22 Sep 2009
Joel’s Jottings
How do we âdoâ church?
That is how do we organize projects? How do we make decisions? How do we worship?
One factor that determines how we âdoâ church is size. That is the number of people who attend worship, give to support the church financially, and the attitude they share about that has a major impact on how the congregation functions.
Roy Oswald, a consultant with The Alban Institute, put together some thoughts about how a churchâs size composition impacts its life. The title may look to be off-putting:
How to Minister Effectively in Family, Pastoral, Program, and Corporate Sized Churches
Despite the title, the Session read this article at its September meeting. The conversation that followed was lively and useful. Several folks said â church members need to know about this. So the link is here. And hard copies are available from the office.
Oswald writes that there are four âsizesâ of church:- Family â where there are parental figures (less than 50 in worship)
- Pastoral â where the pastorâs person determines much of church life (50 to 150 in worship)
- Program â where programs shape the life and needs of the church (150 to 350 in worship), and
- Corporate â where ministry is shaped to a more complex set of arrangements of programs and staffing (350 or more in worship)
Answering this question is not the end of the discussion. In our personal lives as in our community lives, just because something is done one way does not mean it will always be done that way. Reinhold Niebuhr, a theologian of the twentieth century wrote the âSerenity Prayerâ â a good guide in so many ways in so many things:
God give us the grace with serenity
To accept the things that cannot be changed
Courage to change the things
Which should be changed
And the wisdom to know one from another.
Iâd encourage all interested to read the article and to ask questions of Session members or me about it.