gregca's picture

gregca

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Time to think outside of the box

Lately I have been having second thoughts on the current structure of my church. I know that financial pressures will force change.churches that had full time ministry will adopt half time etc. but I wonder if we really should go beyond that forced necessity to rethinking how we do things. I am getting a bit tired of giving, and working to maintain the status quo. Maybe we should be thinking outside of paid clergy and considering our responsibilities to the greater community outside of our church bldg. What do you think?

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waterfall's picture

waterfall

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I think you may be right, but you risk having the church dissolve completely because most clergy have come from a system that requires pay for preaching the gospel and without the structure of a building and the legitimacy of a congregations support, how many would venture out on their own to spread God's word?

 

How many of todays clergy would continue to preach without pay? Some will, some won't. How many young people would find a "calling"  to become educated to begin to spread the word of God without "benefits" and risk the ridicule in this day and age?

chansen's picture

chansen

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How much ridicule is there against clergy, really? I think Catholic priests have it the worst, after all the child rape scandals coming from their ranks. But I don't see many people actually going around and insulting clergy. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see a lot of outward hostility towards ministers just because they are ministers.

 

Mostly, I think choosing to be a minister is seen as a career path through an industry in decline. As a career move, it's terrible. If that's what you really want to do...go for it. People who really want to do something tend to excel in that field.

 

waterfall's picture

waterfall

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I suppose the "message" that is being proclaimed might be recieved more skeptically these days with more hostility. But then again it was never an easy message to teach.

chansen's picture

chansen

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gregca wrote:
Lately I have been having second thoughts on the current structure of my church. I know that financial pressures will force change.churches that had full time ministry will adopt half time etc. but I wonder if we really should go beyond that forced necessity to rethinking how we do things. I am getting a bit tired of giving, and working to maintain the status quo. Maybe we should be thinking outside of paid clergy and considering our responsibilities to the greater community outside of our church bldg. What do you think?

I think you're one side of the UCCan coin - the side which is most concerned with your civic responsibilities that you've voluntarily taken on. This is the part of religion that I hope we can replace with secular efforts. It's the part I'm genuinely impressed with churches over - when they do goof in their communities. The problem is, for all the giving, fixed costs eat up so much, so as a charitable vehicle, churches are still rather inefficient in terms of impact per dollar given.

 

There is a different side of the UCCan, which is extremely worried about what God wants and what his words say, so they keep running to the damn bible for answers and direction. And of course, because it's so vague, you can infer all sorts of advice from the bible, from sell all the posessions and give it to the poor, to kill all the bad people, and lots of advice in-between.

 

I do think there has to be some planning for the reduction of the UCCan both at the local, presbytery and national levels. I think that, going forward, fewer people are going to believe, so you have to prepare for that. Of course, it's not as simple as selling off preperty, either, as the discussions on United Future around property development shows.

 

It's not a good situation that many congregations find themselves in. I think there is a lack of honesty around the reasons why new members are not coming and old members have stopped coming, and those reasons are mostly that you believe both too strongly for people who are essentially atheists and agnostics who hung on due to a strong sense of church community, and not strongly enough for others who loooove the whole Jesus thing and are quite insistent that the stories are true and the UCCan isn't taking it seriously enough.

 

That middle ground is shrinking faster than any other belief demographic.

 

So, what can be done? I don't have a surefire answer. I'd vote to move more in the United Universalist direction, because they don't serve most of the areas the UCCan still does, and they don't have insane beliefs that people struggle to take seriously. I say this because the more rigid beliefs are already well represented in most towns, so from a business standpoint, the market for crazy is already oversaturated.

 

But I'm not a member, and I don't have a vote. That's just me, looking in.

 

InannaWhimsey's picture

InannaWhimsey

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waterfall wrote:
I suppose the "message" that is being proclaimed might be recieved more skeptically these days with more hostility. But then again it was never an easy message to teach.

 

How do you know that, though?

 

It might be a really easy message to teach, ferinstance...and because of the way you think, what you have been exposed to...

or lack of reporting...

 

 

InannaWhimsey's picture

InannaWhimsey

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gregca,

 

See video

revjohn's picture

revjohn

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Hi gregca,

 

gregca wrote:

Maybe we should be thinking outside of paid clergy and considering our responsibilities to the greater community outside of our church bldg. What do you think?

 

I think it is one way to go.

