My church is now growing in attendance at a rate of 10% a year. I am not sure what are the factors that contribute the most, but I can share certain changes, and aspects.  

About three years ago, my church abandoned it's old building. It was a very beautiful heritage building, it had the most beautiful worship space I have ever seen. However it was expensive to maintain and inaccessible to those who used wheelchairs, and those who could not climb stairs. The church moved into a building that houses an Anglican Church, and pays rent, and shares the costs of maintaining this new building with the Anglicans.

The church has also chosen ordained ministers with strong leadership skills, who are not afraid of admitting their limitations, and who are largely free to speak their minds, as does the lay leadership.  Twenty years ago when my church was facing closing, it choose a women minister. She reached out to people in the community around the church, including LGBT people and residents in a half way house for people in recovery from addictions.  She stayed for around twenty years, adding another women  to serve part time. After she left and a difficult transition, the church choose a man to be it's ministers. A former Pentacostal minister who had received additional training at St Paul University and had experienced remarkable changes in his own life.  He made several courageous decisions in his personal life, at great risk to himself. Doing things that many, like myself would not be able to. All so that he could speak and live the truth as he came to see it, while remaining a committed Christian.

All of the ministers, lead by example, and through solid reasoning, infused with the spirit.

The lay leadership, remains strong, being one of the few Christian Church to  speak out on social justice issues at Ottawa City Hall. Every fourth service is lead by lay teams. We sponser a refugee family, and hold fundraisers for an orphanage in Haiti. Along with others we sponser food banks, a laundry coop for low income people, multi-faith housing for low income workers, ecumenical and interfaith projects, participate in Presbytery, support the UCC Mission and Service Fund and other UCC projects like the Observer.

The growth does present challenges, bringing diverse people together, and the inevitable conflicts that doing so does. (especially when you consider the significant number of adult members and children, who are in the  autism spectrum, and other differently abled people like me, those with diverse theologies, and people of various social status who come from across the city) The large number of children, and young couples and other people make for a noisy service, at times, which requires the sound system to be turned up, making it difficult at times for people like me to who are sensitive to loud noises to hear.  However we have alternative services, bible studies, pot lucks, a weekly meditation group, weekly guided labyrinth walks, activities for care givers, get togethers in members homes, and a vital group for seniors which meet weekly.

It sounds like you are doing a lot of things right and that you are a vital church.

I was impressed that you had the courage to abandon your church building and share with another.  We have a similar situation and other churches in town are also struggling with building upkeep and finances.  What has happened to the building that you abandoned? If the UCC takes back it's buildings and property, as I understand, what have they done with it?

I think that a church with a purpose, beyond their own existance, has a better chance for survival.

 I only joined the church after they moved to a new building. I could not belong to a church that excluded those in wheelchairs and who could not climb chairs. It seemed non Christ like to exclude the disabled, when it was not necessary. So I was one of the nw mebers that have contributed to the growth.

From what I have been told, they sold the building for little more than the market price of the land. A group of wealthy Chinese business people bought it to form a community centre for people of Chinese dissent.

However the church has an agreement that if they renovate in a way that destroys the stain glass windows, they will be removed without damaged and offered to the church for free.

 Our church is growing and strong.

I put it primarily down to our current minister who has been with us for 8 years.  Young , dynamic, extremely strong theology, busy, creates new groups and new opportunities for us constantly, reaches out.

Quite an amazing guy and we have all grown with him.  His reputation as a preacher gets folks in the door and the dynamism of the congregation under him gets them to join.

Our church is in transition. Two years ago, we had an active and vibrant Sunday School. The kids loved the minister and kept him on his toes. He wore Birkenstocks and had a beard, so he must be Jesus right?  About a year and a half ago we were propelled into a series of stressful events. The gossip was vibrant. The minister helped to stir the gossip pot, and whined to those with sympathetic ears. Some of this whining included misinformation that hurt a few people. Ultimately it hurt everyone. The Sunday school teachers left en masse, partly due to the natural flow of things, and partly because they believed the board had treated the minister badly. The whole congregation should have exploded at some point. The minister moved on and now we have a part-time minister helping us.

We have started a transition process. Our current minister had originally planned to stay until June 30. She decided to offer to stay for a year if we commited to participating in a transition process. She is not trained in the Intentional Interim process, so we cannot call it that. She has the support of another wonderful minister who is helping her with this process. This other minister has the training for Intentional Interim ministry. We are very grateful that we have survived through the bad times and that we still like each other. Never-the-less, when I as a 53 year old can be one of the youngest members of the congregation, there is a problem. We recognize that and are addressing this. There is a new breath of life flowing through us. Things are improving between us and the other congregation with whom we share the building.

I am hoping that a year from now I will be able to report that we are part of a vibrant growing UCC. We are in a community that has a good selection of more conservative churches, plus the Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran churches. I believe we are somewhere in the middle, and could be something that does not exist right now in this town. I believe there are many people who will join us when we recognize where we fit.

Does the lack of comments and discussion on this thread tell me that the UC is aging and fading away?

It sounds like  there are many congregations, so little health.  There are several UC's within driving distance of my home but none of them are lively places.

