social justice projects. Drink wine. Whatever it takes, enjoy your time together. While long-term love, care and support for all members can keep a church strong for generations, it is joy that will spark growth, because visitors will see this first. The rest of it comes through experience.

            TEN: There’s more. Great worship space. Good nursery. Lots of parking. Dedicated youth and children programs. Multi-generational worship. Web presence. Great technology. You can’t do church today without most of these things, unless not doing them is (somehow) part of your unique brand or approach. But what I’m really interested in is what other features you expect to see in a growing liberal church. Besides liberal theology, that is!

I Think This Is about Paradigm Change and Comfort

            Over the past two years I’ve written several times about my transition from the Evangelical Christian Reformed Church to the Liberal United Church of Canada. To give you some idea of just how liberal my current congregation is, consider its tagline: United, Unlimited, Unorthodox. This congregation, and my new denomination, is a big switch from my Evangelical roots.

            One of the biggest changes I’ve had to embrace is actually very hard to define. It has to do with what I know and don’t know and what use it is. The easiest way I can get at it is, I think, by making up an analogy based on shoemakers. My grandfather made both regular and orthopedic shoes, my great grandfather owned a wooden shoe factory, and many other ancestors made and fixed regular shoes as far back as I can trace.

            There was a time, of course, when shoemakers all made their shoes from scratch. I still have some of the forms my grandfather used. Just being a shoemaker took a lot of expertise. I know from bits of family lore that his expertise involved designing and sewing and cutting and gluing and a good understanding of many kinds of orthopedic problems. He made special trips to Belgium to get the right kinds of leathers. Attaching soles to leather or cloth so that they didn’t come off was very difficult. His was a hard skill to learn, full of insider knowledge, much of it passed down from father to son.

            Now imagine that one day—say in 1950, when my grandfather was at the height of his powers, the Nike shoe company somehow time-travelled and came to his Dutch town. I think it is safe to say that his business would have taken a huge hit. Say what you like (or don’t) about Nike and most other modern shoe companies, they know how to make good, comfortable, shoes. Their labs and researchers and production lines have improved the kind of shoe that is available to us in many ways—fit, materials, ease of walking, weight, and so on. And, relatively speaking, since they're mass produced, they are cheap--especially if having a name brand doesn't matter that much to you.

            Well, if Nike had come to my grandfather’s small Dutch town in 1950, his special expertise, his insider knowledge, his years of honing his skills, his contacts with other shoemakers—all of it would almost become useless overnight. Mass production backed by much greater insight into materials and how feet work would have made his shoe shop obsolete overnight.

            And so he’d have to change his career. And what then? He knew shoemaking from scratch, but he didn’t know carpentry or auto repair or accounting. He wasn’t educated enough to be a teacher or pastor. The fact is, if he lost his ability to make shoes almost everything he knew--as well as his tools and shop--would be almost useless.

            Well, that’s a bit like what happens when, as a pastor, you change denominations. Belonging to something like the Christian Reformed Church is an “insider” business. Many of its unique theological concerns just don’t have much traction anywhere else. Predestination? The Ubiquity of Jesus at the Lord’s Supper? The ordo salutis? The historicity of Genesis? All of these are nonstarters in most Liberal church settings. The confessions? All but unknown. The Christian Reformed Church’s unique history—Christian Day Schools, Kuyperian influences, Groen van Prinsterer, Dooyeweerd, The Nature and Extent of Biblical Authority—also mostly unknown. The theological traditions and their concerns raised by that history—the pietists vs. the doctrinalists vs. the transformationalists—it all seems quaint. Exegetical rules that hold sway in the Christian Reformed Church seem irrelevant in the United Church since the presuppositions about what scripture is, about what we can know of authors’ intentions, about how objective any interpretation can be—all the presuppositions are just different. 

            I sometimes feel as if I’m a late nineteenth century shoemaker dropped into the twenty-first century Nike reality. The specialist knowledge I had as a Christian Reformed pastor, the familiarity I had with its small group of pastors and theologians, the craft of doing theology in that perspective—very little of it translates very well to my new setting. Communication between my old and new paradigms is—as philosophers sometimes say—incommensurate.

            Mind you, I’ll never regret the excellent education I received in that other paradigm. I still respect many who work in that paradigm deeply, even if I changed my mind. And now, turning to the concerns and presuppositions at work in the new world I’m now a part of, I also feel a bit at sea. I don’t know the theological roots of this new tradition nearly as well as I knew my old roots. I certainly don’t know the politics or people or procedures like I used to. The outlook, the preoccupations, the vision and hopes and dreams are all different. 

            I’d add that looking back now, I’d say that as a Christian Reformed pastor, I never realized—or, rather, over time I only slowly realized—how narrow and tribal my concerns, battles, ideas and ministry usually was. We were engaged in building our own Maginot fortress, oblivious or condescending about the fact that the world all about has changed, so that as well thought out and sturdy as our fortress was out front, the backdoor was completely open to paratroopers and flanking manoeuvres.

            My new setting suffers some of the same, in reverse, I guess. In both settings I’m a bit taken aback at how clubby we are in churches in our own theological family and how closed we are to thinking outside of the boxes we’ve constructed for ourselves. In our day-to-day life and in how we actually work at the priorities we’ve set out for ourselves we mostly carry on as if our local, denominational specialist knowledge is the most important thing ever. Meanwhile, other Christians in other traditions shrug their shoulders and think our preoccupations are all a bit strange—if not totally out to lunch. They smile, politely but dismissively, when we talk about those preoccupations.

            There is a great deal of comfort that goes with always staying at home, spiritually and academically. If you can make a living playing with your favourite hobbyhorses—and win respect from people you care for while doing so—why change? I ask myself that sometimes. It wasn’t easy, and there are no guarantees that having made the change I’ve finally figured it all out. I clearly haven’t.

            It’s a loss. It’s weird. But paradigm change does happen.