Case Study
Average Sunday attendance 23. Average age 65. Minimum racial diversity. Average gender diversity. Two children.
Priests: 2015-2019 supply, 2019-2022 part-time rector; 2022-2024 supply, 2024-present part-time priest in residence.
Mission: Worship God, Serve Community, Welcome All.
Holy Trinity, Manistee is a small family-sized congregation located in a resort town on the north central coast of Lake Michigan. Average Sunday attendance hovers around 20 -25 per week with minimal seasonal variation. The age range skews elderly, though there are a few children and young adult members. It has probably been close to 20 years or more since the parish has had full-time clergy leadership. Part-time rectors, long-term supply clergy, and resident retired clergy have all been utilized in the past. Fr. Brian Coleman is currently serving as priest-in-residence under a three-year letter of agreement.
Senior Warden takes rector administrative role. Junior Warden backs up Senior Warden in addition to church campus upkeep. Five additional Vestrypersons. All Vestrypersons on three-year terms with potential to serve two terms in succession before mandatory one-year break. Two licensed lay preachers, two licensed worship leaders. Lay leadership for finance committee, adult/children formation, altar guild, baby pantry. Part-time priest in residence provides eucharist services and pastoral care as requested. No music program.
Leadership is lay led. The senior warden functions as the Rector for all intents and purposes and consults with resident clergy as necessary. Other lay leaders take responsibility for outreach ministries, buildings and grounds, administration, and Christian education. There are three part-time lay employees who are responsible for administrative support, bookkeeping, and sexton duties.
Day-to-day. Vestry persons liaison with committees. Parish secretary and bookkeeper work with Senior Warden and treasurer on financial matters using current parish policies. No formal formation activities; however, periodic one-time events coordinated through Vestry liaison. Sunday worship services provided through part-time priest in residence on average three times monthly. Remaining Sunday services are ante-communion conducted by worship leaders.
Most decisions are made collaboratively with congregational leaders and the vestry. Pretty much everything happens on Sundays with very little activity taking place during the week. I suspect that a great deal of pastoral care is handled interpersonally among members of the congregation via telephone and in-person visits.
No formal strategic planning. Major outreach is Baby Pantry which is community-based, housed within campus property, operated through volunteers and funded through private donations and grants.
Setting mission and outreach strategy takes place through the vestry and by outreach ministry leaders.
- Providing Sunday Eucharistic services. Diocesan licensing of lay preachers and worship leaders have made it possible to provide meaningful Sunday worship on Sundays without Eucharist.
- Not having a priest with extended knowledge about church policies and procedures to advise the Vestry.
- Not having a priest with parish experience in financial matters.
- Lack of a sense of connection to the larger institutional structures of the church.
Our Canon Missioner, Rev. Nurya Parish, is our essential link to the Diocese. The current Senior Warden has had extended contact with the Diocese through her volunteer work on the Commission on Ministry.
WHAT BISHOP!!! The Standing Committee has done a splendid job acting as ecclesiastical authority but they have, as have we all, been dealing with continual upheaval and change at the bishop level. Our parish remains more parochial than Diocesan.
Contact with the diocese transpires through regional diocesan staff and between the part-time parish administrator and the diocesan offices. We attend yearly diocesan convention, mandated diocesan training sessions, and occasional diocesan services.
That we may have a future! The number of our parishioners who will actively assume leadership positions dwindles each year. Of course we would like to have more people in our congregation, an active youth program, financial stability and so forth but do not find that realistically in our future.
Greater visibility in the local community. More vitality in lay-led mission and ministry. More lay involvement in worship leadership.
Church website: cothtm.org Facebook: Church of the Holy Trinity Manistee