I was a part of an active ministry that was struggling to stay relevant to its members back in 2003. At that time, my church had established itself in a comfortable space in Seattle, north of downtown - with a couple of classrooms, a conference area, practice room for the band and a few feet away from a large multi-purpose ballroom that we used as our worship area every Sunday. Because of its history (see other blog entries), most of the workers in this church lived up in the north - Shoreline, Lynnwood, etc. So during the week, this "church facility" was largely unused. Sometimes, in the middle of the week, we would have meetings and people would have to drive in to Seattle to make use of the facility.
Around the same time, there were comments being made about the lack of attention being paid to the work in the South area. This wasn't anyone's fault, of course. A couple of years beforehand, this church had established a satellite church in the South, brought in a pastor to take care of it - only to watch it become a different denomination altogether (that's another story). So over the turn of the century to then, the natural focus geographically speaking and the place where all the workers came from was the northern area. There was such a great need to care for the people who came from the South but since most of the pastoral workers were from Shoreline and beyond, that became a very difficult thing to do.
It was during this time that the vision to move into people's neighborhoods was adopted. Pushed specifically and championed by one of the northern based elders, the idea that the church must be where the people are rather than being in a remote place that people have to drive to became a rallying cry. This slowly became a working slogan as most of the leadership and congregation jumped on board. The possibility of not having to drive 20+ miles every Sunday was an attraction to everyone. Potential regions were identified and potential pastors selected and prepared. In 2006, the vision came to pass - a congregation was established as far south as Federal Way, another one in West Seattle and the remnants (which were the majority of the members, including the only trained and full time pastor) who were mostly residing in the north, stayed in the church facility for a while until they could find a location where they could gather up north. They settled eventually in Mountlake Terrace.
In 2007, 3 congregations were functioning and the business of spreading God's Word under the name of this church and working with local communities was in full swing. Originally, the vision was to plant several churches as we developed workers and found opportunities to establish congregations. Church planting was the name of the game… or so we thought.
The work of trying to keep a congregation together by themselves was too much for the church in West Seattle. Led by a bi-vocational pastor and largely untrained church workers, it was all they could do just to keep a Sunday worship service happening. Less than 2 years after the original launching, they had to affiliate themselves with a larger denomination just so they could get some guidance, covering, and spiritual feeding. They loved the Lord and His work. It's just that the structure that had gotten set up by the original church expansion could not support 3 churches all pursuing the same passions. There was no overseeing body to provide support, follow up, guidance - and most importantly, unity. Each church that had gotten set up were on their own to develop programs, workers, training and direction - and everyone just relied on their relationships with each other in the other churches to keep the organization together.
Almost 4 years later, the church in Federal Way is experiencing the same challenges. Although they had stuck with the original church in Mountlake Tarrace because of a stronger bond of friendship between the South pastor and the pastor from the north, their local work became the focus of all their time. They brought in new people - people who had no relationships with the original church - was this not the aim of the original expansion in the first place? The local church’s emphasis began to change to one of local involvement rather than church expansion via planting. Due in part to the way the structure was set up (i.e. no centralized oversight), the 2 remaining congregations from the north and the south drifted apart in terms of their methods, passions, ministry focus and even theology. They could not even keep a shared website as information was not shared as regularly as it should have been and there was no clear owner of functions that encompassed both groups.
As much as the originals remained friends, their passions and ministry focus areas began to change. The pastor from the south - yes, the one who championed the original vision of planting churches around the area - had moved on to a different area of ministry. A new generation of church members had developed whose passions lied in serving the community - locally and internationally - in getting involved with organizations whether Christian or secular. These new people had no ties to the original church in Seattle and did not see planting churches as their primary mission in life – nor did they see it as a priority for their local faith community. They were more progressive, so to speak - left leaning, if you will, focused on social justice, the environment, poverty, human trafficking, etc.
People change, circumstances change - but it's all good. In all of this, God continues to provide, guide and work. The church in the South is now considering a merger with a larger organization in order to keep itself moving forward. To them, as long as they can keep doing what they are passionate about, it doesn't matter what the history was behind the establishment of their local church. What matters is where they want to take it from here. Its bi-vocational pastor says he has reached the point where the congregation needs to be turned over to a full-time pastor, someone who can care for them and nurture them spiritually because that's what he does full time. Most of the new generation of believers have tremendous potential but a full time pastor must take the reins. Unfortunately, due to the economy (half the congregation are laid off workers) and a lack of resources to draw from, the church in Federal Way cannot depend on its sister church in the north to come to its aid. So their best move right now is to merge with another congregation where both can benefit from each other's resources.
Changing visions, changing passions, changing directions. It's all part of our journey in this ministry life. Sometimes we think we've got the future all figured out with our plans of expanding the Kingdom of God - then God surprises us with something different. And that’s all part of the excitement.
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