Where transfer growth is not so common, or rather on a much smaller scale, like in most rural churches, the frustration level can get elevated. As we try and try “New Thing” to attract people, with little results. This is what we have been taught to do, so we plan and organize more programs, exhausting ourselves in the process, while seeing no flocks of people coming. It’s because we are spending too much time on planning and supporting the programs and not enough time with people. Our core church people are tired. If you don’t believe me, ask them. They are tired of running, and running, and seeing few people unbeliever come to Christ, or too church for that matter. Its’ an exhausting treadmill. Here is a great Article from the chronicle Herald where a church decided to stop running.
Mennonite church takes a sabbatical
By JOHN LONGHURST Winnipeg Free Press
Sat, Aug 7 - 4:54 AM
WINNIPEG — It’s common for clergy to take sabbaticals — time off for rest and rejuvenation. But can a whole church take one, too?
That’s what the Whitewater Mennonite Church in Boissevain, southwest of Winnipeg, is doing. Starting in September 2009, the congregation suspended all its committees and committee work for a year.
"It’s been a year of letting go of the assumptions of how we do church," says lead pastor Judith Doell. "We’re not sure why we exist anymore. We know the church is changing. This is a way to try to figure that out."
The congregation still meets on Sundays, of course, and members also meet in small groups during the week.
"The point is to rest and get to know each other," Doell says, adding the congregation also gave itself the goal of reading through the Bible.
Church members also meet monthly to deal with any pressing decisions that need to be made. But if somebody comes up with an idea for a new project, and nobody volunteers, it doesn’t happen.
The church decided to take a year off because the way they were structured had become a burden for the small number of people who call it home.
Although the church can seat 300, only about 70 people attend on an average Sunday morning — and many of those are seniors.
"We needed to evaluate why and what we were doing, and we needed to pare down our structures," Doell says, noting that the church was finding it hard to fill all the committee positions.
Whitewater’s situation is not unique, she notes; many small-town churches are struggling to find people to run programs due to rural depopulation. "We were finding it harder to find volunteers," she says.
In deciding to take a year off, the church drew inspiration from the Book of Leviticus, where the Israelites were instructed to take a "year of Jubilee" every 50 years.
During that year they were supposed to let the soil lie fallow, give property back to those who had been forced to sell it due to financial hardship and free all the slaves — basically stop their regular work and release themselves from regular activities.
The church also took heart from the story of Mary and Martha in the Book of Luke, where Jesus praises Mary for taking time to sit and listen.
"We are trying to learn what it means to sit at the Lord’s feet," says Doell, adding that the year off is a time for members to "to stop our regular church work and seek a new sense of freedom and release in our life together."
And how’s it going so far? "It’s been challenging," she acknowledges. "We are such a doing society. It’s hard to stop and ask who we are, why we are here."
But one thing is already clear to Doell: "Not as much is required (of a church) as we think," she says. "Much of our busyness is just that — busyness," she says.
Plus, she adds, "much of Jesus’s ministry was just hanging out with people."
Organizational guru Peter Drucker liked to say that every business or organization should ask itself periodically: "If we weren’t doing what we now do, would we want to start doing it?" If the answer was probably not, he said, "then maybe it isn’t the right thing to do anymore."
‘Much of Jesus’s ministry was just hanging out with people.’
PastorJUDITH DOELL. [1]
[1] Mennonite church takes a sabbatical. By JOHN LONGHURST Winnipeg Free Press, Sat, Aug 7 - 4:54 AM. Accessed July 8, 2010 http://thechronicleherald.ca/Religion/1195671.html
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