Define "lively".

If you came to our church today it would be realay quiet. It's summer. It's hot. But over the week you would find

Multiple AA groups.

Middle eastern dance

one-on-one counselling sessions

in the winter you would see all of those plus several UCW groups, weekly bible study, choir practice, our Good Food Box program, lots of community groups using the building and 200+ people at worship on Sunday. About 10% of them would be coming by bus, which we hire locally. Then there is the Cable TV production and the church book store and resource centre, open two days a week.

And we have three other United Church congregations (one of whom is one of the wealthiest in canada) within a ten block radius.

Hi kaythecurler,

That might be one way of interpreting the silence.  I don't think that it is the only way.

One of the difficulties among with Church growth is that what works in one congregation may not work in another.  Another is that we often identify falsely what it is that congregation A is doing that is bringing them so much success.

For example, I could look at Wellington Square United Church.  It appears to be a growing and vibrant faith community and yet, I wonder how much of their language would be a stumbling block for new members.  Let me share with you their values statement as an illustration:

I know a lot of folk that would start running at such statements.  Some to be closer to and some to be further away from.  

Is it statements like this that are the catalyst for Wellington Square's health and growth?

Or does that growth originate out of something else altogether?

I wonder if we had thirty or so folk here from Wellington Square and we questioned them individually if they would all be able to pin-point the source of their dynamism.  

I won't argue that point.  I wonder though if they are all unlively in precisely the same ways.

Natural Church Development is a Church health system which focuses on 8 quality characteristics that are present, to some degree, in every Church.  NCD's strategy is to isolate the weakest link or, in their own language, the shortest stave in the barrel, and improve upon that quality.

The research they have done shows that this apparently counter-intuitive strategy yields tremendous results.  Think about it.  A barrel can only hold water up to the level of it's shortest stave.  If you build on the strengths of that barrel (make the longest stave longer still you are going to continue to lose water.

It might be that the service isn't lively simply because they lack fine music.  It could be that they are burnt out from bulding the dam higher without seeking to plug leaks first.

From what I have seen Natural Church Development has put together the best resource available to any congregation of any denomination that will identify where they stand with respect to their eight quality characteristics.  The only time I have seen the NCD program fail it has been because of the impatience of the congregation to grow their numbers.

Take care of the quality and the quantity will look after itself.  Focus only on the quantity of bodies in the pews and you sacrifice quality at every turn.

Of course, NCD doesn't permit me to tell you what your congregation needs to focus on unless you run through their diagnostic.

Grace and peace to you.

John

[/quote]

"I won't argue that point.  I wonder though if they are all unlively in precisely the same ways."

None of the congregations I'm thinking of is exactly like another but there seem to be some points of similarity.

Very few members younger than 55.

Hardly any children, in some cases none.

No regualr Bible study.

No space for talking about faith journeys.

Problems staying ahead of the bills.

Unwillingness to close one or more buildings and combine resources.

Difficulty finding and keeping ordained ministers.

Too few members doing the 'work' and an unwillingness to let new people help. (Meetings, fundraising, decision making, organising activities, pastoral care, attendance at events concerning the wider church etc)

Disagreements about music - some want ONLY old hymns , others want to learn and use new ones.

None of the congregations I'm aware of are considering an 'alternate' service,

None of them are considering an evening service (on ANY evening)

They have things in common that make them appear 'livelier' - AA, Scouts/Guides/ church meetings/community events.  The liveliness' doesn't seem to be connected very well to spiritual growth.  

I don't know the answers - but I'm interested in learning!

Hi kaythecurler,

Those similarities are not the problems/obstacles that keep these congregations from thriving.  They may, however; by symptoms of the problems/obstacles which do get in the way.

There is no actual reason why a congregation completely comprised of 60 year olds cannot be lively.  Granted the lively of a 60 year old may not bear strong resemblance to the lively of a 20 year old.

Sometimes you have to take the lively that is offered.

Again, I would say that these are symptoms of a deeper malaise.  We could airdrop a couple of platoons of 20 year olds right into their laps.  They most likely wouldn't know what to do with them.

Again, symptoms not the actual problems.

That action is antithetical to church growth.  I submit that such is not typically a wise use of resources so much as it is a throwing in of the towel.  Living healthy things multiply.  Actually, multiplication/reproduction is a classic marker in determining what is alive.

Unless the whole town has packed up and left I am guessing that it is larger now than it was when those many churches were packed to the rafters.  That they no longer remained that way indicates that people attended for the wrong reasons, we held on to them for the wrong reasons or they have found something which provides for them better than what the congregation is ready to offer.

This is also a symptom though it may not be a symptom that can be remedied by the congregation.  The burden of responsibility for solving this problem might lie within those clergy members who may bail out way too soon.

That is always worth starting.

Here is a link to Natural Church Development.  Look around:

http://www.ncd-international.org

Grace and peace to you.

John

Values

We intentionally give our heart to Jesus.  We glorify God in all we do. "

While it may send others running, For some it is what seems to be missing in a lot of UC's.. putting Christ and God first. I know I'm a lot more attracted to that then a lot of what I've seen lately while "shopping" around for a church.