"It's Your Job to Save The Church"

I have some concern about my future employment if in fact the congregation does vote to close. Call processes are long, and just like all job markets, the pastor job market was also hit with the recession. To beef up both my "pastor" resume and my secular resume I started working on a certification program for non-profit management. I have taken a few workshops over the past two month and often times I am the only pastor in the room. I am surrounded by executive directors of Cares For Real or Volunteer Superintendents for Boys and Girls Club of Chicago. During introductions we always go around and share our name, our job title and why we are at the workshop. The most recent workshop was called, "What If Financial Planning". When it came time for me to introduce myself I said, "I am a pastor of a congregation on the North West side of Chicago and I am in the workshop because my congregation is currently living a What If moment for financial planning." I continued to explain that the What If implies that I am straddling two different kinds of budgets right now and I am just waiting for a voters meeting to tell me which budget I am going with. I was asked to explain further and I said, "In two weeks my congregation will be taking a vote to close. If they vote to close my budget will look one way, if they vote to remain open and continue ministry as is the budget will look another way, if they vote to remain open but sell the building and try ministry in a different way the budget will look completely different from the other two options." The moment the words, "My congregation will be taking a vote to close in two weeks" came out of my mouth a pathetic "awwww" came out of the mouths of the participants of the workshop.

At that moment the facilitator moved on to the next person as she introduced herself. I thought to myself, "maybe if I just stay quiet the rest of the workshop this will be okay." I didn't have that opportunity. There was a point in the workshop where the facilitator was talking about how sometimes organizations have to think outside of the box - try something different - cut a program that it's working and take a chance on something new. I agreed, my head was nodding - but my mouth was quiet. Then, the facilitator looked at me and said, "In your situation I'm sure people think there is nothing else for them to do. They feel stuck and they don't think they can trim anymore of their budget." Yep, he's kind of right about that - right enough to where I wasn't going to argue with him. Then he said, "But, you as the leader of the organization, in this case the congregation, can create a budget that can give back some of that hope. You can help them envision ways to get new revenue like using your building as asset and renting space. You can let them see that money can come from other sources. You just have to let them know that closing is not the only option available to them then maybe in two weeks you won't have to close." I just kind of looked at him and thought, "Wow".

I should have said, "Yes, that is an option, thanks." But, instead, my mouth took over and I said, "Thank you for the insight. The ideas are good and many things have been discussed in the congregation along those lines. However, I think the best thing for the ministry of the congregation is if they do end up voting to close." Oh my goodness! You would think I created the biggest heresy with that statement. I had three people jump on me in an instant. "What!?" "How can you, their pastor, say this?" "Aren't you their leader? You should find anyway possible to save them as a congregation." I had a 100 responses going through my head. Defense of what I've done was one, asking people how often they go to church was another, and another was to just yell back, "You don't know what you're talking about." But, nope, I didn't react that way. I was hurt. This was the first time I got this reaction from non-church folk. Instead I was pretty rational with my response. I asked them if they would keep a program if the program was no longer serving the mission of the organization? I then explained that the average age of my congregation is 75, that people are tired, and that the mission of the congregation, let alone of the wider church of Share the Good News, is not long being done. I said that because of this the best thing to do is to free up the assets and the people so that the money can be used to move forward the mission of the wider church and the people could join mission oriented congregations and stop focusing just on keeping the gas and lights of a huge building on. And, besides, I said, it's not MY ministry to keep going. I am not in charge of it alone. It is the ministry of the congregation. I am there to guide them and to work with them and to lead them where they need to go - but I can't do it for them.

This ended up going back and forth a little bit and it wasn't going anywhere. Then, during a break I had the other pastor in the group come up to me and say (and this is the comment that ended up hurting the most) "I see a lot of young pastors like you go into situations where the congregation is small and not connected with the neighborhood and the only solution they can come up with is to close the congregation. You can connect them back to the neighborhood, you can grow the membership. If it is a money issue rent space to another congregation. If the council won't let you ignore them and do it anyway. If it's an outreach issue - you do the outreach and grow the church yourself. I did that with my congregation - my congregation is a success and an example of how it can be done You young pastors just give up too easy. I know God did not call you to this congregation to close it. God never wants a congregation to close." Ouch.

I left before the workshop was completely over because I did not want to end up in a conversation with someone about how bad of a pastor I am being or how they have all the answers for how to save the congregation. I was so frustrated, hurt, and angry. I find it hard to understand why people are so upset when they hear of a congregation closing its doors - yet when the congregation is looking for people to come to worship or help with ministry it's such an uphill battle.