One pastor wrote:

A church consultant said "Small suburban churches are sucking people dry without producing the future of the religion." I felt that he described a situation in our church that I am always desperately trying to avoid yet am never quite able to. There are so few people doing so much in the way of our ministries that I fear for their health. Does anyone else who is pastor of a small suburban church have a similar experience? Are there any ways to avoid this or is the small suburban church about to die out?

One response:

I reckon this is a central question for a lot of churches that I've experienced. I've found the quote, "The only communities that work are communities of necessity" to be immensely helpful in assessing whether a community works or not (often they just pretend to - but meeting in the same place at the same time on a Sunday morning does not a community make).

The problem with most churches I've been a part of is precisely that they were not communities of necessity; they didn't hang out together on a regular basis outside of "church time", they didn't live in the same area, they don't bump into each other down at the shops, they're not united by anything; they don't even need each other (except to fill the rosters). So church becomes a chore or "work" outside of work because it's not natural, it's not happening because they need it to happen. Even the buildings tend to reflect that - they're not spaces people would naturally meet others anyway, so they become removed from real life.

Often I think that's a function of how people see the nature of faith and the church - they actually don't need Jesus, they just kind of have it there as fire insurance for the afterlife, or as a useful social tool, or whatever, and so it useful to keep religion boxed separately. Sometimes (or often) it's the way church is actually set up that makes this a more awkward reality.

Our community should emerge from our mission; it started with mission, and the community emerged as a need in order to keep the mission going. Out of that, worship emerged as a need to keep it well formed and centred. Obviously it's not quite as neat as that, but I reckon it's a good way to look at how a community might actually work sustainably and authentically. Rosters and things are often asking the question "How do we maintain what we have?" even when what we have is actually not necessary or even helpful. That's why people feel "sucked dry" and can't actually engage outside of the place. Letting go can be hard though.

So for a group of people to ask the question "What is our life's work?" and then start to ask "What do we need in order to live out our life's work?" begins to put some structure around the kind of community that will naturally emerge.

My take on this:

There are three ingredients needed here: a missional one (mentioned above) a change in thinking functionally about the strengths and weaknesses of a small suburban church, and a change in thinking about leadership in the church, vis-a-vis its clericalist history...

There are four 'retail modes' in modern suburbs: malls/supermarkets; boutiques; franchises (Seven Elevens); and corner stores... The latter are suffering: they can't compete with the other types of stores... Now, why?

And the training-for-leadership issue is crucial too: how much of the verbalizing of the faith happens from the one with Rev. in front of their name? Why?

Rowland Croucher