wfn.org | Episcopalians: Commission says 20/20 planning should include small congregations

[dmack@episcopalchurch.org]

UPDATED April 5, 2002

2002-077

Episcopalians: Commission says 20/20 planning should include 
small congregations

by Dick Snyder

(ENS) Support for the goals of the Episcopal Church's 20/20 
initiative has been expressed by the Standing Commission for 
Small Congregations, which met in late March at the Bishop Mason 
Center in the Diocese of Dallas.

While supporting the goals of church growth and renewed 
missionary endeavor, the standing commission also plans to work 
with the 20/20 strategy group to "make sure that the language 
used is not threatening to small congregations," said Ramona 
Burroughs of South Dakota, co-chair of the commission.

Many small churches are in communities that are not growing, and 
there needs to be "consideration for their vitality," said the 
Very Rev. H. W. Herrmann of the Diocese of Quincy.  "There are 
different ways to measure vitality," he added.

Showing understanding for the condition of small churches should 
be a factor in the 20/20 plans because, according to statistics 
compiled by the national church, "two-thirds of all 
Episcopalians worshipping on any Sunday worship in a church with 
100 or fewer in the congregation," he added.

That statistic was clarified by Lee Clark of the Church 
Report Company. "It is understandable that on hearing 
'two-thirds of Episcopal churches have 100 or fewer worshipers 
in their pews on an average Sunday,' one could jump to 
believing,or thinking they had heard that two-thirds of 
Episcopalians worship in churches of 100 or less in attendance," 
he commented. "But the fact is that 59% of all Episcopal 
churches have attendance of 100 or fewer on an average Sunday. 
When the sum total of all attending those churches on an average 
Sunday is added up, it comes to just over 207,000 Episcopalians. 
 This represents 24% of the total of all who are worshiping 
(855,761) in all Episcopal churches (7299) on an average Sunday 
in the year 2000."

Many of those churches are in dioceses that utilize clergy 
trained and ordained under the church's local ministry, or Canon 
9 model, which the standing commission is on record as favoring. 
 The standing commission also voted to work with the Standing 
Commission for Ministry Development in monitoring proposed 
changes in the ministry canons that may be proposed at the 2003 
General Convention.

"We are also encouraging small congregations and the rest of the 
church to be more intentional about involving the youth" in all 
facets of the church's life, said Burroughs.  "They are not just 
the hope for the future, but they are the church of today." She 
added that she would be in conversation with the 20/20 strategy 
group to express the position taken by the standing commission.

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--Dick Snyder is a freelance church journalist, seminarian, and 
member of the Standing Commission for Small Congregations