See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

For a brief time after graduating from high school I was a member of Baring Community Church, a nondenominational small town congregation of conservative evangelical persuasion. I eventually transferred my membership to a church nearer to where I was then attending college. Recently I got curious about that little church and did some research. What I found was more interesting to me than I had expected. It appears that some sort of proto-denomination is forming, pulling tiny and neglected congregations into its orbit.

Rural ministry is difficult. Dealing with a limited number of people who tend to be pretty self-reliant and more than a little cliquish isn’t what most people would consider fun, and makes for slow progress in terms of numerical growth. The area where I grew up, northeast Missouri, has been losing inhabitants since a peak back in the 1890s. Where Knox County once had over 18,000 people, there are now fewer than 4000. No wonder there are so many empty church buildings scattered around the countryside.

At the time I was a member, Baring Community Church was being served by Village Mission, an organization that arranges mission families to serve country churches. When one couple moved on, we had a steady stream of supply preachers for months before another missionary family came along. Those interim supply preachers represented a variety of conservative theological outlooks, and quality varied dramatically. Still, between them and some devoted members, things kept going.

Shortly after I transferred my membership out the congregation suffered the loss of a key couple and the youth ministry they had led. At some point the missionary family left, and as I understand it the few people who remained stopped meeting. Time passed, and then an ad appeared in the local classifieds.

A long-time member and church secretary for the congregation sent a letter to the address, apparently in hopes of reopening the church. 

Scant information is available online about this ‘Son Rise Ministries.’ It’s also described as ‘the Son Rise Parish’ and the ‘Willow Bend Association of Independent Churches.’ I have no idea how this group is organized. It appears to be a hyper-regional network of conservative evangelicals who either acquire unoccupied church buildings to reopen, or who step in to fill the formal ministry void in dwindling congregations to keep them meeting. 

For Baring Community Church, this meant a transfer of ownership of the building from the original church corporation (Baring Community Congregational Christian Church) to a new organization (Baring Community Church Inc.) for $1. If I’m piecing things together correctly, this church now meets once a month.

This isn’t the only country church that Son Rise has included in its network. The following also seem to be participating:

• Illinois Bend Community Church
  
• Community Christian Church of Downing
  
• East Center Community Church
  
• New Hope Methodist Church (Reformed)
  

This last one must have a good story. If was previously affiliated with the United Methodist Church I wonder how they managed to keep their church property, given that United Methodism is connectional, with local church property belonging to the denomination. To get around that ‘trust clause’ they would likely have had to purchase the building. I’d also like to know if they still identify in any way with historic and/or theological Methodism, and whether the ‘Reformed’ in their name refers to Calvinism or to the fact that the are no longer United Methodists.

It would seem that ‘Willow Bend’ or ‘Son Rise’ is taking action in places where denominations and mission organizations are unwilling or unable to invest. It really does look like a losing proposition to try to build a self-sustaining, self-governing, self-propagating congregation in the rural Midwest when there are so few people in those areas, and where the urban centers within driving distance have an abundance of active churches. Having not found anything about their theological outlook there’s not much I can say about that, other than that they likely take more of a literalist approach to biblical interpretation.

Perhaps later this year, when I visit northeast Missouri, I can gather a bit more information about the overall religious scenario there. In particular, I’d like to understand what this relatively new group is up to, and what if anything they have accomplished.

Long before there was Twitter for anonymous people to get into arguments about religion and politics, there were email discussion lists. From around 1998 to about 2004 I participated in several, and even ran a few myself. It was on one of those lists, while I was still doing mission work in Brazil, that someone told me with the most arrogant conviction told me that within 10 years I’d be Eastern Orthodox. Well, it’s been about 15 years now, and I’ve sort of gone the other direction on that one. Someone who has followed the Byzantine trail, though, is none other than ‘The Bible Answer Man’ himself, Hank Hanegraaff.

The photo above, taken at  St. Nektarios Greek Orthodox Church in April 2017, shows Hanegraaff being chrismated into Orthodoxy. To many this came as a complete shock, but to me it made a great deal of sense.

U.S. evangelicalism holds up theologically only if you compare it strictly to the Old and New Testaments without any historical or cultural context. Once you dig into it, and in particular into the writings of the early church fathers, you find that either the church fell into apostasy while some of the apostles were still alive, or else your understanding of Christianity is somewhat lacking. That the ‘smells and bells’ of Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, or the Coptic faith could have anything to do with ‘New Testament Christianity’ seems laughable to your average Baptist or Church of Christ member, but the story checks out.

