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By Tom Ehrich, part of the Vestry Papers issue on Healthy Practices (January 2011)
ECF Vital Practices hosted a live chat with Tom Ehrich, author of "The End to 'Business as Usual'" on Wednesday, Jan 19. A transcript of that live chat can be found here.
Many vestry members start out with three assumptions:
- Their job is to run the congregation
- Their goal is to keep longtime members happy.
- From work and home, they already have the skills they need to do vestry work.
Not one of assumptions is accurate. And our own history proves it.
Imagine the year 1965 – ancient history for some, and yet a critical year, because this is when church leaders failed to see the future breaking in and thereby started the Episcopal Church on a 45-year slide that has shrunk our national membership from 3.5 million to 2 million.
Until vestry members stop trying to run churches and turn their attention to discerning the future and anticipating its requirements and opportunities, that slide will continue. Already, one-half to two-thirds of Episcopal congregations teeter on the brink of non-viability.
If vestries had been paying attention to the marketplace in 1965, they would have seen that Baby Boomers were starting to graduate from high school and leave home, and the easy growth of the post-War era was ending.
If vestries had paid attention to metrics and organization development, they would have asked, how will we recruit new members to replace those leaving home? How will we hold on to their parents? What does the future look like as families change?
If vestries had studied suburbanization, shopping malls, consolidated schools, early signs of the “big box” store, and Interstate highways, they would have seen that the business model they knew – neighborhood parishes opening for worship on Sunday – was passing away. They would have asked if churches could expect to be exempt from market forces that were transforming every other institution.
American life was changing. Mainline churches were fighting bitterly over a few changes – such as changing roles for women, a desire for contemporary idiom in worship, an insurgent laity wanting power, and changing attitudes toward homosexuality – but ignoring other changes that would end up having far greater impact on church health.
The result – experienced by all seven mainline denominations – was collapse: a relentless slide in membership, participation and giving that began in 1965 and continues to this day. A denomination that had grown from just over 1 million baptized members in 1925 to 3.5 million in 1965 now began to decline, until membership sank to 2 million at present.
Key metric: market share. From 1925 to 1965, the Episcopal Church claimed a consistent 1.6% to 1.7% of the US population. Today our share is just 0.68%, not even half of what it was. If we had held our own, we would be a denomination of 5 million, not 2 million.
As it happened, vestries didn't see the missing, didn't ask enough questions about cultural shifts, didn't think strategically, and didn't anticipate a future beyond the next 12-month budget. Vestries became embroiled in the day-to-day operations of parishes. The future was left to fend for itself. Leaders clung to magical thinking: just keep making Sunday morning better and better, and some day people will return. Not happening.
The result: one-half to two-thirds of our congregations are close to dying, our average age is 65, young adults and young families take their religious interests elsewhere, and many leadership circles are setting their sights no higher than survival.
I believe the time is right for us to move forward. The stars are aligning. There is growing interest in progressive Christianity. We have diversity to offer and, for the most part, have moved beyond fascination with the wealthy. We are far more nimble than we were.
But for a better future to happen, vestries need to recognize that business-as-usual is over. Over the next two to three years, vestries need to undertake six radical shifts in how they operate.
- Vestries need to stop running churches. Leave that to staff and lay volunteers. A healthy organization needs a leadership cadre that sees its charge as the future and its task as strategic thinking. In a corporation, that would be the board of directors. In an Episcopal congregation, it's the vestry. In partnership with the clergy, vestries need to study how successful congregations are thinking about their futures.
- Vestries need to take risks and make a radical commitment to change, including moving away from Sunday morning as the primary locus of ministry. They need to invest aggressively in technology. The “over-my-dead-body” attitude toward change that prevailed in the tumultuous 1970s and 1980s needs to stop. If longtime leaders can't imagine a future beyond what they know, they need to step aside.
- Vestries need to understand how churches work – not in the “golden era” that a few always remember, but today. We need methodologies that are better suited to this era. We need to ask how others have been growing churches of all sizes while we were declining.
