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By Lucy Chumbley
Washington Window
Vol. 74, No. 2, January 2006

To grow, or not to grow?

That is the question five congregations in the diocese are considering in earnest during a year-long congregational development pilot project.

The participating parishes - Ascension, Silver Spring; Christ Church, Rockville; St. George's, D.C.; Good Shepherd, Silver Spring; and St. Thomas', D.C. - were chosen "because of their size and because we thought they were stable and were capable of following through with this commitment," said the Rev. Carol Cole Flanagan, the diocese's canon for congregational development.

The To Grow Or Not To Grow project is jointly funded by the diocese and the participating parishes, Flanagan said. It aims to help pastoral size congregations - churches with between 50 and 150 members - decide if they want to make the transition to becoming program size - 150 to 300 members.

Church life is organized differently in pastoral and program size congregations, she said: Pastoral size congregations tend to be centered around the rector, for example, while in program size churches, programs and committees take on a more prominent role.

Making the transition from one type of congregation to another means more than just recruiting new members, Flanagan said - it requires a fundamental shift in the culture of the congregation.
"The hardest shift to make for congregations that want to grow is the shift from pastoral to program," she said. So the project is designed to help the five congregations first determine if they want to grow, then - if they decide they do - how to begin.

The program was designed by Bunty Ketcham and Amanda Graves, members of the diocesan Consultant Service Network who recently helped Transfiguration, Silver Spring, make the transition from pastoral size to program size.

"We were quite sure that the learning involved in going through this process could be transferred to more than one church at a time," Ketcham said. "We were so convinced of that that we went to [Flanagan] and proposed that - and that's where this started."

The project uses a book by Alice Mann - Raising the Roof; the Pastoral-to-Program Size Transition - as its main reference. Mann also will conduct one of the training sessions.

"Raising the Roof presents some theories but it also presents some specific tools and processes for looking at congregations in a different way," Ketcham said. "Each one of the modules is designed to present or give the participants time to practice one of the tools."

Tools include making a 30-year chart of average Sunday attendance - "the learning you get from that is very, very significant" - identifying barriers to growth, and making a "pin map" to chart where parishioners live.

Each of the participating parishes has a "learning team," said consultant Sandy Kolb. These teams meet regularly, and all five teams come together to take part in the monthly modules. A consultant is assigned to each team to help it keep track of its progress, and the teams are given assignments to complete by the next session.

Homework often involves initiating conversations with parishioners, Kolb said. Members talk about their parish's history and identify turning points in the life of their congregation, such as when the church integrated, or the building burned down.

"Were the turning points something that echoes today - in terms of who they are and what they're called to do?" Kolb said. "The point is to have the conversation of what would it be like to have the congregation grow take place in the broader congregation."

The first part of the project involves gathering data and forming a deeper understanding of the parish and its potential, Kolb said. The next step is to determine "what would it take to take advantage of these opportunities, and are we willing to do that?"

"One of our challenges is to be very clear on the expectations of this process," Ketcham said, "and sudden, immediate growth is not one of them. These are the steps that make growth possible - even more, probable. All we can do is our very best to present these tools and processes and hold [the teams] accountable for doing something with them."

Once the parishes have been given the training and the tools, she said, only they can answer the question that drives the project - to grow, or not to grow.

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