How many folks are needed to sustain a congregation?

In our age of declining congregational size, one of the most practical questions is how many people do you need to pay for a pastor, a building, and minimal programs to keep the doors open?  I often hear the number of 100 as a minimum to cover everything from pastor's compensation and benefits, building costs and utilities, a few other part-time folks, insurance, internet, and a minimal program of educational, social, and mercy work.  Note that this does not include the costs of a mortgage or loan repayment and that this might also include income from other than the offering plate (endowment, bequests, etc.).  I suspect that this is probably not far from the bottom number but it occurs to me that this might be setting the bar rather low on the stewardship end of things.

Comparing the situation with state churches, there are certainly might collected but this money is usually for mission support, support for those in need, and other charitable work.  Otherwise, the government (or, rather, the tax dollar from the populace) is the primary source of income for the church and covering the costs of clergy, building, and essential programs.  To be sure, this funding with tax money is from the willing and the unwilling.  There are automatically-collected "tithes" from those who agree to pay but there is money from other taxes collected for property assets considered to belong to the state first and the congregation second.  This remains the case even though the landscape has changed and the formerly religious lands have become, in reality, highly-secularized European nations today, including everything from with the Church of England, Scandinavian Lutheran state churches, and German churches (whose “church-tax” is given to state registered religions to which the people belong (from Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Union, other state-registered religions, including Judaism).  The German tax is 8% to a person’s income tax bill.  There are religions and churches which have chosen not to participate in this, including Muslims, Buddhists, Orthodox, free Lutherans, and other religious groups.  Individual Germans can opt out of the church tax but that means publicly renouncing their religion and forsaking the privileges of church membership as they may be.  It must be a significant cost greater than the money since about half of eligible taxpayers are still willing to pay it.

American statistics tell us that the typical Christian gives something around 2-2.5% of their income as their discounted "tithe" and this is probably responsible for that 100 person minimum number.  So, my question is, how many people would we need to sustain a congregation if these same people contributed what the German church tax collected or four times the present average?  I suspect that this would radically change the viability numbers and enable a much smaller group to still have all the accoutrements of church -- perhaps closer to the actual average size of 50 or less.  Anecdotally, I heard one person in one of our saltwater districts say that 50 folks would be a mid-size parish in that district and compare this to the average for the Missouri Synod a few decades ago which had one pastor serving nearly 200 folks.  Times have changed.  But for all the crocodile tears about the gray clouds on our future with a rather consistent decline in size over many decades, why are we settling for 2-3% of income as the benchmark instead of trying to at least match what a government collects in our fatherland, Germany?

Those who know me will know that I defend my Boomer generation to younger pastors and remind them that we are still in church and supporting financially the work of the congregation in greater proportion than our numbers.  That is great.  But what will happen after the Boomers are spending all their money on nursing homes or they are gone?  Those in the pews need to step up.  If the Church is to continue, it will only happen because we support the Church with our time, skills, prayers, and dollars.  If we do that, we will find that smaller congregations will survive and perhaps even flourish without spending all their attention to finding the $$ to pay the pastor and fix the building.  It is wonderful when a former generation provides generous gifts to sustain things long after they have joined the church triumphant but it cannot and dare not replace raising our expectation of ourselves and providing the support to keep even small congregations viable.   

We are all looking for the Church. . .

Honestly, there is no end of frustration to the Missourian peculiarity about calling the Synod "Church."  It is maddening that we seem intent upon trying to invent an idea of "Church" that is somehow distant from what, to everyone else, is simply Church.  However, it is equally frustrating and maddening to look for the big Church to solve all the problems and do everything.  Of course, the Church is always larger than what you see gathered on Sunday morning but it is never less.  In other words, what you see on Sunday morning is not a miniature version of the Church but the full thing.  Yes, there is more but the more is not more in the sense of the local being somehow deficient or lacking something.  It is the more of all those Sunday gatherings together.  

Where this is most frustrating and maddening is how everything is expected of or gets judged on the basis of the big footprint.  So in Rome it is as if there is only the Pope and the Vatican or, for us Missourians, there is only St. Louis and our elected SP.  Of course these are important but they are not everything.  I finally have had to give up on the illusion that I will find that perfect jurisdiction on the larger scale.  You will not find it in Rome or in Constantinople or in St. Louis or anywhere else.  But you do see it more nearly and clearly in the Sunday morning gathering.  This is not congregationalism but the essential truth of catholicity.  While we seem to stretch catholicity in search of the biggest expression of its wholeness, we end up disdaining the local expression of it.  You see that catholicity in the marks of the Church, the Word and the Sacraments and the ministry/priesthood.  That is where most of us meet Church and not on the seemingly grander scale of a basilica or cathedral or a bishop's throne.  Yes, the large version is important and wonderful but it does not replace nor make the local expression of the Church any less important or wonderful.