Why am I not Orthodox, then? Two reasons:

First, I don’t believe in the supernatural. 

Second, there was no one, standard ‘Christianity’ in the first century. There were a variety of sects, some of which were similar enough to each other to overlap, and others that remained separate. Even the doctrines we now consider ‘orthodox’ about Jesus as the Christ did not really become standard for centuries, during which time views that in prior generations were considered normal became defined as heretical. Although Orthodoxy in particular bears the strongest resemblance to what must have been early faith and practice (plus a lot of silver, gold, pomp, and circumstance inherited from the Byzantine Empire), that does not mean that its teachings are true in any objective sense. 

At the Church of Christ university from which I graduated, the older ministry professors took great pride in describing their sect as ‘the same one Jesus founded.’ In reality, it is an austere shadow of what was most likely the rich, diverse, and expressive faith of the catacombs. 

Here’s what Hanegraaff has to say about his conversion to Orthodoxy, something quite in line with what I’ve heard some converts to Roman Catholicism say:

As for me, I’ll happily continue on with what is observably and evidentially real, leaving for others the cognitive dissonance that accompanies belief in a benevolent, omnipresent, and omniscient deity who can’t be bothered to stop a Holocaust.

Tripp Hudgins, whose background is in the American Baptist Church, and who now is with the Episcopal Church, blogged recently about ‘denominational grief.’ I got to thinking about what he wrote, and I think I can relate.

The night I told my mother that I wanted to leave the Roman Catholic Church and ‘be a Protestant,’ my father was finishing his shower in the bathroom across the hall. I was 17, and had no idea what my mother’s reaction would be when I went in to speak with her just before bed. It turns out that she took it quite well and was supportive. My non-religious father, on the other hand, wasn’t impressed. Overhearing our conversation as he shaved in the other room, he suddenly bellowed, “Don’t do this! You’ll end up regretting it!” Mom told him it was okay and asked him to let her take care of it. His words remained with me through the years, and never once to my recollection have I regretted leaving the Roman Catholic Church. At times I wonder, though, if I’ll ever find one place and stay there.

For roughly 20 years I was part of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement. In various ways I’ve experienced life in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ, a cappella Churches of Christ, and even the International Churches of Christ (post cult years). I came to see the history, institutions, and future of that movement as my own, and at times marvelled to myself about how a fellowship in which I was not raised could feel like home to me, moreso even than the Catholicism of my childhood and youth.

Then, it was over. Though I’d had a number of conflicts with people in the Stone-Campbell movement over the years, from an anti-American Brazilian evangelist in Brazil who tried to prevent my marriage to a member of hist church, to a deeply dysfunctional congregation in New Mexico that broke my spirit and led to the end my my full-time ministry, through it all I remained with the Christian Churches and Churches of Christ. What finally brought that chapter of my life to a close was the end of my faith.

It’s odd, really. In 2012 I made a trip to Brazil, after many years away, and attended the World Convention of the Stone-Campbell churches. I saw several people there I’d not seen in many years and assisted as an interpreter for several of the workshops. By the end of the next year I was no longer a believer.

It was a shock to me, at first. I had to process this new understanding of the world while resettling in Brazil and looking for gainful employment. I was entirely on my own there, with no one I could confide in about my newfound non-theism. Online I connected with people, but ‘out here’ in the real world I had to sort through it all myself. Somehow, I made it.

The trouble is that I’m not sure that I have a tribe now. I mean, I’m a Unitarian Universalist and a Humanist, and that definitely describes my present worldview. At the same time I don’t feel as much a part of either of those as I did the Churches of Christ, or even Catholicism. It could be that I need time and to attend more conventions. I’m certainly volunteering with the local Unitarian Universalist congregation I joined last year. It is slow going, though.

While I don’t miss Roman Catholicism, I am at times wistful and nostalgic for the Christian Churches, Churches of Christ, and Disciples of Christ. Still, there is no going back. I can’t unknow what I’ve learned, and I don’t regret the personal progress I’ve made in recent years. Perhaps this is my own denominational grief.

There are a handful of reasons a local church might be affiliated with more than one denomination. Some predated certain divisions and never discontinued fellowship from either (or any) of the resulting denominations. Others chose additional affiliations to broaden their network of support and pool of potential ministers. Here and there you’ll find a congregation that was founded to serve a military base, and was multi-denominational (as Protestant) from the outset. Still others opt to seek another connection due to the practical consequences of some theological viewpoints. This last reason appears to have been the motivator for several New York City congregations of the Reformed Church in America to seek out a formal relationship with the United Church of Christ.

