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Immanuel Lutheran Church, Hinkley, IL

Compact Congregations: Challenges (Part 2)

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Last week Kent outlined some of the challenges that face “compact” (aka, small) congregations: lethargy that impedes change; the small number of adult catechumens; congregational isolation and American individualism; and conflict within a congregation.

Today’s post considers a compact congregation’s challenges with regard to the staffing, time, and energy required to introduce a robust catechumenal process in a congregation. Kent’s reminder to “begin with prayer” holds true for addressing the barriers within the congregation as well as the challenges of staffing and time for a small congregation. We encourage pastors to begin with their own daily prayer—that God would guide both pastors and congregations to new ways of thinking and open the hearts of members to respond to God’s call to spread the Good News in a hurting world. Consider also including such specific prayers for a missional habitus in the congregation whenever the church council and board meet; and finally, find ways to include Christ’s call in the Great Commission within the Sunday intercessions. It’s important that such prayers invite and encourage (rather than demand or shame) church members to be witnesses to Jesus in daily life.

Most small congregations have one full-time staff person (the pastor) and one or more part-time employees (secretary, custodian, church musician). I offer here one model for this common situation, based the case study of a smaller congregation in our book, Journey to Jesus (chapter 4, St. Mary’s), at which the pastor partnered with a volunteer lay person to initiate an adult catechumenate process. Begin by looking for a trusted key member (or couple) in your congregation with these skills and gifts:

  • Spiritual maturity (consider those who are regularly in church; who have an active prayer life; who live in service to others as a response to what Christ has done for them)
  • Good listening skills, both with an individual and in a group setting
  • A good facilitator in a small group setting—one who does not need to be the center of attention and who can gently draw the quieter group members into a discussion.
  • A person or couple well respected in the congregation

Provide training for this person or couple to serve as catechist(s) along side of you, the pastor, with you as the primary teacher of the content of the faith and the catechist as the primary mentor for participants to explore and deepen their personal faith lives in a group setting.

I recommend testing this model within your congregation; this “pilot project” has a dual role: to create “buy in” with the core membership of the congregation and to deepen the faith of participants. Start with an existing small group in the congregation or as a new approach to midweek Advent and Lenten gatherings. In the latter case, the evening could be structured in this manner:

  • Gathering for a light supper
  • Brief (10 to 15 minutes) teaching/preaching on a Gospel text by the pastor
  • Small group discussion on the text, led by lay catechist
  • Closing with Compline or one of the forms of Response Prayer in Lutheran Service Book

There are various options for small group Scripture study widely used in adult catechumenal faith formation, which we’ve discussed in earlier blog posts:

For the African method, click here and here.

For Luther’s four-strand garland method, click here and here.

For the visualization method, click here and here.

St. Stephen Cross

Where to Begin? Lessons from a Small Congregation

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St. Mary’s Lutheran Church*, one of the congregations where we did our research, imparts three lessons for beginning an effective adult faith formation process.

Lesson 1: Create buy-in among current active members

After attending a conference led by Paul E. Hoffman, author of Faith Forming Faith, Pastor M followed Paul’s advice and offered a summer Scripture study group to introduce the small group process to current members. This group met between four and six times throughout the summer, engaging in the kind of Scripture meditation Kent described in his post from September 7, using questions about a biblical text that “allow the Word to be proclaimed so that the individual and the community embrace this story as their own account (confession) of who they are.” Because St. Mary’s is a small congregation, the participation by members over the summer, which people reported was very positive experience, was enough to convince the congregation as whole to venture on this new path.

Lesson 2: Begin with a group of inactive members

St. Mary’s boldly started with two small groups that fall. The first was an existing group of retired women who welcomed a young woman (living with one of the retirees because of a temporary housing crisis) into their study group. The young woman and retirees bonded closely over their weekly meditations on and sharing about the story of Jesus. The group convinced Pastor M of the power of the process to form community, especially across generations.

The second small group included inactive or” estranged” members who were connected enough to the congregation to participate in this new venture. Pastor M described the impact on one woman in this group, who was “being folded back in the community” of faith and was now (three years later), active in the congregation and in the adult faith formation process.

Lesson 3: Embrace the practice of serving a meal before the Scripture study

Pastor M, a self-described “convert” to this practice, commented more than once about the power of sharing food together as a way to form community. The goal of an adult catechumenate is more than strengthening the individual’s relationship to Jesus Christ. Baptism, through which the Trinity claims individual persons to be sons and daughters of God, also brings God’s newborn children into the community of faith. It’s within the church that each person engages in the life-long process of dying to sin and rising to Christ, of turning away from self-centeredness to become Christ-like witnesses of God’s love in the world. A shared meal introduces individuals into the joy of communal life and the spiritual support, the bearing of one another’s burdens, that St. Paul exhorts us to in Galatians (5:2).

These three lessons share a common theme: that the adult catechumenate is “not an instructional process, but a process of faith formation,” according to Pastor M. Of course, imparting information is part of the package, but the primary task is forming disciples. This is a lifelong task that at St. Mary’s began by strengthening the faith of committed members; that in the next step drew an estranged member back into the active life of the community and who was transformed into a disciple committed to sharing the Good News with others; and that over the course of three years of an adult faith formation process, always included a shared meal to create and foster community among the neophytes and their sponsors.

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*A pseudonym

Photo (by Rhoda Schuler): St. Mary’s Lutheran Church during Lent