wfn.org | 'Excellent' congregations include Santa Monica church

[NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG]

March 5, 2001	News media contact: Linda Bloom·(212) 870-3803·New York
10-71B{109}

NOTE: This report is accompanied by a sidebar, UMNS story #110.

By United Methodist News Service

When First United Methodist Church in Santa Monica, Calif., celebrated its
125th anniversary last year, it was still the largest Protestant
congregation in town.

But, as the Rev. Patricia Farris noted, longevity can sometimes breed
complacency. When she arrived at First Church two and a half years ago, she
found a clergy-driven style that, over the decades, had inadvertently helped
create a lack of spiritual investment by the membership.

How that church turned around, as well as the fruition of its long-term
housing project, caught the attention of researchers, who have since named
it an "excellent" congregation.

Paul Wilkes, a Catholic layman and writer based at the University of North
Carolina at Wilmington, led the two-year parish/congregation study, funded
with a Lilly Endowment grant. He and other researchers identified about 300
exemplary Catholic parishes and 300 exemplary Protestant congregations
throughout the United States. 

The result is two books, Excellent Catholic Parishes, now in print, and
Excellent Protestant Congregations, which is to be published soon. Another
outgrowth of the study is a "Pastoral Summit" for local church leaders May
30-June 1 in New Orleans (see sidebar).   

Wilkes told participants at a recent National Council of Churches meeting
that he considers the books to be "a Michelin guide to churches." The books
also provide useful information and ideas for other congregations that will
be expanded upon at the summit.

One of the conclusions Wilkes drew from the study is that new members tend
to look for a church rather than a denomination. "If there is a church that
attracts them, that's the affiliation they will have," he explained. "That's
why the local church is so, so crucial."

First Church in Santa Monica is one of nine congregations profiled in the
Protestant edition. Farris believes that Wilkes was attracted to the church
because of its housing project and the fact that it had a large congregation
led by a woman. But after he arrived, he noticed the shift in style.

With a longtime reputation for outstanding music and preaching, it took
awhile to realize that membership in the large and wealthy congregation was
slipping. In the essay, Wilkes points out that Farris "sensed that this
church could easily become still another of the grand old irrelevant relics
of American church life if it did not change."

"We're trying to move more from membership to discipleship and to empower
the congregation to be the church," Farris told United Methodist News
Service. "I suppose it's a combination of programming as well as leadership
style and my style."

These "inreach" efforts have led to a spiritual awakening among the
membership; a revamping of the internal committee structure; identification
of lay leadership and a feeling of personal ownership. Member after member
told Wilkes and another researcher that they "have been introduced to a
living God within these walls and in their lives."

So far, membership at First Church, which Farris estimates at 1,500, has not
increased dramatically, but worship service attendance is up. "We're still
very much in process," she said.

Last spring, after 13 years of work and a complicated partnership with the
city of Santa Monica and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development, a new facility for senior housing and transitional housing for
the homeless was opened in what used to be the church parking lot across the
street.

"That's a long time to sustain the vision," Farris said. "What we have now
are the amazing stories of families that were living on the street and now
have stable lives." A bonus to the church was three levels of underground
parking.

Other United Methodist churches identified as "excellent" congregations in
the study included Culver-Palms in Culver City, Calif.; First in Napa,
Calif.; Wesley in San Jose, Calif.; Hillsdale in San Mateo, Calif.; St.
Paul's in Vacaville, Calif.; Ben Hill in Atlanta; St. Luke in Columbus, Ga.;
Ravenswood Fellowship in Chicago; St. Thomas in Glen Ellyn, Ill.; First in
Peoria, Ill.; St. Luke's in Indianapolis; Rayne Memorial in New Orleans;
Orchard in Farmington Hills, Mich.; and First in Hillsdale, Mich.

Also, Douglas in Oronoco, Minn.; St. Mark's in Lincoln, Neb.; St. Timothy in
Brevard, N.C.; Delta in Sandy Ridge, N.C.; Hulbert in Hulbert, Okla.; Christ
in Bethel Park, Pa.; Hobson in Nashville, Tenn.; University in Austin,
Texas; St. Luke Community in Dallas; Jubilee in Duncanville, Texas; St.
John's in Houston; Windsor Village in Houston; University Temple in Seattle;
Peace in Kaukauna, Wis.; First in Wausau, Wis.; and First in Whitewater,
Wis. 

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United Methodist News Service
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