When I Google ‘Reformed Church in America’ the first result that comes up is the denominational website. The second is their page on homosexuality. On that page one finds the various position statements on this topic made by the General Synod arranged in chronological order, beginning with 1978. From that year all the way through to 2016 the consistent message is that homosexuality is a sin, and it is also wrong to mock or discriminate against the lgbtq community due to sexual orientation. For several RCA congregations in New York City, this poses a problem. Not only are they open and affirming parishes, the New York Classis (like a regional association) of the RCA ordains qualified people to ministry regardless of sexual orientation. This situation can make the wider denomination an unwelcome place for lgbtq members and clergy from New York. Rev. Chad Tanaka Pack, whose story is told in the following video, is one example of someone potentially affected by the denomination’s official stance.

As a result of this mess, seven New York City congregations of the Reformed Church in America have made the decision, as I indicated above, to affiliate with the United Church of Christ in addition to the RCA. They now make up a new association of the New York Conference of the United Church of Christ. Called the Reformed Association, which was chartered on Thursday, May 4, 2017. The United Church of Christ, itself the result of the merger of 2 denominations in the 1950s (and those 2 were also the result of the prior merger of 2 denominations each), officially welcomes and affirms the lgbtq+ community, including everyone in the full life and ministry of the church. Going forward, those entering the ministry through parishes of the Reformed Association/New York Classis will have the option of UCC or RCA ordination paths.

The more conservative wing of the RCA would mostly likely be glad to part ways with the New York Classis, given that the latter is very unlikely to ‘repent.’ For their part, the New York congregations have a long history that precedes the RCA (The Collegiate Church, for instance, incorporated in 1628). As for me, I’m of two minds about this sort of situation.

On the one hand, I have never stayed with a denomination or other organization where I felt out of step with the prevailing outlook. I leave rather than seek to reform. For instance, I left the Roman Catholic Church when I was 17 when I found a number of beliefs and practices out of line with what I found in the Bible. Almost two years later I left the Presbyterian Church (USA) because of the Re-Imagining Conference, abortion, and – yes – accepting attitudes toward homosexuality. From there I eventually found my way into the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement, from which I departed when my belief in the supernatural ended. For me there has never been a strong desire to stay and fight when there are greener pastures elsewhere. That said, I hope I’ve found my permanent ‘home’ within Unitarian Universalism.

On the other hand, few denominations are today as they were decades or even centuries ago. Reform, whether gradual or dramatic, has taken place with reformers taking the lead and conservatives pushing back. If someone is born and raised in, say, the United Methodist Church, it makes sense that their sense of commitment and ownership towards that denomination could compel them to remain within its ranks and work for change. If no one ever did this, surely none of the various denominations today would be open and affirming.

 In any event, this dual-affiliation seems to me like a big step in the right direction for the RCA congregations in NYC, and certainly a boon for the United Church of Christ. I’ll be interested to see if, or perhaps just how long, they will remain connected to the Reformed Church in America. Certainly if nothing changes they’ll eventually go separate ways entirely.

Just a week or so ago it was announced that Episcopal Divinity School is moving to the Union campus and will be leasing office space in the new building, offering an Anglican Studies program in cooperation with UTS, allowing the former institution to continue its mission, and the latter to expand its course offerings and hopefully draw in more new students. Now UTS is going a step further with Master of Divinity tracks, two of which appear to be oriented towards those preparing for non-Christian ministry. The new tracks are:

• Ministerial Leadership
• Islam, Social Justice, and Interreligious Engagement
• Socially Engaged Buddhism and Interreligious Engagement.

To begin, what is ‘Ministerial Leadership?’ It has a nice ring to it, but isn’t the MDiv itself already the standard degree for ministerial preparation? That’s historically been the key purpose of an MDiv…to prepare clergy leadership. The description of this new track doesn’t provide much help either:

The Master of Divinity Oriented Toward Ministerial Leadership, the most flexible of the pathways, offers different options in required courses and numerous concentrations. Persons interested in preparing for Christian ordination or other credentialed ministry within a church or a vocation of service will find the requisite courses for those vocations. Those interested in preparing for non-credentialed ministry, non-profit leadership, or vocations in contexts outside of or beyond a church will find alternative courses that will prepare them for their own calling.

That description is so generic as to be useless, and the pdf purporting to provide more details is no better.

