Introduction

This reflection was one I shared with the pastors of the Trails West Cluster, Nebraska Synod, sometime in 1991, in response to the High Plains Project, an initiative to bring together clergy and laity in the cluster to plan for the future of ministry among the congregations.

Reflection

Our cluster stands at the crossroads, with several different paths open to us. It seems to me that we should attempt to take the path which will lead us toward continued faithful service to Christ and increasingly vital witness to his Gospel in our local communities. We can all agree on this general plan, but mapping out the specifics requires hard work.

Even so, I think we can agree not to continue, over the long term, with business as usual. In other words, the model of each individual, isolated congregation containing within itself all the necessary resources talents and expertise for the full range of ministry is a model no longer suited to our situation.

But we will face hard work in choosing a new model and leaving behind the ways we have worked to follow within the old model. Part of what contributes to the old model is our uncritical adoption of the myth of the American individual. We would all like to believe we are self-sufficient self-contained, and able to handle, on our own, all that life throws a us. (This is our sin.) We have further adopted this model in assuming a consumer-approach to the life of our congregations.

In this refinement the lay people are the consumers of religious services, the pastors are contracted (hired) to provide services and the desires of people determine the list of services that need o be provided. [If people want a low-fat hamburger, then McDonald’s will develop and market such a product. If people want a particular menu of services from their pastors, then we will develop and market such a menu.]

I was disappointed with our High Plains Projects I & II because this was the model by which we operated. Pastors (providers) listened (quietly) to what the people (consumers) desired, then we were obliged to develop certain services.

It seems to me that we need a different way of approaching the decisions our cluster needs to make. Lay people have worthwhile insights to contribute, as do pastors. The laity contribute from the point of view of ministers in their community and the pastors contribute from the vantage of ministers of God’s Word within the Christian community. Both voices need to be heard by all for the sake of the Gospel.

The consumer model has further guided thinking in the past in other ways as well. Configurations of congregations have been aligned not on the basis of what will serve most faithfully the mission and ministry of the Church, but on the basis of how to preserve the maximum array of services at the minimum cost to the congregation.

And so each congregation in a multiple-congregation parish has attempted to preserve the full menu of services provided by a pastor who is now only “on the job” 60, 50, 40, or 33 percent of the time. This inevitably leads to stress for the pastors and their families, to dissatisfied “consumers” throughout the parish, and to a creeping sense of failure because we cannot maintain that “full menu of services.”

As a result, I think would should abandon this whole model of administering parish life and look to a new model, hinted at by asking these kinds of questions:

1. How can we structure (administer) our cluster so that in each community we support and strengthen colonies of Christians dedicated to witnessing to the Good News?
2. How can we practice the most faithful stewardship of time, talent, and resources on a clusterwide basis for the sake of supporting the structure we develop?
3. How can we catechize everyone to abandon the consumer approach and embrace the partner-in-ministry approach to parish life?
4. Is the yoked-congregation approach the best model, or are there other models we can adopt? Cluster-based ministry? Multiple pastors on staff? Parish nurses? Certified lay evangelists? Parish managers? Seminary interns? How can we throw the whole mix wide open and plan for the future growth of our cluster?
5. Should we adopt a missionary posture in our cluster, so that we are devoted to developing colonies of Christians who are turned outwards to reach those who have not yet found a place in the Church?
6. What resources in the tradition of the whole Church can help us address these questions of configuration? How has the Church faced the challenges of geography and demographics before in its history? How are these challenges being met in other places today?

NOTE: The worship attendance figures in brackets represent reported information from the 2008 parochial reports available on the Web site of the ELCA. The percentages reflect the change from 1990 to 2008. The pastors were those serving in 1990-1991 in the yokings noted.

CONGREGATION	WEEKLY WORSHIP	PASTOR
Messiah, Broadwater	40 [39] -2.5%	Eric Meissner
Trinity, Dalton	72 [27] -62.5%
Berea, Chappell	71 [52] -26.8%	(Keith McKay (interim))
Grace, Chappell	20 [5] -75%	Chris Farmer
Gloria Del, Lodgepole	41 [29] -29.3%
Grace, Gurley	44 [15] -65.9%	David Frye
First, Potter	47 [16] -66.0%
First English, Kimball	118 [83] -29.7%	Dwayne Hunzeker
Grace, Lewellen	25 [13] -48%	Bob Hoeft
St. Mark, Oshkosh	70 [40]
Immanuel, Lodgepole	63 [40] -42.9%	Keith McKay
Holy Trinity, Sidney	241 [225] -6.6%	Dennis Hahle
TOTAL: 12	852 [584] -31.5%	7