I have come to see that it is not about some GIRM or bishop or rule making body enforcing that which defines us but the local expression striving to be all that we confess.  That is my problem.  So often and too often the local group has lost sight of its own catholicity, willing to trade it all off for better numbers or treating the Church as if she were a social group or program instead of the Body of Christ.  The worship problem in Rome and in Missouri is not about enforcing more rules but about local expressions of the Church having lost their identity and reaching vainly into business or social models in search of an identity to replace what they have lost.  People and pastors who do stupid stuff on Sunday morning are not trying to be the Church but trying to win friends and influence people or meet people on the therapeutic level they have come to presume is the authentic version of the Church.  How foolish we are!  We are willing to trade the God who tabernacles among us in the Word that delivers what it says and the Sacraments that bestow what they sign for relevance or entertainment or feelings.  That is not a problem of rules or rule enforcers but of a people who have lost sight of who God is and who they are.  It is a problem of leaders who are wolves in sheeps' clothing, betraying the promise of eternity for a moment in the spotlight.  It is not that the sights have been set too high but too low and, in the end, having lost what is eternal for what is only momentary.

The solution will not come from Rome or St. Louis or some other address.  Everyone seems to be looking for the main office to fix things but they won't and they can't.  Catholicity on the larger level exists only because it is there on the local level.  I once despaired that one parish at a time was not efficient or effective enough but I have learned that it is the only way.  The only honest measure of the Church is Sunday morning where the shepherd serves the sheep with the gifts of the Good Shepherd.  Remember when the Army had as its slogan Be All that You Can Be?  Perhaps our slogan for the Church ought to say Be Who You Are.  The main office can never be the refuge that the local assembly of those whom the Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies is and always will be.  It is nice if you can find it but the real catholicity that matters is always local.  I wonder if this is not what the Augustana was trying to say in different words and what Missouri has struggled to say with its own confused expression of Church.  It is not that the congregation is the only Church or any real form of congregationalism but the local gathering with all of its tangible concreteness, formed by Christ for Christ, and possessing the fullness of the Church but not alone.

Yes, I am probably rambling but that is the meanderings of today. 

Worth a listen. . .

From a classmate and an old friend.  Wise words worth a listen.

 

In search of a sacrament. . .

I have often thought that there is no such thing as a non-sacramental Christian church.  The issue is not whether or not to have sacraments but which sacraments.  Either they are the sacraments which warrant the sanction and promise of Christ or they will be something else -- something invented or a designated hitter, so to speak, which fills the current ideology.

Prayer has long been the sacrament of choice for those who disdain the ones the Lord has offered.  It comes with the command of Christ and His promise to hear and answer so it must be good, right?  The problem is that when you turn prayer into a sacrament, it comes with the inherent pledge of Christ to do what the one praying has requested.  If the form is right, others are enlisted to pray for the same thing, and the name of Christ is attached, well, then, there is the sacrament.  Except that prayer has never enjoyed the designation of sacrament, though sacramental it might seem.  Nevermind that the history is not there, the desire is.  It was especially true of the Charismatics and perhaps of the Pentecostals.  In my first parish there was a huge divide when the prayers of the faithful for the healing of a child were supposed to result in the child recovering but the child died of the cancer.  How could God renege on His promise -- especially when it had the support of many united in praying for the same thing?  The prayer of the righteous availeth much but not necessarily the answer sought.  That makes it hard to really offer up prayer as a substitute sacrament.  Meditation may be like prayer but it is somewhat different.  Christians have flirted with this kind of thing for a long time and tried to position such inner contemplation into a sacramental wannabe but it has not yet convinced many -- except the spiritual but not religious who will settle for even a flawed sacrament if it fills their bill.