 

Paid clergy should never be the only ministers present in any congregation.  If we take seriously the notion of the priesthood of all believers then every Christian should have a ministry that they participate in.  Not just in a dollars and cents way but a sweat and effort way.

 

Survival minded Churches are more concerned with keeping the current contributors happy and generous.

 

Mission minded Church would be congregations where as much, if not more, is happening outside of the building than in it.  Let's face it the building was simply a convenient place to meet for the educational and worship elements of the Christian faith, service/ministry was to happen everywhere else the Christian might find themselves.

 

There is no escaping the reality that many congregations want a paid professional to do the lion's share of people work (ie., hospital visitation, grief counselling).  It is also true that in The United Church the office of Elder has been demeaned and diminished to the point that congregations couldn't get rid of it fast enough.

 

I think that the model you propose could work.

 

I also note that save for the paid clergy it is the model that used to work in our particular denomination.

 

It might be that it isn't the model currently employed that is the problem so much as it is the expectations of folk on what the model should accomplish.

 

Good luck in your exploration.

 

Grace and peace to you.

John

waterfall's picture

waterfall

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InannaWhimsey wrote:

waterfall wrote:
I suppose the "message" that is being proclaimed might be recieved more skeptically these days with more hostility. But then again it was never an easy message to teach.

 

How do you know that, though?

 

It might be a really easy message to teach, ferinstance...and because of the way you think, what you have been exposed to...

or lack of reporting...

 

 

 

 

 

I probably don't "know" that, except by what I'm observing taking place in North America. An increasing disinterest in God's word.

 

It is a simple message but harder to live it, go figure.

Mendalla's picture

Mendalla

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Paid clergy are hardly necessary to be a church. At least two UU congregations in Ontario are lay-led by choice and are doing fine. They use a mix of members and guest speakers for their services. They do tend to be more humanist in outlook.

 

There are things to consider, of course. How are you going to run worship? Who is providing pastoral care (ideally everyone but who's in charge of coordinating the activity)? Who is your officiant for rites of passages, esp. weddings which require a license (the Canadian Unitarian Council has a program in place to train, ordain and license "lay chaplains" in congregations lacking a minister so it is not an issue for most of us)?

 

My UU congregation, due to a mix of financial necessity and shrinking membership is likely going lay-led in a year assuming we make it that far. The board is going to strike a task force to look at the issues above since it has been a couple decades since this particular congregation has been without clergy on a permanent/indefinite basis. Unfortunately, I am not sure where said task force is going to come from given that Nominating is having problems finding people for the Board, let alone special committees and task forces.

 

Mendalla

 

waterfall's picture

waterfall

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Maybe the UCC should use WC2 as their "go to" model.

chansen's picture

chansen

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I hope the members of the UCCan use WC2 as their "go to" place for online discussion. I don't know if it's much of a model for anything else. It's really more like the setup for a bad joke than anything else. "A Christian, an agnostic, and an atheist walk into a datacentre..."

 

gregca's picture

gregca

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I tend to think that some form of paid clergy is necessary.lay help can be a benefit but you do need clergy re visitation, communion, weddings, death etc. However it can be a pay as you go operation. You pay for actual service rendered. For instance do a Sunday service here's $200 etc.some churchs bring in visiting ministers.they are pd expenses and for their time.of course the advantage is you have control over your disbursements.you pay what you can afford. You are not tied into an seventy or eighty thousand dollar deathtrap.
It is sad. If only an average number of people support their church it would not be necessary. But the fact of the matter is the vast majority have better things to do with their money instead of giving it away.they want it for themselves. And it is nothing wrong with that. It is life today. We got to adopt and get used to it. We have to survive in some form.

chansen's picture

chansen

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waterfall wrote:

I probably don't "know" that, except by what I'm observing taking place in North America. An increasing disinterest in God's word.

 

It is a simple message but harder to live it, go figure.

It's a convoluted, contradictory story that is really, really difficult to believe over any other religious story or myth.

 

That fewer are taking interest in it is completely predictable. What did people think would happen, that everyone would just start believing it?

 

waterfall's picture

waterfall

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The message of Christianity is a good one IMO. I can see failings in a secular lifestyle and when I see Christianity failing I usually see it overly secularized. We are all vulnerable to the trappings of the world and few realize how materialistic we've become until we come closer to an end or crisis in our life and realize tbe pursuit of possessions was all for nothing. Releasing ourselves from the worlds expectations is freeing and surrendering to Gods awesome power opens our eyes to what is important.

chansen's picture

chansen

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waterfall wrote:
The message of Christianity is a good one IMO. I can see failings in a secular lifestyle and when I see Christianity failing I usually see it overly secularized.

