3 approaches to doing it in a different way

If I were planting a church today, I would try different approaches from the ones I used in 1984.

My first pastorate after graduating from seminary was a church plant in Peoria, Ill. I spent 11 years there, developing a small congregation of diverse people—rich and poor, sinners and saints, Mennonites and non-Mennonites—who gave me some of my most poignant experiences of the kingdom of God. We rented a room for the first five years but then raised enough money to buy a vacant church building. The congregation poured enthusiasm and energy into making renovations, and we pursued various avenues of outreach and invitation. We experienced some modest growth, but we never attained enough critical mass to be able to relax. We were always anxious about being too small, worried about the budget and exhausted by the effort of maintaining the expected ministries of a congregation.

The future vitality of Mennonite Church USA depends on planting more churches, but we need to do this in a way that is sustainable and embodies our radical understanding of the gospel. Let me suggest the following approaches for consideration:

1. Build house churches instead of a church building. The congregation I currently serve recently spent over $1 million to add more classrooms onto our church building. Given our growth and space needs and the type of congregation we are, a building addition was the right thing to do. But it was certainly expensive, and it is a shame to see those new classrooms used for only a few hours each week. But if our congregation were a network of house churches, we could avoid the enormous costs of being a brick-and-mortar church.

Consider how Blockbuster and Borders went into bankruptcy because their expensive brick-and-mortar approach could no longer compete with the online companies. Are there other ways of doing congregational ministry that are more financially efficient? Do most congregations really need to have their own facilities—facilities that are expensive to build and maintain and empty for most of the week?

Here’s an alternative approach: In the initial “prechurch” stage, grow a congregation through creating weekly home Bible studies for adults. Continue adding new home Bible study groups as the membership of each gets larger than 12 or 15. When at least five groups are running successfully—with 50 or more total adults—then move to the “church” stage by having joint worship ser­vices monthly in a rented facility. The home Bible studies continue to meet weekly and are now designated as house churches—responsible for providing mutual aid, engaging in mission projects and performing weekly rituals of worship.

One of the inherent problems with house churches is that they are too small for youth groups and children’s classes—programs that a lot of parents insist their church provide. But if several house churches network together as one congregation, they can bring together all of their youth and children for classes and activities—monthly or more often. This is a radically different model of doing church, but consider the advantages: built-in mini-congregations that effectively nurture their members, strong lay leadership, a simple structure with stripped-down programming, and dramatically lower overhead costs. That means that, other than paying for leadership, nearly all of the offerings can go toward mission and helping the poor.

In a typical church, how much of the budget goes to helping those who are in severe economic need? Take out the salaries and benefits, the mortgage and utilities, the supplies and computers and copiers, the retreats and camps, the costs for programming, as well as the administrative and programming costs of the conference and denomination. What’s left? What actually goes to helping those who have less? In my current congregation, it may be 15 percent of the total budget. So those who give 10 percent of their salary to my church are actually giving 1.5 percent of it to the poor.

Those who give 5 percent of their salary to the church are actually giving less than 1 percent to the poor. This is a disgrace to the gospel. The church’s mission is certainly much larger than just helping the poor, but I find it shocking how little the most needy are receiving from our giving. House churches can help us change this. Perhaps people will be more drawn to house churches and filled with passion for mission when they realize that most of their giving is actually helping those in desperate need.

2. Plant multiracial churches in urban and suburban areas. Most of the current growth in Mennonite Church USA is happening in the cities and suburbs—and this is likely to become even more the case in the future. So this is where we should be concentrating our church-planting efforts. But let’s do it differently. Let’s demonstrate the gospel by breaking down the most visible division on Sunday mornings—division by race.

To do this we must plant churches that are designed to be multiracial from day one. It is nearly impossible for an already existing white congregation to become a significantly integrated congregation, and it is no easier for an already existing black congregation to accomplish this. So the racial integration must be in the initial planning, in the core group and in the leadership. Worship styles must be blended and agreed upon ahead of time; organizational and leadership styles must be studied so as to bring together the best of their respective cultures. A multiracial congregation is not easily created, but if done successfully, such a congregation will have a clear and visible mission and offer its neighbors an exciting and unique alternative in Christian community.

The purpose of a multiracial congregation goes beyond its outreach potential. Until we learn to worship together, racial reconciliation is not fully possible. It is through the experience of being nurtured together and doing Christ’s mission together that we learn to respect and understand one another.