The other two degree tracks make more sense to me, as they both appear clearly oriented towards preparing people for leadership roles in Muslim and Buddhist circles, respectively. The oddity here is that Bible and church history are among the courses that remain mandatory. Perhaps this is necessary for Union Theological Seminary to maintain membership in the Association of Theological Schools, though I’m not aware of any such requirement on the part of ATS. It is also possible that either these courses are needed to fill out the program, or else it’s a requirement of the seminary’s charter or board.

The part that puzzles me about all this isn’t an overly general course track (befuddling though it may be) or that arrangements are being made to train Buddhist and Muslim leadership (I’m in favor of it). What I would like to know is why UTS has not yet caught on to the fact that the ‘nones’ are growing fast as a demographic, and that Humanist communities are beginning to be established in many and varied locations throughout the US. 

If Union Theological Seminary wants to get ahead of the curve, or at least catch up, it needs to move quickly and decisively to begin offering a Humanist Studies program. It couldn’t be too difficult to do, I imagine, given that the Humanist Institute is already in operation and could likely be persuaded to take part. Humanism needs more organizers, community leaders, chaplains, and celebrants. Union needs more students, and it’s certainly progressive enough to handle such an endeavor. 

Union, it’s time.

Christianity, the only religion about which I can speak with any authority, has some things figured out. Some branches of Christianity are indeed ancient, such as Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and the Coptic faith. The various reform branches of this religion have rejected this or that about the older forms of the faith, but the successful ones have retained what is useful to keep them going. One tool in the Christian church’s toolkit is narrative, and it’s one that secular groups such as Ethical Culture, Sunday Assembly, and Oasis (as well as Humanist-leaning Unitarian Universalist congregations) would do well to learn.

When I say ‘narrative’ I don’t mean merely telling a story. Rather, Christianity is good at placing people within the story. As a Roman Catholic until the age of 17 I recited creeds at Mass, and those were more than short doctrinal statements. The Apostle’s Creed in particular tells the story of God, Jesus, and salvation in a very succinct form:

I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary
Under Pontius Pilate He was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Amen.

The Apostle’s Creed alone is only a dogma-laden summary of a larger story. There is more to this in Roman Catholicism, though. In the Mass, the varied details of this narrative are retold in the readings and celebrated in the Eucharist. Around the church building on the walls are the stations of the cross, telling visually in stages the story of Jesus’ crucifixion. In the Sacraments, Catholics mark various milestones of their lives making a connection to the story of Roman Catholic Christianity. In personal devotion, the rosary provides a tangible connection to faith in Jesus and his mother. All of this draws in the believing Catholic, helping them to feel as though they themselves are participating in the story of their religion…as indeed they are, albeit in a largely perfunctory manner.

In Unitarian Universalist and Ethical Culture circles I’m seeing a greater and greater focus on ‘social justice’ than ever before. This makes sense, as indeed there is a great deal of injustice and it has been brought to the fore by events such police violence against people of color being filmed and shared on social media, and by the rise of Trumpism. The crying need for progressive voices in protest as well as constructive work for peace and justice is clear, and yet I’m concerned that it may also drown out the ability of Humanism and UUism to tell the story that must be told. 

In a recent episode of American Gods, Laura Moon is depicted telling her husband, Shadow, about her loss of faith:

I mean, my parents believed in everything.
Father, Son, Holy Ghost, spirit-filled and full of the light of God.
They taught me all of it, chapter and verse.
I went to bed every night in a world full of magic where anything was possible.
And then one day you find out that Santa’s not real, and then the Tooth Fairy isn’t real.
And there’s no farm upstate for old dogs.
Then I started reading history books, and Jesus isn’t real.
And it’s like everything that made the world anything more than what it is is just– is just stories.
Just snake oil, but worse because snakes are real.
[snickering] I wanted to get that magic back so bad, but one day I just accepted the fact that I couldn’t because life is just not that interesting.

The experience described struck me as so far different from my own and that of many others who have transitioned from supernatural beliefs to an evidence-based outlook. While I can totally understand how someone should feel as Laura describes, it is sad and unnecessary. The fictions I had told myself to believe (and to which I had sincerely clung) vanished in the final days of 2013, as I moved to Brazil to rejoin my family who had already relocated months before. Once the shock I felt passed, I then felt a great deal of awe. I looked at the full moon hanging low over the horizon and caught a glimpse of our place in the universe. I saw trees in full bloom and marveled at how they and the species that depend upon them had evolved over millions of years.

