Many churches had been closing in Regina over the past few years: Wascana, Carmichael, St John's. As their membership aged there were less and less people to do the work, new people stopped coming, resources dwindled and eventually the doors had to be closed. Does this sound like a familiar scenario? Rosemont recognized that we had several of these same challenges.
An important catalyst was a tirade one night at Board meeting by one of our members who is in his 60's and has been a member for probably more than 30 years. He pointed out that our congregation was aging and that in 10 years or less most of the people here now will be gone? His daughter and grandson are members and he was concerned that there was nothing to want to keep them coming. We had spent $170,000 rebuilding our roof but we had spent absolutely nothing on our spirituality or on people.
The Spark Grows
We recognized that something had to change but we did not know what or how. About this time Jeeva Sam, our minister, and a few others went to an event at the Central United Church in Calgary. This is a church that was dying several years ago and has revitalized itself, with many exciting ministries. It has seen its membership swell to the point where they have off-site parking and shuttle buses to drive people a few blocks to attend multiple worship services. The people who came back shared their stories and ideas for our church.
Shortly after, our Presbytery hired the Congregational Life Centre to lead a one-day workshop, which Rosemont hosted. The workshop had representatives from most of the United churches in the Presbytery. The workshop was facilitated by Clair Woodbury who is an ordained United Church minister, serves on the Doctor of Ministry Committee at St. Stephen's College, and is author of five books, including 100 Ways to be the Church and The Art of Ministry. He is a graduate of Royal Military College, studied theology at Queen's University and received his Ph.D. from Drew University in the United States. The other facilitator was Joyce Madsen who has a long history with the United church. She has held management positions in a number of computer and high-tech companies and conducted training programs across Canada. When not working with the Centre she prepares people to start their own business.
The workshop was exciting. It was an overview look at how the church as we know it in today's society has changed and how we can deal with these changes. We discussed many things in small groups and had fun doing it. We at Rosemont were so excited we decided to ask the Congregational Life Centre for a proposal for a longer process for our church.
A Flame
We invited
a member of East Side United Church to a meeting at our church to tell us about
the work that the CLC had done in their church. They had also used a person
from within the United Church named Tom Bandy. There were enough of us in attendance
that were from the official board to form a quorum, so we voted to hire the
Congregational Life Centre right there and then.
The congregational meeting where we presented the idea was well attended. There was a lot of discussion about what exactly they were going to do for or to us. We presented the case that we wanted to spend only $6000 - 7000 on our spirituality and our future, when we had just spent nearly $170,000 doing our roof.
Houston, We Have Ignition!
The congregation voted. The motion passed. We had the go ahead to hire the Congregational Life Centre to lead us through and 18-month process of Congregational Transformation. There were no guarantees and it was leap of faith. Not everyone was happy with this decision. One person stopped coming to our church that day and has not returned since.
One of the most important things that helped us make this decision was a vision and strong leadership to initiate the process. That strong leadership would also needed for the process itself.
The Transformation Process
The dictionary definition of the word "transformation" is "To change the nature, function, or condition of; to convert." Other words that could be used are revitalize and transfigure. To me it means to change to become what God wants us to be.
The transformation process that Rosemont went through was challenging at times and exciting. It has led us away from control to empowerment. We never felt we were out of control but rather that God was in control. At no time did Joyce and Clair ever tell us what to do. They gave us some ideas and made suggestions, but it was our leadership and congregation that made all the decisions about our future.
An important factor in this process is the communication between the leadership and the congregation. The leadership must be absolutely transparent and share everything with the congregation. Equally as important are opportunities to get feedback, good or bad, from the congregation and to actually listen to and address their concerns.
We formed a small nucleus of five people called a Transformation Team. This group was responsible for spearheading and coordinating the workshops that would follow. We grew very close and shared many things that helped us accomplish our objectives.