- Vestries need to become savvy about church systems. Too many vestry members believe their life skills and job skills are readily transferable to the church setting. In fact, vestry duty is unlike other work.
- Vestries need to insist on sophisticated, consistent and accurate metrics. Everything that went astray in the 1960s and beyond could have been seen and dealt with if we had just had better metrics. The Episcopal Church Parochial Report is barely a starting point.
- Vestries need to listen to the marketplace, the broader context in which the congregation operates. I read three dozen market-based reports every day and am impressed with how much good data and trend spotting are available. Listen to people's needs.
If vestries stepped back from day-to-day operations, took on entrepreneurial attitudes, learned from others, got smart about church dynamics, made a radical and informed commitment to engaging a changing world, and stopped blaming the recession, they could turn this decline around quickly and set a new growth era in motion.
Business as usual will sink us.
Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and pastor. In 1993 Tom founded Journey Publishing Company, which evolved and expanded into Morning Walk Media Inc. in 2007.
Through Morning Walk Media, Tom writes a nationally syndicated newspaper column on faith and ethics for Religion News Service and a column on Multichannel Church for "Presbyterian Outlook." He publishes daily and weekly writings, and writes books such as "With Scripture as my Compass" (Abingdon Press, 2004), "Just Wondering, Jesus: 100 Questions People Want to Ask," (Morehouse Publishing, 2005) and "Church Wellness" (Morehouse division of Church Publishing Inc., 2008).
Through the Church Wellness Project, Tom provides educational materials and consulting on how to nurture healthy congregations by applying "best practices" in critical areas that determine health. Clients include congregations and judicatories around the US and Canada.
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Vestry members in the Diocese of Puerto Rico discuss best practices in stewardship.
Thomas Peters on January 5, 2011 at 8:59 am
Oops! Looks like I hit "submit comment" prematurely. Let me try this again. Please delete my earlier post. This article makes some good points about what the role of vestries should be in today’s church. But the underlying assumptions of this article are nonsense. It is nonsense to believe that, if only we had paid better attention to “metrics” in the 1960s, we could have forecast and/or prevented the decline the mainstream church. NOBODY has that kind of clairvoyance. In the 1960s the assumption was that evangelical religion was on the way out (along with mainstream religion), that progressive politics was here to stay, and that we were on the verge of eliminating war, hunger and poverty. The reality is that evangelical religion has increased in influence and numbers (at the expense of mainstream Christianity), we have been a conservative (even reactionary) country since the 1980s, and the world is in greater turmoil that ever. Why would anyone think that the vestries could see what the best and brightest of the social theorists missed in the 1960s? And what, exactly, would vestries have done if we had read the “metrics” correctly in the 1960s? Create megachurches? Abandon the liturgy in favor of praise songs? These strategies have proved successful for many evangelical independent churches, but they would have driven me away. I want the Episcopal Church precisely because it follows an ancient liturgy and has a fantastic hymnbook. In fact, the case can be made that, if we had followed the “metrics” in the 1960s, we would be a smaller church than we are today. We didn’t start ordaining women until the 1970s. Following the metrics of the 1960s might have caused us to do that much earlier, when the Church was not ready for it. We have lost hundreds of churches and hundreds of thousands of members because of the ordination of gays and lesbians. We would have lost many more if we had followed the “metrics” and started doing that in the 1980s and 90s. No one doubts that good vestries must forecast trends, and provide leadership is worship, evangelism, and ministry. But vestries are composed of ordinary people, very few of which have the sort of skills called for in this article. Most of us are not proficient in reading “market-based reports,” or translating those reports into concrete actions. Churches hire consultants precisely because they don’t have these skills. In short, I reject the premise that the decline in mainstream religion could have been prevented by paying better attention to the metrics, or that vestries are a particularly appropriate group to read these metrics and react to them. The Episcopal Church has it’s problems, but the work of the vestries is not one of them.
