wfn.org | Presbyterians must Embrace Change to Renew Urban Congregations

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27-January-1999 
99032 
 
    Presbyterians must Embrace Change to 
    Renew Urban Congregations 
 
    by Evan Silverstein 
 
LOS ANGELES - The Rev. Suzan Ireland stood outside Immanuel Presbyterian 
Church near Hollywood as if waiting for an inspirational light to guide her 
struggling congregation through the looming darkness of a new millennium. 
 
    Ireland, the pastor of St. James Presbyterian Church in Chicago, was 
one of about 700 Presbyterians who attended the denomination's third 
Churchwide Redevelopment Conference in Los Angeles Jan. 21-24. Her 
35-member congregation on the north side of the Windy City has something in 
common with the gothic church that towered over her on Wilshire Boulevard - 
it's struggling for new members, just as the California church was only a 
few years ago. 
 
    Ireland knows from experience that church leaders who undertake 
redevelopments like Immanuel's must reach deep into the surrounding 
community to attract people of other faiths and other racial ethnic groups 
to fill the church and help pay the bills. 
 
    It also makes worship services more hospitable. 
 
    "It's just much nicer to sing with a group of 40 or 50 people, rather 
than nine," Ireland said of her congregation's choir, which performs during 
multi-denominational services. 
 
    But change is slow to catch on in some traditional congregations - even 
when the need is undeniable, as it is for Presbyterians. The church's 
membership rolls reflect a sharp decline over the past three decades - as 
much as 75 percent in some cities. 
 
    "It's very difficult to get outside our walls and think together in 
terms of the ministry," said Ireland, who also serves as director of the 
Northside Presbyterian Parish. "It's a real challenge." 
 
    Her churches are not the only ones grappling with membership declines. 
 
    The number of urban Presbyterian churchgoers in Chicago plummeted more 
than 50 percent between 1967 and 1997, from 87,882 to 43,315. Meanwhile, 
the number of  Presbyterian churches in Chicago also declined, from 143 
churches to 118. 
 
    Membership in Presbyterian urban churches in Philadelphia and Detroit 
also declined by more than 50 percent. In New York and Cleveland, 
membership declined by more than 65 percent; in metropolitan San Francisco, 
by more than 75 percent. 
 
     "It's a different game out there now," said Trey Hammond, the General 
Assembly's coordinator for urban ministry, "and as long as we insist on 
trying to play the same game, we're living in denial - and it's killing us. 
It's easier to go on dying than it is to take that step ... back into the 
community, or to think that they can grow. In that sense it's contrary to 
God's will, which is for us to thrive." 
 
    Although cultural change and dwindling numbers have driven many 
congregations into retrenchment, others are exploring and even embracing 
the changes through congregational redevelopment programs, said Hammond. 
 
    "We've been lulled into complacency," he said. "We need to become lean 
and hungry again for the very thing that we're called to do -  to be a 
community of faith, and hope, and joy, and service, and justice." 
 
    The redevelopment conference, at the Omni Los Angeles Hotel & Centre, 
provided an opportunity for participants to see how other urban 
congregations are meeting the challenge. That was the focus of workshops, 
spirited worship services, keynote speakers and field trips to nearby 
churches. 
 
    Officials urged that the definition of "urban ministry" be expanded to 
include suburban ministries, because the boundaries between cities and 
suburbs are vanishing. Hope Presbyterian Church in Tinton Falls, N.J., 70 
miles north of Atlantic City and 40 miles south of Manhattan, is a perfect 
example of a congregation trying to adjust to a changing neighborhood. 
 
    After a recent building boom, Tinton Falls had thousands of new 
residents who commuted north to work and had no community ties. When Hope 
Presbyterian's membership dipped to an all-time low of 101 about four years 
ago, the church turned to "less regular things" to attract new worshipers, 
said its pastor, the Rev. Alan R. Schaefer. A pet worship service, for 
example. 
 
    Schaefer leads worshipers in a 15-to-20-minute liturgy "about how pets 
are God's gift to us," laying his hands on the animals, reciting 
appropriate prayers and conversing with pet owners. 
 
    "It's a very intimate moment that you normally wouldn't have with 
people, since they wouldn't necessarily come to the church for any other 
reason," Schaefer said. "It especially touches children, but it also 
touches people of all ages." 
 
    Hope, which now has 160 members, also started a community food pantry 
and a six-month residential program for unwed mothers and their 
pre-adolescent children. It also sponsors a "Parents' Night Out" program, 
in which young people of the community socialize with friends under church 
supervision while their  parents enjoy time alone. 
 
    The Rev. Curtis Jones, the pastor of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church 
in Baltimore, delivered the keynote speech on the first night of the 
conference. He said a church must maintain a level of engagement with the 
community if it is to engage in meaningful ministry. 
 
    "It's not what we can do for you, but what can we do with you," Jones 
said. 
 
    Madison Avenue Presbyterian has practiced what Jones preaches. It has 
created an affordable-housing ministry, launched inter-generational 
literacy and tutoring programs, founded a greeting-card company operated 
entirely by young people of the neighborhood, and created a multi-service 
agency, the Lilly A. Ross Family Life Center, that is devoted to life 
sciences. 
 
    "It's no longer, `Let's sustain the church based on gifts and 
pledges,'" said Robert Cross, director of Present Age Ministries, a 
consulting firm. "It's no longer, `Let's see how much money we can pull 
down from the presbyteries to make it happen.' 
 
    "It's all about how can we create enterprises," said Cross, an elder at 
Bethlehem-Stewart Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis. "How can we create 
entrepreneurship that is going to be profit-making and can become 
supportive elements of ministry and mission?" 
 
One goal of the conference, officials said, is to promote a return to the 
days, in the late 19th century, when the Presbyterian Church was a national 
leader in urban ministry. The denomination's strategy was to build homes in 
inner-city neighborhoods and create community centers to serve the families 
and children who lived in them. 
 
    Since the mid-1990s, when Presbyterian Evangelism and Church 
Development officials pioneered a redevelopment program, the model of 
church-based community organization has spread rapidly across the nation. 
In late 1995, 40 people representing presbyteries that were considering or 
actively sponsoring redevelopment clusters came together in Denver, Colo., 
to form the Churchwide Redevelopment Training Network. 
 
    The first national redevelopment conference was held in San Antonio, 
Texas, in January 1997, drawing about 300 participants. 
 
    During this year's conference, program officials stressed five forces 
that can help establish a new direction for a congregation: 
 
    *  Spiritual energy - Because it is God who provides the spiritual 
       energy needed for redevelopment, Presbyterians can begin by opening 
       their hearts to God's guidance. 
    *  Congregational identity- Individual churches must come to terms with 
       their pasts and let go of those aspects of identity that keep them 
       from moving into the future. 
    *  Congregational leadership -  Congregational transformation requires 
       that the pastor and the laity work together as a team. 
    *  Reentering the community - Congregations that have lost contact with 
       their communities must be trained to build relationships with their 
       neighbors. 
    *  Building a Ministry Plan - As the dynamics of redevelopment unfold, 
       a series of ad hoc plans will evolve into an overall ministry plan. 

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