Although I had understood evolution, the fundamentals of astronomy, and the history of the universe for many years, removing divine intervention (aka ‘magic’) from the mix gave me an altogether richer appreciation of the vastness of time and space, as well as the chaos and order that makes it all so interesting. Beyond the fear I felt at not having a paternal deity to carry me through hard times I found courage in the knowledge that I had in fact survived and overcome on my own. 

Humanism, in order to be compelling, cannot only call people constantly to fight against oppression and hate. It must also tell ‘the old, old story.’ Not one about a world created and judged by an all-powerful being, but rather the one we are discovering as research pushes out the boundaries of what we know. Ours is the story of a universe that exploded into being, of gases and energy burning and coalescing into stars, galaxies, and planets. This is grand narrative of the origin of species on Earth and the ascent of homo sapiens sapiens to the position of dominance on this planet. With this great story, seeing in broad strokes and fine details where we have come from, we can ask where we want to go.

Fundamentalist Christians and their counterparts in other faiths are awaiting apocalypse and judgement. Religious liberals tend to envision a brighter future of peace and harmony, though the details are a little fuzzy. 

Humanists, for their part, can admit that the picture is neither all good nor all bad. Instead, our future is what we make it to be. We can follow the visionary declarations of Carl Sagan into the stars, becoming – as Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and others propose – an interplanetary species. Individually seek to better understand our world, and together we can work to make this one life we know we have better for each other and especially for those who come after us.

We don’t have prayer books, infallible scriptures, or fossilized creeds to guide and engage us. Our participation in this grand narrative is to be lived out in the streets with protests, in the laboratory and the observatory with discoveries, and in the national congresses and international conventions where we pass laws and make treaties securing human rights and protecting our environment.

The collapse of mainline Protestant theological education continues. Despite how it might seem, and without any malice, I think this is generally a good thing. However, there are lessons yet to be learned by the seminaries and mainline Protestant denominations.

 About a year ago Andover Newton Theological School – itself the result of the merger of two seminaries in 1965 (Andover Theological Seminary and Newton Theological Institution) – announced an affiliation with Yale Divinity School following years of declining enrollment. Just this past week official word came that Episcopal Divinity School will be affiliating with Union Theological Seminary in New York City. As was the case with ANTS, EDS was also the result of the merger of two older institutions, namely Philadelphia Divinity School and Episcopal Theological School. This same process of mergers and affiliations has been happening for some time among seminaries across the United States, and it will only continue for years to come.

Mainline Protestantism is dying. Although there are some shining examples of lively, larger progressive congregations doing well, they are the exception rather than the rule. With Protestant parishes dwindling and the cost of higher education escalating, it’s to be expected that theological schools will be either closing down or seeking some means to survive.

Seminaries proliferated in the days when the ‘church business’ was booming, with new schools established from time to time to serve a particular theological outlook or new denomination. As the mainline Protestant churches let go of their dogma they lost members to evangelical churches as well as to irreligion. It turns out that explaining that the core document of a religion isn’t historically or scientifically reliable leaves people considering it irrelevant. Although you won’t likely hear much higher criticism from the pulpits of such churches these days, the social justice gospel that’s now being preached won’t be enough to save them. 

Theological schools need to close when they aren’t serving their purpose, which is to prepare women and men to minister to others, build up communities of shared values, and lead in the effort to promote human flourishing. Yes, they wrap that in religious garb and symbolism, but at the core this is what they all seek after one fashion or the other. Mainline Protestant seminaries have for decades been training future ministers for the wrong scenario. It is often the case in mainline parishes that the ministers are more theologically (and frequently politically) liberal than their parishioners. Such ministers either rock the boat and lose people, or else they keep their mouths shut and hold back more than they should for the sake of keeping their jobs.

Conservative (relatively speaking) congregations are one thing, and the wider society is quite another. More and more people are leaving church behind because traditional dogma doesn’t sync with science and a reasoned approach, and because the churches haven’t provided a compelling alternative narrative. The ‘fall of man’ and redemption through the cross, with all that came before and after, doesn’t speak to the contemporary world as it did in ages past. What inspires us now is scientific discoveries, and what motivates us the the dream of making a better world.

Against the cynicism of the age, churches should be affirming the goodness of life, the great potential – and very real weaknesses – of our species, and the hope for a brighter future. Antiquated terminology should be cast aside, old images reimagined in ways that are compelling to a wider range of people, and a new story should be told.

