Pastor's Message

September 2006

I have completed my Intentional Interim Ministry training and have received certification from both the Center for Congregational Health in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and the Interim Ministry Network in Baltimore, Maryland. My work with the Self-Study Committee of St. Paul’s has been part of my field work research and I have participated in a group review process with three other candidates for certification and a leader from the Center for Congregational Health. As I have had the opportunity to share the issues and challenges that the Self-Study Committee faced and addressed in their report to you, my colleagues in ministry have been very impressed, as have I, with the leadership resources within St. Paul's UCC. As the process moves forward with the Search Committee and the fulfillment of the Called position for your next Pastor I have great confidence that the Holy Spirit is alive and well in your midst.

The last 8 years of ministry with Pastor Dieterly have been ones of growth in both attendance and in enthusiasm for ministry. You have been a beacon of church growth in an otherwise declining church membership trend in our area. While this is good news for St. Paul's UCC it is not news to be complacent about. Most of the growth in the past 8 years has been from transfers from other congregations, particularly congregations where dissatisfaction over change has driven people to leave. In the long term interest of the Church this type of growth is not sustainable nor an answer to the real challenges facing the Christian church in America as more and more people abandon regular church attendance. There is much written about the statistical decline in church attendance and much debate about the reasons. Together with your next pastor you will inevitably need to give serious consideration to these issues.

As a member of the Intentional Interim Ministry support group, YCORE, I receive monthly articles and issue papers for review. I would like to share with you insights from Bill Hybels. He is the founding and senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois. He and colleagues formed the Willow Creek Association in 1991, which now includes more than 11,600 churches nationwide. While we might not agree with all of his approaches, we should give serious consideration to his insights. He writes:

I believe churches that are seeing a decline in attendance need a new vision – one that is clear and purposeful. We train church leaders all over the world, and we always say that if you can change a church leader, you can change a church; and if you can change a church, you can change a community, a state, a nation, and ultimately the world.

But we don’t talk much about church growth. We talk about churches reaching their full redemptive potential. Not every church can grow numerically. But that doesn’t mean we can’t attempt each year to do a better job of living out Acts 2 values.

Ask yourself: Is my church’s concern for the poor increasing? Are we trying to bridge racial divides? Are we working to overcome systems that oppress people? Asking ourselves these questions and responding to them is part of what it means to be a redemptive faith community…

Less church attendance doesn’t necessarily mean that people are less dedicated to knowing Christ or loving their families. To me, these are pace –of-life issues. We have people at Willow Creek who 15 years ago would be in church 50 weeks a year, simply because their lives allowed that kind of schedule. Now, baseball and soccer games are on Sunday mornings, and a lot of student activities happen over weekends.

So do we as church leaders say to people, “You’re being bad parents”? I find that parents are generally bending over backwards to raise good kids. Do we warn them about inconsistency? It’s complex. Less church attendance is an American culture issue.”

I know that the issues that Bill Hybel raises are not new to us. I also know that many of you have thought about the changes you see happening from generation to generation. I also believe strongly that yesterday’s nostalgia will not answer the challenges of today and tomorrow’s church leadership as they face the changing scene of American religious practices. Your next pastor will face these challenges with you. It is time for the congregation to prepare for the process of change that inevitably comes with new leadership. While we do not know where the future will lead, we can have absolute assurance that change will come. We can also rely on the promise that through the Holy Spirit, Christ will go forward with us in addressing His call to us for faithfulness for a new day.

Pastor Cluley