Mary MacGregor on January 5, 2011 at 2:27 pm
You are so right in that 'business as usual' has gotten us to where we are today in our congregations. I agree with your premise that vestries must become more savvy in understanding the nature of change and the need to commitment to it in radical ways, the uniqueness of church systems that requires a high degree of understanding in order to function well, methodologies that relate to effective ways we work today as congregations, the importance of data and demographic research (metrics) that can help us understand our present reality and possibly support our decisions for the future, and the absolute need to listen to people's needs. All of these things will better inform and prepare church leaders to make necessary changes. However, you had a huge omission in your article. Did you intend for our unique culture as Christian communities and the way we mature spiritually and live and lead together and grow in our understanding of what it means to be faithful, be an unmentioned radical shift? My extensive work with vestries has shown me that there is a huge need for a radical departure from our assumptions about what it means to be Christian leaders in community. Rarely do I find vestries that not only have clarity about these issues but are supported and work along side spiritual leaders who strongly influence this understanding. When I do find vestries that understand this they usually have healthy, vibrant and growing congregations. Where this is not understood, I often find conflicted, unfocused, uncharitable communities struggling to just maintain the status quo which of course is a losing battle. Transformation is a word that is thrown around alot these days in congregational work, but I think it is essential. Our vestries must be transformed first in their collective commitment to God and the mission of the church. They need to walk the talk and bear witness to what it really means to be leaders of our faith communities. Combine this commitment with your six radical shifts in how they operate and watch what happens.
Kit Wang on January 6, 2011 at 1:55 pm
I wonder what staff and lay volunteers he thinks will be "running" our churches? In a small congregation like ours, the only staff is the clergy--for us one part-time priest. I'm trying to do LESS rather than more administration so I can do liturgy, expand ministry horizons, etc. I think that for small congregations, the question is how do we do our administration and operations more efficiently so that we can spend our time DOING both ministry and visioning.
Ana Arellano on January 7, 2011 at 2:01 pm
"The property and all business affairs of the Parish shall be subject to the direction, management, and control of the vestry." The above comment is from the canons of the diocese of Connecticut. I have always interpreted it to be the stewardship of the church's resources, and a valuable ministry. Running the church occupies much more than this, and many vestry members, non-members, and of course clergy and staff are active in outreach, pastoral care, music, and evangelism, etc. I interpret these others to be the true expression of the church. Vestries monitoring the finances and the state of the property free up the rest of the parish to develop the parish's mission. Under the guidance of the rector, who presides at vestry meetings, we may, on occasion, become involved in special projects. I also have a comment about the state of the Episcopal Church, growth, etc. I belong to an excellent organization of volunteers that serve in state prisons. It is entirely possible that the organization may disappear because of recruiting issues as well as other obstacles. However I may miss the organization, I will adjust, knowing that the key is the inmates need to be served. How much more so Jesus Christ.
Meg Decker on January 12, 2011 at 11:24 pm
I loved the title of this article. The content not so much. Since when do vestries operate in a vacuum? Where is the Diocese or National leadership in this? What were they doing in 1965? I went to seminary in the late '80's. Never were we encouraged to think about mission or evangelism. Church growth was never mentioned, not in class, not by Commissions on Ministry, not on the GOE's. To this day General Convention acts as if it's still 1950 and the nation is paying attention to us. The Episcopal Church is shrinking and vestries are to blame? That's a bit much I think. Aren't we all in this together? How about less blame and more help?
Paul Frey on January 19, 2011 at 5:43 pm
I like a great deal of the article. I am not sure that vestries could have foreseen the future even with better metrics. But what if vestries had been equipped with the idea that they indeed were responsible not just for maintaining the status quo, but to look at the world, what was happening in the world, and ask the questions about how to respond with the love of Christ. And further that they had a responsibility to listen for God to see how God might lead them to respond. We do need to look hard at our leadership culture and realize that we have not asked leaders and vestries to think hard about the future in terms of mission, rather than preservation. Part of the Churches mission is to be conservative and to hold fast to a witness that goes back to the apostles. But part of church culture should also be missionary, evangelistic and entrepreneurial. If the apostolic church had required all it's new leaders to go to get circumcised and go to rabbinical school we wouldn't even be having this discussion. We often confuse conserving the building, or the particular ministries that have been so valuable in our lives with holding fast to those things which are eternal. The Church was, is, and forever will be the people. While we can love buildings, and liturgy, and much, much more of the riches of Christendom, it is ultimately the love for the people who are estranged from God that we must love more than all else.
