Many places throughout the Christian church are faced with hard realities such as declining membership and financial shortages. “The way we have always done it before” was never realistic for those locations challenged by geography, poverty, and low population, and it is becoming increasingly unrealistic for other, more prosperous and populous regions.
If your congregations are anything like the ones of the Café’s newsteam, you’re probably seeing a slowing down in programs as they gear up for
Too often when the going gets tough, lay people get going and hightail it right out of church. Church is messy, community is messy, life is messy. You can’t get in the habit of running from it because the mess will follow you until you deal with it.
We’re in the last few weeks of Lent right now and starting to turn our thoughts toward Holy Week and the great celebration of the
Consulting firm to congregation: “The most important thing (Name of Church) will ever do is end whatever amount of ongoing conflict exists as well as quit thinking like a family.”
The interim period, in simplest terms, is the time between pastors. This period is, however, far from simple. The church must continue to function. Worship needs to happen. The board must lead. The staff continues to work. Members must be taught and cared for. Visitors and new members must be introduced to the life of the church.
This weeks collection of stories seems to focus on the ways that Episcopal churches are managing to cross the lines to build bridges between people of different denominations through their outreach ministry, between the sacred and secular and the ancient and the modern.
Here were two congregations going nowhere. In each case, there was no partnership between clergy and lay leaders. The congregations were stuck on alternate poles of this polarity, and both were experiencing more and more of the downside of their respective poles.
The daily and weekly work of the Episcopal Church done primarily in its parishes and missions continues apace this week. Read on to learn more.
The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council heard here Feb. 21 that church membership and Sunday attendance continued to decline in 2008, but also heard a call for the church to promote knowledge of the characteristics of growing congregations.