Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada

Sally hasn't gone to church much since she started university. Away from home, Sunday morning is more about sleeping than attending a church near campus. She still attends when she goes home-maybe once a month-but doesn't find the service "upstairs" very engaging. She is a veteran of every aspect of children's programming: nursery, church school, junior youth, youth group and even a year or two as one of the youth leaders. The one thing she has little experience with is worship: particularly everything after "Children's Time."

Back in the old days, the church seemed to think viability was a numbers game. Drop below a certain membership number, and you were no longer a viable congregation. I'm sure the number varied from place to place, but one hundred was a popular threshold. It's hard to pay a full-time minister with less than a hundred members, so the number was fairly logical.

What became apparent, in time, was the strange resilience of congregations. Two of the congregations on my settlement charge had six and seven members respectively. Logically, they become one congregation of thirteen members, and carried on like there was nothing unusual about this. Stewardship levels were good, heat was donated, and the total utility bill could be measured in cents (one electric light in the centre of the sanctuary--the organ required only pumping).

Here in the big city, we get occasion questions about congregational viability and how to measure it. Sometimes it is rather obvious. The congregation that closed after failing to pay their gas bill is a quick example. It got cold inside really quickly. But what about the average church, soldiering along, and uncertain about the future? I'm suggesting a new measure of viability, with four components. A surplus in one category can compensate for a deficit in another, and then create an average. Here are the four:

There was an elephant in the room.  I have yet to name the elephant, but I think it is customary to put "bo" on the end.  This elephant was spotted roaming around my Conference Annual Meeting on the weekend, knocking over the odd table and crashing through the book display.  Despite an obvious attempt to grab the floor, the elephant went unacknowledged.  

Once or twice we hinted at the broad outline of our large friend.  I think the treasurer referred to the fact that less people translated into less revenue at assessment time.  A couple people spoke of former congregations or churches set to close.  The General Council report seemed pretty candid.  But the elephant roamed free, a protected species in our meeting.