As we near the end of one church year, we begin our preparation for the next by explicitly naming our intentions. I hope that our congregation will grow this year. To sustain the level of programming we all enjoy we need the resources of a congregation more like the size we were a dozen or so years ago. Let’s make a significant step toward that goal this year.
After my sermon last week when I spoke about the importance of Sabbath and encouraged everyone to take a deliberate break from church work in the month of July before gearing up in August for the new church year beginning in September, Reid Swanson overheard someone in the Narthex telling me how much they appreciated the encouragement to take a break and Reid said, “Well a month off is great, but I think what Rick was really telling us is that starting next week we better be prepared to get back to work!”
Well not quite.
Although the Sabbath month of July is behind us, the new church year doesn’t begin until September 8.
The month of August is a transition month. Technically, it’s the last month of the church year. But it’s also the month that we start to shift our attention forward. We look, in August toward the coming year. We peer over the edge. We ask ourselves what we want to do. We set our intentions. We make our plans. And we begin to do the “pre-work” work of preparing for success.
So don’t be upset if you’re still feeling in summer vacation mode. That’s fine.
But just as teachers need to make lesson plans, and parents need to buy their kids clothes one size larger, and farmers are happy in August just to watch the crops grow, but also need to think about the equipment and workers they’re going to need a month from now when the harvest begins; the church needs to be ready to work come September, and that means we need to prepare for the work now.
We have four Sundays in August. As usual, I’ll preach for you on three Sundays. So, I’ve divided the big goals I have for the work of the church next year into three big areas. Here’s what I think we need to work on next year, and what we need to start thinking about and preparing for, now.
Most importantly, next year needs to be a membership growth year for the church. I’ll talk about that today.
Next year will be the year the church conducts a search for your next minister. My last day with you is scheduled for June 29, 2025. Hopefully, if all goes well, we will have a new minister ready to start in August of 2025. I’ll talk about the coming search year two weeks from today on August 18.
And finally, on August 25, I want to talk about what I have planned for our coming year together in worship. I did my worship planning for next year this summer with an eye toward the expectation that this would be my last year with a regular ministry job. So I challenged myself to circle back to some of the most foundational and impactful spiritual issues and come up with some final thoughts to share with you, as well as inviting you all into a year of considering those most important spiritual issues in your own lives. I’ll introduce that worship year to you on August 25.
And then, after the Labor Day weekend, we’ll start our next year together with our Ingathering service and water communion on September 8.
A growth year.
When I started this interim ministry with you two years ago, I was quickly introduced to a man named Shaku. Shaku is not a member of the church. He doesn’t actually have any legitimate connection to any of our church programs. He doesn’t attend the AA meetings. He’s not here for the Tuesday Drop-In program. But he’s often around the church during the week. Just hanging out, enjoying the space.
We used to have a problem with him coming into the building on his own, but he doesn’t do that any more.
He regularly meets with a group of guys who set up folding chairs in the shade of the trees outside, and they just hang out and chat. Mostly it’s no problem, and I’m glad our church feels like a welcome, comfortable space for people.
Shaku in particular feels a connection to the church. He keeps an eye on things. He’ll let me or Stan or Chadie know if he sees something irregular. He’ll help out if we ask him to do a little job.
On my way out in the afternoons, I’ll often find Shaku standing on our porch, leaning on the railing, and we will chat for a few minutes.
I also sometimes see him on the bus and train. He lives in Hollywood and he comes to church the same way I do with the B line subway to Universal City and then the number 240 bus up Ventura Blvd. to Whitsett.
I listen to his stories, but I don’t know very much about him. We’re not friends but we’re friendly. He appreciates our church, and he recognizes and respects me as the minister here. He asks me how the God business is going. And he asks me to pray for him.
About a month ago he asked me how many members we have in the church.
I told him we have about 90 members. And his response was a look of disbelief.
He said he thought we should have hundreds of members, maybe a thousand.
“Ninety!” he said, “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Immediately, I started to feel defensive, as though I had done something wrong. As though I wasn’t the effective minister Shaku thought I was. As though he had just learned I was actually a failure in the God business.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. Why don’t we have several hundred members, or a thousand?
Maybe you’re starting to feel defensive, too.
It’s easy to start listing reasons.
Historical: Well this church has never been larger than about 150 members
Theological: Church-goers want traditional Christian beliefs. The market for a creedless, liberal religion is small.
Political: The religious right has given all churches a bad reputation, so the liberal folks who would be most comfortable here are the ones least likely to be looking for a church.
Cultural: This is the excuse I make most often. Church-going has been in decline in the US for decades. It’s not just us. With two parents working and all the extracurricular opportunities for children competing for Sunday mornings, families just don’t have time for church and none of their friends go to church either. People who didn’t grow up in churches don’t know how to do social organizations any more.
Other reasons, too.
Circumstantial: Well Shaku, we lost a lot of members during the pandemic and we haven’t had enough time to grow back yet.
Or even physical: A thousand members, Shaku? Where would we even put them all?
But you know, Shaku wasn’t being critical, he was actually being complimentary.
He was dumbfounded because what he saw was a church that was welcoming, and comfortable, open to the neighborhood with public programs, a friendly congregation and a dedicated minister. How could a church so good and strong have only ninety or so members?
Not, what a failure, but what a sadness. When we have so much, and what we have is so good, what a sadness that only ninety people are experiencing it.
Not a failure of us to create something excellent, but a sadness that our excellence reaches so few.
So I felt a little guilty at Shaku’s question, like I hadn’t been working hard enough.
And then I felt a little resigned, contemplating the challenges that churches face nowadays.
And then I felt a little sad, as I registered Shaku’s meaning, that we are offering something really great, but we aren’t reaching the people who would enjoy being with us, if they only knew.