Prophecy was also a favorite of the Charismatics (and Pentecostals).  Speaking in tongues, sure, but it did not have the cache of a prophet telling us what God was going to do.  There is much talk of it in the NT but also with that conversation comes many warnings, not in the least from St. Paul.  Then there is the problem of prophesies that do not happen.  Ah, what to do with those who attempt to speak in the Lord's name but the Lord seems not to hear them or honor their words?  Hard to make a sacrament out of much disappointment.  Of course, that has never stopped us from venturing beyond the word of Scripture.  Still and all, prophets and prophesies are a disappointing substitute if you cannot be sure what is said is either from the Lord or reliable -- at least until after the fact.  Even Rome has its own flirtation with little girls who hear voices from God or have visions.  Many in Rome are beginning to question some of the age old devotion given to those prophets and their special words from Jesus or Mary.

Some have suggested that worship, specifically contemporary Christian music designed to motivate by emotion, as a sacramental substitute.  It probably is being used to set the mood and even more.  Jesus wants to raise us up but CCM is intent upon raising up Jesus, flowery language about honor and glory replacing the cues of Scripture or the songs that rehearse Christian faith and life amid suffering awaiting the resurrection and eternal life to come.  Mood songs do have powerful effect and that is why the music industry is so successful.  Whether you can translate that into a ballad that effects the means of grace is something entirely different.  Mood music with a beat you can dance to has always had its appeal but what my folks danced to on Saturday night was never thought to have a place on Sunday morning until folks began to assign to worship music the same kinds of duties and responsibilities that everything from Rap to Rock to Ravel's Bolero can do for the imagination.  The only problem here is that God has not asked to imagine Him but provided the actual means for His saving presence among us.  Too bad, though, because mood music is a tempting substitute.

What warms the heart is not always a fit replacement for the Word and Sacraments of Christ.  Try as we might, they do not come with the promise of God to deliver the fruits of His redeeming work through these means.  It is for this reason that Lutherans highly esteem marriage but find it not really sacramental in that definition.  Ordination and penance (absolution) have a pretty decent claim to the designation but not so much confirmation (especially the Western form of it which has no real correspondence in the East).  Unction is a fine practice but lacks the dominical word which gives the means its promise and power.  Good, yes, and salutary but not quite meet or right.  No, the best answer is to stick with the ones God gives and to trust them.  We Lutherans remind Christians all the time that the Word is not simply a written record or history but the living voice of the Good Shepherd.  In that respect, it is the granddaddy of all sacraments. 

A tragedy within another one. . .

According to the dictionary, a tragedy is not simply something terrible but a very sad event or situation, especially one involving death or suffering.  Those on every side should agree that when Lindsay Clancy strangled her three children–5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan– and then attempted suicide by jumping out a window– is a tragedy.  The fact that she did not die but lived only to be left paralyzed is perhaps less so.  

We all know about her defense.  She answered the charges against her with the defense of postpartum depression and psychosis. I cannot dismiss such a thing.  If you have been a pastor long, you have undoubtedly ministered to a family in that same boat.  Too many woman have suffered this to one degree or another.  The fact that a great number of women sympathized with her, supported her on social media, and expressed their concern publicly only attests to the fact that postpartum depression is not talked about enough or taken seriously enough.  What remains, however, is that her children suffered because of her diagnosis and her husband and extended family were left with multiplied grief for all that took place.  Of course, in hindsight family and medical personnel might have done things differently.  But her children are still dead while she lives.  Her grief has been compounded by the realization of what she did.  Whether that is enough for her to suffer is not quite the issue in her trial.  In the end, this trial ended with a mistrial–all of the jurors but one wishing to acquit her.  

According to the same dictionary, the word acquit means to decide officially in a law court that someone is not guilty of a particular crime.  It is a curious word.  Everyone admits she is guilty.  The issue is not whether she is guilty but whether or not she is culpable for the crime.  She is clearly at fault but were there circumstances which mitigate against the raw judgment of guilt which should be taken into account. Apparently one juror spoke out in public of the holdout, “He had the hardest time getting over the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children.”  Here is the second tragedy.  Apparently the other eleven jurors could get over that fact that she had actually and viciously murdered her children.  Some lamented that the law required a unanimous verdict.  It is as if the attention has shifted away from Lindsay Clancy and onto the judicial system and this particular jury.  That is the tragedy.  That we can "get over" the brutal death of these children but cannot get over how many outside the courtroom and all but one of the jurors could is a tragedy of great proportions.  I find it hard to see how the feelings for abortion have not contributed to this state of affairs in which the killing of children is a lesser tragedy than holding the one who killed them to account for her actions.  As if that were not enough, the news has it that another mother has killed her two-year-old son and she particularly tied this to the crime and the trial of Lindsay Clancy, saying she was “inspired” by Clancy.  How is it that we have come to the point where the judicial status of the one responsible for the crimes has become a greater tragedy than the deaths of her children which she caused?  Could it be that this is a tacit admission that some lives are wroth more than others?  Who gets to decide?  Which lives should have value and which should not or should have a lesser value?  But is that not exactly what we have done with abortion?

