Guidance for a Church on the Cusp of Legacy, or Ending its Current way of Ministry – Transcript

Jim Latimer
Welcome to Coaching for Interims. We are about empowerment for interim ministers, best practices and quick help from interims for interims – wisdom from the field. I am your host Reverend Jim Latimer. Today I have the pleasure of having with me – with us – Reverend Cindy Mueller. Cindy is a long experienced pastor with a particular depth of experience in interim ministry. She has lots of – what’s the word deep wisdom? – in many areas. One in particular is when congregations come to that point where they think to themselves, Umm, which path do we take forward? Cindy can speak to that issue – the one where congregations are right on that point, that cusp point. There’s a word we sometimes use to describe this point – “threshold.” Cindy has a beautiful way of describing what threshold is, and if you would speak to that and its implications, we’d love it.

Cindy Mueller
Sure, Jim. “Threshold” is when a congregation finds itself at a significant moment in its life, and is facing the question of, So where do we go from here? Oftentimes, it’s called, Are we at a point where we need to really determine if we can stay open or not? Do we have the capacity to stay open or not? And sometimes that kind of intentional planning will lead to closure, and sometimes possibly not. What I found to be one of the strongest ways to determine if your church finds itself at this point is if it no longer has the capacity – the human capacity – to be able to fill those leadership positions. For any nonprofit in any state there are certain requirements you just have to have in order to be a nonprofit. And without those key leadership roles you can no longer function as a nonprofit. But oftentimes, churches have bylaws or their constitution that says, You have X number of seats that you have to fill by leaders. And it’s just an outstandingly large amount of people for small congregation to do that. And of course, you feel really bad and you want to fill all those spots. My caution would be, is it important that you fill those spots, or is it important to look at who you are overall? And maybe you need to change your bylaws; maybe you need to change your structure so that it works better for who you are today, rather than when it was written, you know, 100 or 120 years ago, whatever the case might be.

There are several different kinds of signs for a church that finds itself in such a place. Most people assume it’s when we’re running out of money. And that is not necessarily the case. Often our churches have endowments, and they’re literally whittling away at their endowment to even pay their heating bills. Or their building has had very poor maintenance done throughout the years. And so they’re pumping a ton of money into their building. But at a time like this, especially utilizing the UCC Living Legacy materials, you can choose – in the course of discerning – that maybe you need to sell your building; maybe you need to rent back the space for worship. Maybe it would do more for your community if a nonprofit set itself up in your building. I know with one of our churches, a person wanted to have a food pantry and a thrift store. And the church gave her the building to do that, because that was a continuation of a legacy that they could leave in their community. The last thing I want a church that finds itself at this kind of significant threshold, is feeling really bad about themselves, and that they believe there’s some kind of shame that they need to own – shame that they failed. And I don’t think it needs to be approached like that at all. Instead, break that myth. No church was ever created to be here forever. All you got to do is look in the Scriptures, and you’ll find evidence of that.

Maybe God has a different plan in mind for the ministry that they are seeding. They’re still in the community. The members are still in the community, whether it’s eight members, or as I heard one story – 400 members! But they, too, seriously came to this threshold moment and said, I don’t think God is wanting us to continue the ministry that we’ve been doing in this place any longer. And, you know, more power to them for looking at that situation and trying to figure out where God’s calling them. So again, really trying to help them identify the strengths that they’ve had over the years, the ministry that they have changed their community, the lives that they have changed that are not just members of their church, but the mission and ministry that they’ve been a part of for sometimes 100 or more years.

Jim Latimer
Sure! Cindy, let me just interrupt you here. I love what you said around letting go of this notion that somehow we’re failing if we don’t have the human capacity to fill all the leadership positions, right? First of all, you said – which I think is spot on – is to rewrite your bylaws. The bylaws are made to serve you, not the other way around, right? So what kind of a bylaw revision is necessary that really serves you and supports you going forward? This then raises the next question, as you said, So what are we doing going forward? And you didn’t use this word I don’t think, but what I heard was that the thrift store and food pantry of that church were a continuation of the values of the congregation, right? That’s what’s important. So they were able to still embody these values that they have probably lived for 100 or more years, but in a slightly different form. That’s got success written all over it! That’s something to be proud of – a beautiful thing. And the other thing that you said around hope – legitimate hope – is about seeing yourself as seeding a future ministry and seeing yourself as a seed. There is a lot of Scripture around that. That’s a beautiful way to let go of this stuff that’s holding us back, Oh, we can’t do what my parents did, or grandparents did, or la la la. Let go of that, and look to the future of what God’s got coming for us. Wow.

Cindy Mueller
Yes. Another thing to keep in mind is that the ministry that happens during this significant threshold doesn’t happen quickly. There are so many issues that come up. One of them being just the legality that if you’re choosing, after discerning, that this significant threshold means that you’re going to close, there are a lot of legal issues to it that can take quite a long time. You have to get an attorney to help with this process. We in the church, and people that are not attorneys, tend to make assumptions about what we need to do. And it’s better to find that out from somebody who really does know what we need to do. We don’t want to drag our feet through it. But at the same time, we want to be informed. And there’s a cost with that. And that’s the reality. Obviously when you hire an attorney, there’s a cost. I would highly, highly recommend to people that if you’re finding yourself in a situation that is like this, that you consult your conference, your association, so that the staff can help you – offer some guidance and support. The pastor needs special support. The congregation needs special support. We have resources from the national setting of the church as well that can help us when we find ourselves in this situation, whether it’s with our buildings, or whether it’s just trying to figure out what this is going to look like. And most importantly, if we find ourselves being a minister in the midst of this situation, we have to find places of support. This is hard ministry. It goes against many things we learn as ministers. We’re supposed to come in and revitalize and re-energize and give hope and renewal to a church. And it may not be that that is what we’re being called to do. And it’s hard to explain that to colleagues. It’s hard for people to really appreciate that. I’m so grateful that David Schoen on the national staff has a group that meets every month, a group of pastors who are serving churches in these significant threshold times. Because nobody knows better than them what you’re experiencing when faced with such a critical threshold at a church.

Jim Latimer
Yes. Wow. Well, that is a good place to end this segment. Another really rich one! I especially like what you said that if you’re a pastor, or you’re a lay leader in a church and you find yourself at this place really questioning, Well, can we continue doing ministry the way we have been doing it? That is a flag saying, Get help! Talk to your conference! Even if you haven’t talked to the conference for quite a while they’re still there. And they’re pretty sharp. They’ve been around the block a few times. There’s probably not anything you could ask them or tell them that will surprise them. They’ve heard these things before, because these are patterns. These are patterns that can feel unique when you’re in that really high stress place. It can feel like, Oh, no one else has been here! But that’s almost never the case. There are people who have been down this road before.

Cindy Mueller
I would also want to mention that these materials – Living Legacy materials – and I can’t remember the name of the other one off the top of my head, but they’re really great materials for any minister. You don’t have to just be at this incredibly significant moment. These resources can help a congregation prepare for the time that will come somewhere in their history that they probably are going to close. It gives some really practical advice. It lists resources within our denomination. It’s got a wealth of information that can be valuable to any minister that’s serving a church.

Jim Latimer
That’s great. So, Living Legacy materials. People can find them through www.ucc.org. – the national setting’s website. Beautiful, Cindy. Thank you so much. This is a good place to conclude this segment. I’m sure there’s lots more wisdom that you have on this topic. Hopefully we can get that in another segment. Thank you so much, Cindy, for your generosity with your time and your thoughts and your heart for churches.

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