Assessing the Capacity of a Congregation to be a New Church – 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 and I have the pleasure of having with me today Reverend Dr. Jonathan New. Jonathan is a savvy and experienced interim minister. I think he’s done about six interims so far, and as I’m getting to know him better, I’m seeing this really rich wisdom that he has. I’m delighted that he’s here to share some of that with us. So Jonathan, in this particular segment, what would you like to speak to?

Jonathan New
Well, one thing I’d like to talk about, Jim, is the capacity of a congregation to be church or to be maybe a new church. You know, in the work that I did in the former Massachusetts Conference, part of what I focused on was what we might call “threshold churches.” Those are churches that are at a crossroads where their next step, or their inability to move, will be what I would call, “existentially consequential.” So assessing the overall capacity to be and to do church can be essential for those churches. But I think this is true for any church that’s thinking about embracing change in a way that might mean new directions for it.

I mentioned in a previous segment thinking about how we assess the congregation and some things that we might focus on. And I want to name five of those very quickly here, just in terms of how I might think about this specific issue. All of these have direct bearing on the issue of a church’s capacity to be and to do church. So I’m thinking about things like its past and or future orientation – the degree to which, for example, it’s a church that is nostalgic about its previous incarnation and maybe carrying that into the future. I’m thinking about things like its outward or inward look. Right? So is its mission understanding broad or narrow? Does it understand the community it’s serving? And why it’s serving it in the ways that it is? Is it doing that? Its connection with other churches and/or the wider church. So I look at some of those things. I also look at mission and vision – these are sort of basic things at this point – the degree to which the church is purpose driven, or survival driven. The extent to which this is known throughout the congregation – the sense of purpose, and reason for being. So whether or not that’s really built into the fabric of the congregation or not, and goes wide and deep. And the extent to which it guides the church. I also look at the general topic of change and risk. So here I’m thinking about its openness to, and its ability to, and its resistance to meet change, and to risk. And maybe importantly, especially these days, where we have COVID really emphasizing this – the willingness and ability to try and to fail, and to learn from what happens in that process. And the fifth thing that I would name here would be leadership. Do we have enough people not just to fill the committee structure that we have, but to be and to do church? What’s the church’s energy level? Is there evidence of burnout? Is there trust in the church’s leadership, not just pastoral, but lay leadership as well? And things like, is there leadership follow through when it comes to projects, and let’s say mission opportunities and the like. So again, I look at those things, because these help me to think about the church’s capacity to be and to do church.

And yet I would also say fundamentally, there are five questions that we need to ask about some specific things. One of those is does it have the money? Does it have the money to be and do church? Money problems will certainly indicate deeper issues and I think it is quite useful to look at the money because, like the tip of the iceberg, it will reveal some other things underneath the surface. And there always are things underneath the surface, but frankly money isn’t the biggest problem most of our churches have. They think it is. But it’s not. I have seen plenty of churches with gobs of money fail to be and to do church, and frankly, come to an end. It wasn’t because of whether or not they had money. But I think the money does matter. And in particular, how they think about the money, and how the money helps the congregation be and do what it’s called to be and do. Secondly, does it have the people? Does it have a critical mass, right? That important resource that we have to have in order to be church. And also, does it have the imagination? One of the problems that I have seen with congregations as they get smaller and smaller and smaller is that it’s often the innovators and the dreamers who have previously exited the church as a system. What that can mean is that the folks who remain, the ones who are keeping it going – great folks, deeply faithful and deeply committed – but they tend to be managers, and they tend not to be the sort of innovative dreaming types. It doesn’t mean there aren’t some among them. But in general, that’s been my experience.

Another thing I look at is spirit. This is critically important, and something that often gets overlooked. I’m talking about the practice of leaning into the spirit in discernment and decision making – the extent to which that’s happening on a regular basis. Also the sense of God’s Spirit guiding the church, whether or not that’s present at all, and the extent to which it is. And also basically, that feeling of whether or not there is a future into which the Spirit of God is calling us. Finally, when I think about these questions – and maybe the most important – is will: does the congregation have the will to be and to do church or be and do church differently? There is a tremendous feeling of weariness that can be absolutely overwhelming for the folks who have remained and who have kept things going. And who feel like there’s no help coming behind them to help them continue to do this. And so sometimes there is just no will left, in part because there’s just tremendous weariness. I’ve mentioned that all of this bears on what I would call “threshold churches.” But really, I think any church that’s contemplating doing a new thing, or becoming a new thing, has to assess capacity in order to undertake that effort faithfully.

Jim Latimer
Wow! So there are five key questions. This segment has been really rich. The first one, if I could just try to cap a little bit – and there’ll be a transcript of this that listeners can download – is about having the money to be in do church. And then people, if there’s a critical mass and if people have the imagination and spirit, and will – the last one that you really highlighted – do they have the will to do church differently? That’s a courage question.

Jonathan New
Yes. Yes it is.

Jim Latimer
And you could probably make a case that having that kind of courage and trust is really what makes a church, a church of Jesus Christ or a club that we belong to because it makes us feel good. Nothing wrong with that, but…..

Jonathan New
Yes. Absolutely. Well, I think that part of what I’m trying to get at here is that this is higher level assessment. We might be doing this unconsciously. In our role as interims I think it’s important that we do it more consciously. And that we reflect back some of the things that we’re seeing and observing into the congregation. And frankly, again, assess what happens when you send that out – when you hold that particular mirror up.

Jim Latimer
Wow. That’s great. So as we conclude this segment, what you just said that I think is so important as an interim, is that one of the key skills of a good interim minister leader is being able to facilitate and gather people in conversations around things that matter, topics that matter, so it’s not all in your head, but to gather them in and do that regularly about things that matter. This is the phrase that I would use.

Jonathan New
Absolutely. Because the end product here – there will be a pastoral search that includes something like a church profile that has to get written, and that’s a product that comes out of the interim time – but equally and maybe more important, is the process of discernment that we have been in with the congregation. So the multiple ways that we can do this are all important.

Jim Latimer
That’s beautiful. So thank you very much for this wonderful talk around assessing capacity of the congregation to be a new church. Thanks very much, Jonathan.

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