The Steps
There were
four workshops but there was also work to be completed by the leadership between
the workshops. All workshops were held on Saturdays from 9:00 or 10:00 a.m.
to 4 p.m. There was one Friday evening meeting too for the leadership. The points
made by the participants were written on flip charts. Clair summarized these
points on a laptop into a report.
On Sunday, Clair and Joyce were part of the worship. Everyone who was at the workshop was asked to come forward and participate in a celebration of what we had accomplished. A report was presented to the chair of the board, and copies were made available for the congregation at the next service.
The steps of the transformation process were:
· Releasing the Vision: a workshop to celebrate the identity of the congregation and underline the importance of articulating its unique vision. We told stories about the things that had happened in our congregation, and from these were able to identity some of the principles that make us who we are.
· Getting to Know Our Community Again: a study and survey that provides an opportunity for the congregation to search out strengths and opportunities for service. The Transformation Team completed Community Agency Interviews with area schools, churches, community associations, seniors complexes, and day cares. Crime statistics were also gathered for the areas around our church.
· Building an Effective Leadership Team: An event for members of the Board plus any others in leadership positions to explore the role of leadership in the church today.
· Perceiving God's Vision: A workshop for congregation members to explore opportunities for service, and begin to discern the dreams and visions.
· Visioning Our Future: an opportunity for the congregation to clarify the values and strengths they wanted to build their future on articulate the common vision, and develop a plan that carries them toward that vision.
· Designing our Ministries: Examining ways to best support the ministries that contribute to the vision who the congregation wants to be.
· A Celebration: Marking the beginning of a new time of creativity and ministry on the journey toward Congregation Transformation.
The "Visioning our Future" workshop was the probably the most important and moving one of all of them. We identified our core values:
Spirituality: We provide a place of Christian spiritual growth.
Community: We support and nurture the community around us.
Accepting: We are open and accepting of all.
Gifts: We believe that everyone has a gift or talent.
Respect: We are mutually respectful.
Support: We support creative, innovative new ministries.
We found our Mission Statement: "We are an inviting church that services Jesus Christ with joy."
What has happened
since? Transformation is ongoing. It did not stop when the consultants left.
We have changed the way we think and cannot go back to the way that we used
to do things. We are open to new innovative ideas and are willing to try new
things. We know who we are and what we are about. We do things that support
this by knowing and applying our mission statement and core values.
We have changed our structure. There are teams not committees. People are empowered to make decisions at their level where it counts as long as it supports our mission statement and core values. There are less people in meetings and decisions can be made more quickly and effectively.
Our music ministries and worship services have improved. There are more members in the choir, and paid section leaders. We have a Praise and Worship Group, our "Music For Many" children's program, and Sunday Night Live with guest musical groups.
Membership has increased slightly. Considering how many people have died in the past two years that is a good accomplishment. Our attendance at worship has been up. We have more people participating and helping out in ways that are non-traditional. We have monthly Celebration of Ministries luncheons after worship to convey what is going on to the congregation and to get feedback.
We created focus groups to explore needs in the community and help us set up an alternative worship experience. Our new web page keeps people in touch with developments.
We approved a deficit budget last year. We ended up in the black at the end of the year. We budgeted for an even bigger deficit this year. We are investing in people because we find that that gives us more dividends than investing in a building. Thanks to a bequest and a donation we have a new sound system and are doing some work on our building to make it more inviting.
Keeping the congregation informed about what is going on and ensuring that people are involved in the decision making continues to be a challenge, as has finding people to do the many things that need to get done in the church. The way leadership handled the resignation of a volunteer has left some pain. Resistance to change continues, but it is not the issue it was before. The most important challenge has been to maintain spirituality as a part of everything that we do.
This article was prepared for a presentation by Jeeva Sam and Barry Sudom
in Saskatoon on April 4, 2002. You can contact Barry Sudom by e-mail at bsudom@sk.sympatico.ca.
Newsletter Vol. 8 No. 4 August 2002