Another positive byproduct of a multiracial Mennonite congregation is that by its nature it undermines “Mennonite” as an ethnic identity and enhances its theological identity. Mennonite Church USA is failing to be Christian so long as being Mennonite normally means sharing common ancestors and certain cultural experiences. We must have the courage to change the definition of Mennonite. We would truly be Christian if, a generation from now, our neighbors identified “Mennonite” not only with peacemaking but with cultural and racial integration.

Of course, not every church plant is in an area where there are significant numbers of different racial groups to draw from and bring together. In such cases, the church plant should be designed to overcome the other biggest divide in our society—the divide between the rich and the poor. The challenges and the benefits would be similar to planting a multi-racial congregation.

3. Move away from professional, full-time pastoral ministry to more volunteer and part-time pastoral ministry. The United Methodist Church last year completed a massive study of more than 32,000 congregations in order to discover the key factors needed for a vital congregation. One of the surprising results was that it did not matter whether the pastor had a seminary degree or how long he or she had been in ministry. When I first read this report, I was baffled. I am sure that my seminary education has helped me be a more effective pastor; I can’t imagine being able to offer healthy pastoral counseling without the training I received, and I certainly understand the Bible better because of the courses I took. But I wonder: Are the benefits of seminary education being balanced out by the tendency for full-time, seminary-educated pastors to take over too much leadership—and do too much of the ministry—in a congregation?

The Methodist study found four factors that fuel vitality in churches: worship that blends contemporary and traditional styles and offers relevant sermons, small groups, pastors who mentor the laity and effective lay leadership. Most of these factors revolve around the ministry of those who are not the pastors. Professional clergy—for all their helpful information and skills—are perhaps getting in the way of letting the congregation be the center of the ministry. Maybe that is why—on balance—it makes no difference to the vitality of a congregation whether the pastor went to seminary.

I’m not suggesting pastors should avoid seminary education; I am suggesting we alter the purpose of seminary education. Instead of seminary being the road to ministry professionalization, let’s make it the avenue for training everyone—pastors, other congregational leaders and the congregation as a whole. Instead of assuming that every pastor should have a Master of Divinity degree or that only the pastor takes seminary courses, let’s assume the entire congregation should be equipped for ministry. A college or seminary course in Anabaptist theology should be a minimum educational requirement for all pastors so that the denomination maintains its essential identity and mission. But let us open up more options for equipping all church members.

I fear that recent calls to institute continuing education requirements in order for pastors to maintain their credentials are wrongheaded. If well-educated pastors were the key to vital congregations, mainline denominations would be growing instead of shrinking. As the Methodist study indicates, most congregations do just as well without a highly trained pastor; so let’s focus more on leadership by volunteers or part-time pastors. Our denomination certainly needs a good supply of scholars and highly trained pastoral leaders, but Mennonite congregations that require full-time professional pastors are a minority.

Moving toward more volunteer and part-time pastors would not only help develop the ministry and leadership of church members, it would also free up the congregation’s financial resources for more mission and assistance for the poor. Just the cost of providing health-care insurance for full-time pastors is unattainable for many congregations. Whatever the benefits of having full-time pastors may be, most churches can no longer afford them. Professional ministry is getting priced out of existence—and perhaps that’s not always a bad thing.

So let’s change our expectations for pastoral ministry. Instead of hiring one person to do all the counseling, visitation, preaching, administration, community outreach and maintenance of conference connections, break these down into many leadership roles done by several people in the congregation. The result will be more vital congregations and healthier pastors. Pastors have just one essential role in the congregation: to be the resident theologian who interprets the gospel for today and thereby helps keep the mission of the congregation on track.

Is it possible for Mennonite Church USA to pull back on full-time professional congregational leadership without the church going stagnant? The Mormon Church at every level is mostly run by volunteer leaders without professional training—yet it is one of the fastest-growing and vigorous religious groups in the United States and around the world. Similarly, Pentecostalism’s growth does not seem to be hampered by its dearth of pastoral professionals. The lure of relying on full-time professional pastors is strong, but it is time for Mennonite Church USA to rethink pastoral ministry. (I say this as one of those full-time professionals.) What we are doing is not sustainable or even the most helpful. Volunteer leaders and part-time pastors will not bring us into stagnation; more likely, they will help us recover our mission.

If I were planting a church today, these are some of the directions I would try to pursue. But there is no one correct approach to planting churches or being the church. The future of Mennonite Church USA will depend on many visionaries trying many different approaches. And traditional models are still appropriate and effective in various settings.

I appreciate my experience as a church planter long ago in Peoria. It instilled in me ongoing reflections on how best to be the church today. Sadly, a few years after I left Peoria, the congregation decided to close its doors. Its existence was short, but the lessons I learned remain.

Ryan Ahlgrim is pastor of First Mennonite Church in Indianapolis.