I don't even need to respond here. Everone reading can think of examples where this is not true.

 

Dcn. Jae's picture

Dcn. Jae

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We followers of Christ need to be changing things in two major ways...

1.) We need to change all of our traditional, attractional churches into missional churches.

2.) We need to plant a plethora of missional churches in places where there are still no churches, and in places where attractional churches refuse to become missional.

It's time for us all to be focused on being used by God in His great mission of redemption.

Rich blessings.

waterfall's picture

waterfall

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gregca wrote:
I tend to think that some form of paid clergy is necessary.lay help can be a benefit but you do need clergy re visitation, communion, weddings, death etc. However it can be a pay as you go operation. You pay for actual service rendered. For instance do a Sunday service here's $200 etc.some churchs bring in visiting ministers.they are pd expenses and for their time.of course the advantage is you have control over your disbursements.you pay what you can afford. You are not tied into an seventy or eighty thousand dollar deathtrap. It is sad. If only an average number of people support their church it would not be necessary. But the fact of the matter is the vast majority have better things to do with their money instead of giving it away.they want it for themselves. And it is nothing wrong with that. It is life today. We got to adopt and get used to it. We have to survive in some form.

 

So you want a minister to come when you need him and go away when you don't? You'll need one for weddings, visitation, communions and deaths? That sounds the same as someone that doesn't go to church, uses the church.

InannaWhimsey's picture

InannaWhimsey

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gregca,

 

also, perhaps you and you congregation could embrace Jesus as hacker?

 

See video

 

See video

 

See video

 

See video

 

See video

what are you and your congregation willing to try out as you take responsibility for your own lives and church?

WaterBuoy's picture

WaterBuoy

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Hacking space ... something that would choke up a statute and create a Liberal artistic learning (aD Libis) centre that is wide spread (flat toute until a line was struck by the penne or 5th amendment, allowing for wends and bends in Eire)?

 

Such would cause a stoic dys Lexis (para lacks vision) about reading a tome (tomb, encrypt 'd matter of insubstantial nature) in a different in substantial (sub sisting in a hole) pathe that could be mental pathology ... or an affinity to discover where the mind got to in people (pitz, cede-r) that didn't wish to know about LOGOS, word and books (tomes) entirely as useless insubstantial immaterial ... or pure energy on the go ... thus like God or LOGOS as soon as spoken about ITs gone ... intelligence expanding quickly away from it's source ... a emotional or spiritual character that too will blanch with time ...

 

Words and isolated iteration drive the greater powers that wish silence from the demos ... the underdogs ... that would like to know ... how the haute class screwed up so well in rising Eire ... Cos in great affinty towards a fall of gravid things and thus it was subtle ... so mortals wouldn't know unless they really dug into ID. Is that underlying like eÐà-mist that is obscuring? That's the Shadow affect of fear of knowing anything ... so we don't generally ... leading to the Zero Sum Gamos that sometimes goes below the horizon as devilish thought seekers on pilgrimages into inner dimensions of matter vs antimatter or in substantial energies that are poorly understood. Some scientists say that even light energy is indefinite (abstract, imaginary?)  so if you know a bright person ... they too could fade in faith that they are not that rugged in the field of time ... and thus all thoughts crumble like bits under the widows plate (to enð able progress of mental Libras) and thus thoughts explode in another di-mensa 've N'eLLe (venella sky territory?).

 

Thus all things go or fall through the abstraction bare Eire ... where some of us go that drift off in bochs and Boxs, maybe phonetic books! Did you know phonetic readability is failing alone with cursive writes, due to dislike about anything that might secure alien concepts ... like words as laid out in a tomb, or tome as Levite ... a Phonecian floater!  Thus the lesser tyranny is failing in the mensarealm as abba'd feature of not knowing or naivete seen gone ... and thus a wee bit of knowledge is bad as small thoughts can be conceived as confidence that you don't know beta ... thus the role carries through in the greater narrative experience ... that vast thing not observed in the par eL ax of brutii mortals that are isolated ... ma'hei'neim? Or just numb in ouz; the power of stew pit-ité as meta luge IHC lye alloyed to the unseen or obtuse bean in due insanity caused by too much emotion!

 

Such cogniznace can cause one to stop and think as arresting wisdom ... movers and other MO's don't like it ... to philosophically oriented ...

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