Homegrown Gems
Partnering Educational Resources to Support Excellence in Small Vital Congregations
Initial Challenges
In our ongoing conversations about Sustaining Pastoral Excellence, an SPE colleague once remarked that pastoral excellence in small congregations is “less like a diamond and more like a local, homegrown gem.” If we are looking only for a large vein of riches, we will have a hard time finding these gems. Taking shape slowly over many years and generations, they usually lie obscured, if not isolated, in small towns and rural settings.
We know, of course, that across North America faithfulness comes in many sizes and shapes. More than half of congregations in the United States have fewer than 100 adult members, and a quarter of those have fewer than 50 adults who are regular participants. Several of these congregations, in the Episcopal Church at least, are located in rural and small towns.
Do the church in general and the Episcopal Church in particular consider the rural church a resource for excellence? What resources do theological seminaries need to develop to support and sustain excellence in these small containers? Clearly, church growth is a predominant concern in all the literature on congregational development, but growth is not the same as vitality. Indeed, vitality and growth are two very different issues, both of which can be marks of excellence. How can seminaries support and then measure growth in congregational vitality when there is no corresponding growth in membership, as is the case in many rural areas?
These are some of the initial inquiries that Episcopal Divinity School pursued in our Pastoral Excellence Program, which is aimed at working with rural and regional pastors and lay leaders in northern New England. As part of that effort, we wanted to shape and perhaps even transform our seminary’s resources to better serve these churches. As we began the project, many questions were at work. How might we better educate lay and ordained leaders to serve in this region? What new emphases and new faculty did we need? How might our seminary’s “delivery” system for educational resources be altered or expanded?
Theological Foundations
Our work began in the nearby and geographically contiguous dioceses of New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont. Aided by local diocesan coordinators funded by our SPE grant, we first learned slowly and in depth about the wide differences among and within these dioceses. In Maine, the word “rural” took on more incarnational tones as we learned about the differences, for example, between Mainers in Aroostook County, the easternmost point in the United States, and those in the southern, seacoast town of York. Two regional coordinators were needed just to traverse Maine’s vast territory, let alone to learn local histories and economic particularities. In New Hampshire, small towns assert their independence in various ways, including a strong preference for a “one priest, one parish” church model—even in the face of the strained financial and human energies that this model can bring. In Vermont, another state with distinct cultures from the southern towns to the Northeast Kingdom, diocesan leaders were shaping a vision of collaboration and renewal largely based in the theological legacy of the baptismal covenant and calling all members to bring their gifts to the church and out into the world. This initial group of dioceses, however, also had much in common, reflecting the strengths and challenges of upper New England: strong and attentive Episcopal Bishops, seasoned clergy and young enthusiastic recent graduates, patterns of rural isolation, loss of industries in small towns, local tenacity, economic and societal depression, assertions of independence, and hope that the local church would survive if not thrive.
Mostly however—and not at all surprising, given the liturgical heart of the Episcopal Church—what these dioceses shared was the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer’s renewed emphasis on baptism. Drawing on spiritual, educational, and practical ways to affirm each member’s ministry and importance, the three dioceses each uniquely embraced in various ways this growing theological movement.
As a result, much of our early work focused upon conducting conversations and courses on various aspects of ministry, with many held in towns and cities throughout the three dioceses and attracting local leaders. At the same time, here at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, we began offering an increasingly popular one-week course every June on “Understanding and Encouraging Local Ministry Development.” This class explored the theological vision, practical values and daily skills involved in Baptismal Ministry.
By the third year of the overall project, in 2005, we were traveling to other dioceses in the Episcopal and Anglican Church to explore a second round of projects, as we had originally planned. In the dioceses of Wyoming, Western Newfoundland, and Northern Michigan, we found three ideal partners, each with predominantly small congregations and great interest in furthering the ministries of all the baptized. As they claim anew ministries affirmed in baptism, members in these congregations give flesh to sustaining pastoral excellence.
Cultivating Shared Members’ Ministries
It is hard to understand the impact of Baptismal Ministry on a small congregation without a story or two.