What I didn’t say to Shaku. And what I should have said is, “Shaku, why aren’t you a member of the church?” Why don’t you join us on a Sunday morning, instead of just hanging around outside and in the afternoons when no one’s around?
Not in an accusing tone, but as a sincere invitation, why didn’t I say, “Join us.” Come. Be with us. The community is fun. The music is beautiful. The programs are valuable. There’s coffee and conversation and people who will bring you soup if you’re sick, and give you a place to contribute your gifts, and a history to be proud of, and a future to help create. There isn’t room for a thousand members, but there’s room for you. Shaku, you’re already half inside the church, come all the way in. This church is for you. Take it.
But I didn’t say that.
There he was, standing right in front of me. And I didn’t even think to say it.
How are we ever going to grow the church, if we refuse to say the words of invitation?
Two years ago, when I joined you, this church, like all churches, had suffered quite a bit of stress because of the COVID pandemic. And naturally, as folks no longer had the opportunity to come to church for a year and a half, some got involved in other things, made new habits, and didn’t come back to church even when we opened our doors again.
And, during the same time, this church went through a period of internal conflict. Inflamed, I imagine, by the stress of COVID, and the stressful national politics, but in any case resulting in a church experience that was uncomfortable or worse for a lot of church members. So folks had another reason to drift away and find other things to do and places to connect with. And even after the conflicts were mostly resolved here not everyone was happy with the choices we made and so folks continued to drift away.
That left us with a congregation of about 80 when I arrived, when we had for many years been a church in the range of 120 or 130. A church with 120 or 130 members has the resources, both financial resources and volunteer resources, to do a lot more than a church of 80.
But we remembered being that larger church, and we wanted the fellowship and programs that a larger church could support. And we reasoned, strategically, that the way to get back to being that larger church was to offer the programs that a larger church could support. That would satisfy the needs of the current members and also attract the new members who were looking for the kinds of full church programming that a larger church offers.
The strategy of pushing ourselves a little beyond our means is a risky one, but I think it’s the right one. What we want is a church that pushes our programs a little beyond our comfort zone, stretching our financial and volunteer resources as much as we can. That expanded church program then attracts more folks, who then can add their financial and volunteer resources. And then we’re positioned to stretch a little more, and grow a little bit further.
What we want is a positive feedback loop, where we stretch our programs, the stretched programs create excitement in the church, the excitement creates growing membership, the new members create resources for further stretching.
That’s the stimulus model. The opposite, austerity model limits our programs strictly within our means. But for a small church that remembers being larger, the austerity model creates a negative feedback loop. We hold ourselves back. The limited programming creates a sense of disappointment. The disappointment leads to less involvement from members and fewer new members interested in joining us. The declining membership results in even less financial and volunteer resources and so we cut our programs even further.
So I think we’ve been right to stretch ourselves in the last few years. Imagine if we hadn’t taken the risk to re-start our children’s RE program last year! Imagine if we hadn’t made the continued commitment to our excellent music program and the technological infrastructure that supports the worship service and allows folks to join our church programs remotely. We were right to stretch ourselves and the investments we’ve made in our church programs have paid off. We’re all feeling an increased level of excitement in the church, and we have stabilized our membership number and begun to grow again.
But. That kind of stimulus investment cannot continue forever. Eventually we lose our ability to stretch any further. Once we’ve come to the bottom of our financial reserves and the limits of energy we can ask from our current volunteers, we have to sustain our growing church with a corresponding growth in church membership.
That’s where we are. This year, the year before us, is that year where we are reaching the limits of our financial and volunteer resources, and so this has to be a year where we prioritize welcoming new members.
This church needs to be a congregation of a hundred and twenty or a hundred and thirty members in order to do what we want to do and be the church we want to be. We can’t sustain the church we want with only ninety members.
We’re not going to gain 30 or 40 members in a single year. So this year needs to be the beginning of a sustained, year’s long effort to grow our congregation. To do this successfully, this requires that everyone be involved and committed to the goal. Every program needs to consider how they welcome visitors and encourage membership. Every church member needs to imagine a role for themselves on Sunday mornings in welcoming visitors and engaging visitors in programs that make the church sticky for them. Every member needs to go down that list of friends and acquaintances and have that conversation that includes the invitation, “Come to church. Join us.”
Do you have a neighbor to invite? Do you have a friend who would be willing to come to church if you promised to take them to brunch afterward? Is there a parent at the playground wondering how they can help their child develop social skills? Is there a senior in your apartment building who might like to join church on Zoom? Are you living with someone who isn’t a member? Are you not a member?
What if someone gave you a sincere and guiltfree invitation?
What if we all make this coming year, the year that we stop deciding for other people that they don’t want to join our church, and instead just ask them, and accepting that they might say no, let them decide for themselves?
When I say that growing the church membership needs to be the primary work of our church in the coming year, I don’t mean that I’ll preach about it once in August and then hope for the best. I really mean that this will be our work for the coming year.
I’m happy to say that Rochelle Lamm and Chris Long have already done some great work over the last few months gathering together some data about the church membership. We have a picture coming into focus of who our members are, where they live, how old they are, what programs are important to them, what brought them to church in the first place. We have some data about our visitors, if they have children, what ages the kids are, what programs they’re looking for, how they found out about us.
That data is a foundation for the next step: answering the question what population should we target for our outreach efforts? And then developing a plan, so our work is deliberate and focused, not ad hoc and wishful. The Board will work on those next steps and get back to us.
The good news is that the reports from the UUA are that some of our congregations are growing again. So it is possible. And we can learn from folks who are having success. The good news is that we have done the work the last few years of preparing for this moment. We’re ready. The foundational circle of that upward growth spiral is in place. It’s time to grow.