Why Conferences Won’t Help (and What to Do Instead)

The reason I loathe church conferences is there is often the underlying assumption that you can attend a conference, get great ideas, go back and implement those ideas and see your church grow in one or more of the following: 1) numbers of people in worship, 2) amount of offering in the plate and 3) increased faithfulness to the Gospel. But if growing a stagnant or shrinking congregation could be solved by a conference and a binder full of ideas, then we wouldn’t have any problems.

The problem with this approach is at least twofold-there is little enthusiasm for the changes and they wouldn’t work anyway. It is nigh unto impossible for one person excited about a new “silver bullet” approach to the issues your church faces to actually get a critical mass of people to share the vision long enough and energetically enough to overcome whatever resistance might exist to change (this is a church we are talking about after all).

The second problem is that even if you could get through that first hurdle, it is quite possible that what worked for a church elsewhere won’t work for you. Why? Because context is King, Queen, Judge, Jury and Executioner when it comes to all great ideas. What works for a church in suburban Atlanta is not likey to work in quite the same way in Vienna or Cairo (yes, mean the south Georgia towns, not the European cities). It is equally unlikely that lifting the Blessing of the Crops from St. James’ Quitman and dropping it onto Kingsland hoping for a similar turnout, when the one town is surrounded by an annual cycle of planting and harvesting and the other town is set amidst rows of pine trees that are on a much longer growing cycle.

Here is my short version of a church growth conference in three steps:

1. Your church is an important part of the Body of Christ in your community.
2. You are surrounded by a lost and hurting world in desparate need of the forgiveness and healing found in Christ alone.

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3. Body of Christ meet hurting world. Now you kids go play.

That’s about it. The shape it will take in one location given the unique grouping of gifts in the congregation and needs in the community will be different in each context. What is unchanging is that despite the fact that we have a proven ability to keep the light of Christ firmly hidden under a bushel basket as if it were our own private night light, each and every church in the Diocese of Georgia is surrounded by people who have little to no use for an Episcopal Church and yet within their spirits is a deep, abiding hunger for the exact spiritual food we offer week by week. It’s not that people don’t need what we offer, it’s that we are filling a need they don’t yet know they have. So, sometimes it is easier to start with a need they can identify, meet that need and in the process come into a relationship with people who would not otherwise ever cross your threshold. From that starting point, we then share the Gospel in a more intentional way.

Getting at the answers that will work in your context starts not with yet another meeting, but with looking at where the strengths of your congregation meet with the needs of its community. In Darien this came when retirees with some free time were put together with students with low test scores. In Cordele it came at the intersection of the energy within the small congregation and the needs of folks summering on Lake Blackshear (pictured here). For the resulting Worship on the Water look for the video found in the post below.

There is no telling what might happen in your church. But whatever it is will put you in touch with the needs of your community and will start by matching the gifts God has already given your church with those needs already present in your community. The rest is just imagination and hard work. You don’t need a conference or even a consultant. But you do need a broad group of people looking at your church and its context who are willing to pray and dream and then work. Name tags and binders not included. Some assembly required.

The Rev. Frank Logue
Canon to the Ordindary

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