wfn.org | Commissioner describes redeveloped congregation

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Note #6652 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

13-June-2001
GA01093

Commissioner describes redeveloped congregation

by Midge Mack

LOUISVILLE, June 13 - Granger, In. is as close as possible to the
Indiana-Michigan border just north of Elkhart. The Granger Presbyterian
Church (GPC) is 156 years old, but it has been reborn in the last eight
years, even moving across the street to a new building just two years ago.

The Rev. Jim Conner is one of the minister-commissioners to this Assembly,
but it's unlikely he'll be back very soon. To Conner, most of General
Assembly is a "colossal waste of time and resources."   His committee
assignment, Church Orders and Ministry, did not dispel this perception. "Our
primary achievement was rewriting chapter 14 of the Book of Order," he said.

He is particularly saddened by the statistics of the denomination's
continuing membership losses, some 34,000 in the past year, with only 11,000
new members (counted by profession of faith and baptism, not transfers). "I
want to find out where those 11,000 came from," Conner says, "and put all
our resources there. What I'm most interested in is not what or who we've
been, or currently are, but of what we're going to be in the future."

When Conner came to Granger eight years ago, his congregation numbered 40,
with an average age of 64, versus an average age of 34 in the community. 
Now, with a membership of 103 and 180 at Sunday worship, the average age of
the congregation is 37.

"The focus of the congregation is no longer on survival, or even the summer
barbeque," Conner says.  "Instead, we focus on evangelizing in our
community, bringing people to Jesus, since we've found that 40 per cent of
our people have no previous church background. We have small groups for
Bible Study, prayer and mutual support, and when we built the building, we
weren't very concerned about aesthetics. The only question we asked was 'how
will this help us reach and minister to people?'"

Conner described theme based-worship at GPC. "A team decides on a theme and
we do all we can to carry it throughout the service and do it well," he
reports. "Once we chose 'forgiveness as a gift of God.' We used the image of
brightly wrapped gifts projected on the screen, with matching wrapped gifts
on the communion table.  Everyone received a gift that Sunday.

"On Father's Day, the theme will be more male-oriented, featuring baseball,
with a diamond laid out in the sanctuary and home plate in the chancel," he
said. "We're going to talk about what it means to 'be home' as in being a
family of God."

	Conner reports that media and music are vital parts of worship. The
projection screen carries themed artwork, music and other worship elements.
"We've been through four musical transitions in eight years," he said.  "I
listen to the Top-40 to be sure we include Christian versions of what our
congregation likes. We have music for Generation X and Y and Boomers, too."

	As for what happened to the original 40 members, Conner reports that 15 or
20 of them are still around and supportive.

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