Traditionally, at a baptism in the Episcopal Church, the priest and sponsors attest to the event by signing and dating a small official certificate. Therefore, I was understandably surprised at a parish in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula when a small boy proudly brought me his large Baptismal Certificate. It had been signed by all the parish members who had witnessed his baptism during that Sunday service many years before, their ages ranging from 10 to 100. Triumphantly, he pointed out those still present, especially the almost 105-year-old former organist, who after over 50 years of active service, still chose the hymns.
“We are a family,” the boy said. It was an assertion later repeated by many others in the congregation with warm twinkling smiles, as they too told me their own stories.
Elsewhere, across the continent in Wyoming, in a town of 5,000 people and 24 churches, the outreach ministry committee of another small Episcopal congregation sought to expand its mission activities, giving renewed attention to impacting the community. Their improved Thrift Shop, housed in a new building, was a major asset for the town. So too were the free, “soup and music” luncheons held each Lent. With educational materials placed on each table, the Lenten luncheons focused each week on a particular local charity, generating voluntary donations for each charity from the 90 to 100 people who attended each week.
The impact on the congregation of these new outreach ministries was perhaps best summed up by two members.
“With our new team ministry, we are able to give so much more time and funding to outreach,” said one parishioner. “Everyone has a role and everyone is valued.”
“We have had nutty people here all along,” another parishioner noted. “Yet now we work as a group.”
Meanwhile, back in Maine, two preachers switched churches for a Sunday, allowing them to experience how each other’s congregations embody Baptismal Ministry in their worship services. While in Vermont, diocesan leaders are working to adapt processes for discerning gifts in parishes, tailoring materials to suit local congregations.
Earlier this year, in the January 24 issue of the Christian Century, John Buchanan touted in an editorial the value of the large church, with its multiple staff members. But surely the vitality I have found in small congregations is just as great, proportionally. In these similar yet smaller containers, parishioners find profound ways to combat isolation, promote deep friendships, find and discover different gifts at work, and learn that “working together is also fun.”
Reshaping Seminary Resources and Commitments
So how then are these events affecting Episcopal Divinity School, the seminary in Cambridge where I have taught for almost 25 years? Although some say change is slow in theological education, I can attest that the Pastoral Excellence Project is shaking even our most foundational structures and habits.
Our new June term, mentioned earlier, with its short one- and two-week courses, keeps the faculty “on campus” for another month, while reaching populations who could not otherwise have afforded the time and money to engage in sustained theological education.
In collaboration with the Diocese of Wyoming, the school is pioneering a “soft touch, high tech” series of online short courses for local lay and ordained leaders. Last year, I taught a preaching course online, with excellent support from local ministry developers in Wyoming who provided coaching and evaluation for the students. By all accounts from our friends in Wyoming, it was an amazing success. (So much so, that this year, I will teach the course again, both online and in person).
In addition, Episcopal Divinity is also partnering with the Diocese of Northern Michigan to develop a spiritual formation resource for parishes called LifeCycles. Perhaps most importantly, though, the school reshaped its faculty hiring plan to engage a new colleague with a Ph.D. in religious formation and technology. Hired as fulltime faculty in Pastoral Theology, this colleague will help us shape on-and off-campus resources for years to come. Meanwhile, the school also joined the Living Stones Partnership, a consortium of more than 30 dioceses in the U.S. and Canada committed to Baptismal Ministry development. As the only seminary in the partnership, Episcopal Divinity will be well positioned to keep our educational resources attuned to the best practices of Baptismal Ministry and leadership.
The work of encouraging excellence and vitality in small congregations has allowed Episcopal Divinity School to learn from and with small congregations—these exquisite local gemstones, each uniquely shaped by their context, each open to learning with seminary educators. Together, we are gathering and assessing shared signs of strengths, best practices that are commonly pursued within small, vital congregations. More and more, the resources and delivery systems of Episcopal Divinity make us strongly situated to continue to undertake cooperative learning ventures in pastoral excellence.
Fredrica Harris Thompsett, Ph.D., is Mary Wolfe Professor of Historical Theology and co-director of the Pastoral Excellence Project at Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