Seminaries should be leading the way in this effort, not jumping on every bandwagon and hoping something sticks.There needs to be a fresh narrative in light of current knowledge, beginning with the big bang and going into the distant future of humanity on other worlds. Tell us where we’ve really been, and help us dream of where we really could go, while helping us to live out this vision in our congregations and our personal lives.

If Union Theological Seminary can take in Episcopal Divinity School, why can’t it also invest in its future with, at the very least, a Humanist clergy track? I’m fairly certain that the Humanist Institute would participate in crafting such a pathway to ministry, and if it proves compelling enough it could draw in people to prepare for service in the 21st century and beyond. As Yale Humanist Community, Harvard’s Humanist Hub, Sunday Assembly, and Oasis have shown us, if you tell the right story, build a truly welcoming community, and offer up evidence-based truth in an upbeat environment, people will want to be part of it.

The following are my own personal observations, backed up in no way by statistics or formal research. Before that gets you too riled up, take a deep breath and remember that this is just a blog post of some guy’s musings.

My thesis is this: 

Religious movements grow fastest when the barriers to leadership are lower, while congregations grow best when their leadership is formally and adequately prepared. 

Studying church history over the years I have observed that the fastest-growing religious movements were those with few prerequisites for leadership. It seems that most of the time personal charisma and a good imagination are all that’s needed. On the other hand, religious movements with higher standards for their professional leaders tend to grow more slowly, if at all. Note that I’m talking about movements as a whole, not particular religious communities. Congregations with better-prepared leadership in terms of both academics and pastoral care seem to have a better shot at sustainable growth than those that are either lay-led or otherwise guided by less-well-prepared leadership.

Consider, for example, the a cappella Churches of Christ. According to ChurchZip.com, there are currently 14,067 congregations of the non-instrumental Church of Christ variety in the United States. Having graduated from a university of that fellowship and spent some time among those churches as a missionary and minister, I assure you that most of those congregations are not served by someone with even an undergraduate degree in Bible or ministry. These churches spread the most in the 20th century not through the work of professional clergy, but rather through the efforts of individual believers to convert their family, friends, and neighbors. Yes, there were revival preachers (they call revivals ‘Gospel Meetings,’ but the basic concept is the same) and missionaries, but the bulk of the work of evangelism was accomplished through people starting congregations and inviting people to attend and to participate in Bible studies.

If were to randomly chose an a cappella Church of Christ to visit one Sunday, you’d most likely find a very small congregation of less than 50 people. There are big exceptions, of course, but the odds favor you finding your way to a small congregation, as these compose the bulk of the 14,067 Churches of Christ in the United States. If you do manage to find a congregation of 100 or more, take a close look at the minister’s qualifications. I suspect that what you’ll find is a person with at least a Bachelor’s degree in ministry. Generally speaking, the larger the congregation, the higher the level of the minister’s formal education.

Now, it could be argued that larger, more ‘successful’ congregations have better trained ministers because they can afford them. On the other hand, if you look at that church’s history I am pretty confident that you will find the periods of most growth happened under the leadership of trained professionals. That isn’t to say that the parishioners are irrelevant! As I observed above, Churches of Christ tended to sprout up most often for decades through the efforts of believers banding together and pulling in their circle of friends and family. At the same time, we tend to see these congregations hitting a wall once their immediate social network is exhausted. To get over this hump and growing again, someone needs to devote their time exclusively to providing pastoral care and planning events.

Simply put, movements require agility, while community requires stability. There is no guarantee that someone with an MDiv will do better working full-time with a congregation than someone with little or no formal training for ministry, chances are better with the former than the latter. A person who has been thoroughly vetted and who has spent a number of years studying and serving in internships is a safer bet than someone who simply feels inspired to get up and do something.

All that said, of course there are exceptions! I have some in mind myself, so please don’t bore me with the details of ones you could cite.

If what I’ve described above is in fact true (again, I admit that’s an ‘if’), then perhaps that could inform how we manage congregational extension.

In the mid-20th century there was a ‘Fellowship Movement’ within Unitarian Universalism that resulted in numerous lay-led congregations. These remained relatively small for the most part, with the exception of those that eventually found capable leadership. You can read the story of this movement here. I am of the opinion that this movement would have been more successful if it had been structured from the beginning to be lay-led but aiming for professional leadership. 

The bottom line of this rather meandering post is that if the UUA, Ethical Culture, or a similar group wants to see growth, people need to be given the tools and encouragement to start new groups, and then those groups need to be provided trained servant-leaders once they hit their first plateau. 

More on this in future posts.