Clarence Stewart on February 1, 2011 at 11:57 am
The core challenge for our Parish-our Rector has been in place for over 20 years...as a board member-it is time for this Rector to go-on to another Parish. How can we get a Rector out?
Sandra Kolb on February 4, 2011 at 1:13 pm
Long-term pastorates are not, per se, a problem. Often a well-known and beloved leader can get the congregation to face into the need for change when a new, untried individual would only run into resistance. And vestries bear a great deal of the responsibility for initiating a discussion within the congregation about the need for change and helping the congregation envision a different future. Without knowing the particular circumstances which prompted your post it is difficult to know what would help your congregation. I would note that all organisms -- individuals and organizations -- seek stability (think about homeostasis in the regulations of the human body). Stability requires movement, however (e.g. a gymnast on a beam), and if organisms cannot adjust they die. Before assuming that the current rector needs to leave, however, I would ask the following questions. What indicates that change is warranted, that instead of being merely stable the parish has become static? Has the surrounding neighborhood or community changed radically (e.g., a community that is declining in population or facing an influx of recent immigrants)? How have these changes impacted on the parish's membership, mission and programs? Does the parish have a strategic plan? When was the last time it conducted a Mutual Ministry Review or engaged in a visioning process? If there is no culture of planning, reviewing and renewing in the parish initiating any change will be difficult (inertia is a very strong force). However, we are a resurrection people and assessing our current situation, learning from our past, and envisioning our future is the place to start. The Alban Institute has some great resources for vestries considering how to engage in a planning process. I would start with Gil Rendle's and Alice Mann's "Holy Conversations: Strategic Planning as a Spiritual Practice for Congregations." Another of Rendle's books, "Leading Change in Congregations: Spiritual and Organizational Tools for Leaders," might also be helpful. John Kotter and Ronald Heifetz are two professors of management who have great insight into the challenges leaders face in trying to make change. Anthony B. Robinson's book "Transforming Congregational Culture" takes Heifetz's theories and applies them to leadership in the church. Nancy Ammerman and Carl Dudley of Hartford Seminary have two books with lots of information about how to study both your congregation and your community: "Studying Congregations: A New Handbook" (which they edited with some other people) and "Congregations in Transition: A Guide for Analyzing, Assessing, and Adapting in Changing Communities" (which they wrote). These should get you started. Your diocesan staff may have other resources and recommendations. Once a serious assessment of the health of the parish and the needs of the surrounding community have been made, you can begin to envision new life for the parish and to talk about what it will take to live into that vision. Here options begin to open up for there are many ways in which new leadership can be exerted in a congregation, including leadership by a re-energized laity. Finally, in direct answer to your question: in the Episcopal Church, rectors have tenure. The only legal way to get them "out" is through a dissolution of pastoral relationships. This is a last-ditch process, to be engaged only when all else has failed. It requires the involvement of your bishop and his/her staff and may only be initiated by the vestry. It is costly financially, emotionally, and psychologically to all concerned. Even when events warrant it (and sometimes, sadly, they do), it leaves the congregation scarred. If you really think you are at that point, the wardens on behalf of the vestry should be in touch with your canon to the ordinary.
Everett Lees on February 18, 2011 at 5:13 pm
I have a similar question to Kit Wang. In many small churches the people on vestry are the committed lay people. I think the answer is for congregations to empower staff to make decisions independent of vestry and transition vestry to be about discipleship and leadership development so they can vision about where God is calling the church. I agree with the statement that TEC has ignored evangelism and mission as central to the church.