Davis is senior director for Theological Education Funds Development with the Presbyterian Foundation. During the current season of “Leading Theologically,” he’s exploring the theme “Everything Small Church.” Burton is Mission and Ministry Connector for the Presbytery of Southern Kansas.
On “Leading Theologically,” Burton invited listeners to do the math when it comes to PC(USA) churches being served by a pastor and those being served by someone else. Most Presbyterians go to a church served by a pastor, but most churches can’t afford a full-time pastor, she noted.
“Unfortunately for a lot of Presbyterians who can’t fathom being in a church without a pastor, a small church probably sounds like it’s dying,” she said. In the Presbytery of Southern Kansas, only two churches have 300 or more members.
Asked by Davis how she defines a healthy small church, Burton said she goes back to a PC(USA) publication, “7 Marks of Vital Congregations,” which includes these marks of congregational health: Lifelong Discipleship Formation, Intentional Authentic Evangelism, Outward Incarnational Focus, Empowered Servant Leaders, Spirit-Inspired Worship, Caring Relationships and Ecclesial Health.
“Honestly, those have nothing to do with staff and nothing to do with size,” she said. “Is the church focused more on what it’s called to do than it is on itself? Does it see a possibility in the future more than it thinks about what it used to be? Size isn’t an issue.”
Congregational health will look different from place to place, even across one presbytery. One church in the Presbytery of Southern Kansas picks an online sermon to listen to when they gather for Sunday worship and sings along with recorded music. “It’s Spirit-inspired worship, even though it’s not what a lot of Presbyterians think of as real worship,” Burton said.
“There’s very little performative membership in rural small churches,” she said. “You’re apt to be engaged in the theological depth of it.”
Figuring out what those churches need “gets distilled down pretty quickly,” she said. “At the end of the day, there’s not going to be a lot of fluff.” Generally, “there are people who love their church and want to learn how to lead them.” Many people in pastor-less congregations “are so receptive to being trained, to gaining more leadership and to understanding more about why we do things.”
Burton says she thinks “a lot” about incarnation in her work. “If we say the church is the body of Christ, what does it mean for that church to be the body of Christ in their community?”
“We will be closing some of these churches in the coming years. We know this,” she said. “But there is great value in that presence of the body of Christ in that community.”
There’s “a lot of good in rural America, and it’s important the church shows up for them, too,” she said. Sometimes, churches in the presbytery will call the Rev. Dr. Beth McCaw, the dean of the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, and ask her, “when are you going to send us a pastor?”
McCaw often replies, “when are you going to send us a pastor to train and send back to you?”
“Our smallest churches just aren’t going to attract someone from the outside,” Burton said.
The work she’s been doing within the presbytery has, she said, taught her a lot about what it means to be the church.
“When you’re in a really small church, you’ve got to distill it down: OK, we want to worship, and so we’ve got to figure out what that looks like. Maybe it’s a recorded sermon and maybe we sing a cappella,” she said. “Probably we’re going to do one more thing. That’s church, as opposed to, ‘what does church do for me?’ That’s a consumer model.”
Upcoming editions of “Leading Theologically” can be seen here.
Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)
Let us join in prayer for:
Analise Brown, Mission Associate, Financial Aid for Service, Presbyterian Life & Witness
Joey Brown, Associate, Direct Mail and PILLARS, Administrative Services Group
Let us pray:
Beloved God, we want to love you with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Help us to read your Word and understand the truth that will set us free. Teach us, dear Jesus, so that we, too, can teach like you. Amen.
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