Yes, the whole situation with Lindsay Clancy is a tragedy but hidden within that tragedy is another one.  We are already at the point of picking and choosing which lives matter and which do not.  Of course, this is not the first time this has happened.  The fact that it continues indicates that we have learned nothing from our errors.  And that is perhaps the tragedy that encompasses all the rest. 

 

Making it all seem normal. . .

If you would have told me fifty years ago that I would have encountered members of my parish or circle of friends who had employed or were considering the use of a surrogate (or becoming a surrogate mother) I would have laughed in your face.  On the surface of it all, it was absurd.  Neither the technology nor the possibility had entered the mainstream.  Well, they have now.  As a pastor I have counseled and consoled families struggling with infertility who think that surrogacy is not only reasonable but moral and a good solution for those longing for a child they cannot conceive without the help of technology and a rented womb.  Now I have not only known but been assured by those carrying a child for a sibling or child unable to conceive that they are not only doing the right thing but the noble thing, the good thing, and the moral and loving thing to borrow out their womb for another family.  While in some cases this is simply the borrowing of the womb, in other cases it is loaning out considerably more -- namely eggs or sperm or both.  This issue will not go away and will become even more normal as technology advances and the Church fails to address it publicly.

Let me say for the record that I am not unsympathetic to the plight of the childless longing to have a child.  It has touched my family and we have suffered the pain not only of the longing but of the choice not to afford the extraordinary and extraordinarily costly and immoral consequences of IVF and surrogacy.  It is a subject close to home.  That is what makes this even more difficult.  The heart yearns to provide hope and a possibility to those whose desire for a child has not been fulfilled.  The reality of the adoption situation has also changed and it is not as simple as deciding to adopt.  The abundance of choices to prevent pregnancy and the availability of the morning after pill have done a remarkable job of reducing the numbers of infants and small children who might be adopted.  Not every family is able to support a child with deep emotional problems or disabilities or physical ills -- though I remain deeply moved by and impressed by those who are able.  The adoption situation today with its open process often means that economic factors prevent others from competing as prospective adoptive parents and the chances offered to the birth parents to change their mind are not without their own impact on the adoption option.  Further, the government has done a good job of taking the Church out of the whole process (unless they play by the government's rules) and this has also changed the lay of the land for adoption and those who might consider it.  So please do not say that I am insensitive or uncaring toward those who find surrogacy and IVF to be their best choice.  I am.  But no matter how compassionate one might be, a wrong is still a wrong and both surrogacy and IVF are wrong.

I think it is pretty clear where Rome stands on this and it is certainly abundantly clear where the LCMS stands on the same matters but I am not at all sure how well or how effectively either communicates these stands or the reasons why.  Protestants as a whole are divide on these issues or simply silent -- leaving the individual consciences to make the determination of what is moral, good, and right.  I think it is true that this may well become our own moment's Roe v. Wade issue and that we are at the beginning of what might become an equally long process of discernment, information, and education on the topics of IVF and surrogacy.  Roughly one in six adults now faces infertility, and congregants are hungry for guidance and the numbers will only increase.  Across the board, studies have found that pastors want and need additional resources to equip them to address these issues and fear they are without the ability to make a difference in the minds of their people on these issues.  It is also clear that the silence of the churches has been interpreted by many within the Church that there is no moral stand on IVF or surrogacy except to proceed with caution and to act with their own judgment.

Surrogacy and IVF are but a few of the major issues facing our people and the Church.  We will need to to equip pastors and church leaders, to offers solid theological resources on a range of topics: beginning and end of life, AI, IVF, surrogacy, egg and sperm donation, embryo adoption, contraception, and genetic testing.  For too long we have acted in the Church as if this was not happening in our own backyards or that such things were not common nor a threat.  We cannot afford such foolishness any longer.  The challenges have caught us unprepared and behind the times to catechize our people within these issues but we dare not bury our heads in the sand and waste more time.  Yesterday was too late but we will have lost tomorrow unless we take advantage of today.  The market driven aspects of surrogacy and IVF are exploding as those who wish to be single parents and same sex parents desire children.  No, we cannot afford to wait to talk about these things openly and from the vantage point of Scripture and the morality informed by God and not by our own feelings or whims.