Moving on from Church Folly Lane: The Pastoral to Program Shift - Softcover

Latham, Robert T.

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9781587365980: Moving on from Church Folly Lane: The Pastoral to Program Shift

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1587365987 ISBN 13: 9781587365980

Publisher: Wheatmark Inc, 2006

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Is your congregation stuck in a holding pattern? In transition without a blueprint? It may be that you have reached your attendance-size plateau. This book outlines four major attendance-size cultures while focusing on the critical shift that occurs between the Pastoral Congregation and the Program Congregation. If you are dealing with your congregation's stuckness or transition, this book can help you move forward and weather the changes more effectively.

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About the Author:

Robert T. Latham has been a Unitarian Universalist minister since 1969. He is currently a professional interim minister, following a number of successful settled ministries and special project ministries during his career. The creator of the Committee On Ministry program and an originator of the concept of Shared Ministry (originally called Co-Ministry), Reverend Latham has been an advocate of religious mission reclamation since the mid-1970s.

On the Island of Bermuda, at the crest of a hill overlooking the small town of St. George, stand the ruins of an imposing stone structure. Its architectural style is Gothic Revival with arched windows and columns of buttressed pillars. Typical of Anglicanism of the period, its shape is cruciform.

The original purpose of this structure was to replace the older church building down on St. George’s main street that had been severely damaged by fire. The congregation began its construction in 1874. However, in 1884, its primary source of financing was diverted to another project, and it had to slow down this construction. As time passed, the congregation became divided about its vision, and in 1894, on the verge of completing construction, it decided, instead, to refurbish and use its old building.

Because of the long history of setbacks and postponements and the final abandonment of the nearly finished structure, one of the streets abutting the property began to be called Church Folly Lane by the local townspeople. Eventually, this name became its officially posted designation.

A metaphor about religious groups that dwell on Church Folly Lane lurks in this story. It is that of congregations that begin projects symbolizing visionary growth but fail in completion and fall victim to maintenance-oriented lifestyles. This is a metaphor that aptly fits the circumstance of many Unitarian Universalist congregations that have struggled for years to complete the transition from a Pastoral Congregation to a Program Congregation without ever finalizing the shift.

However, unlike the St. George church, the reason that keeps most of these congregations in a stalled posture is neither financial nor that of a divided sense of purpose; rather, it is a lack of knowledge about why they are stalled. Even so, deficits that stem from what isn’t known can create the same state of folly as deficits that stem from abandoned dreams. The challenge of this deficit may involve any or all of the following:

perceiving that the shift needs to be made understanding the essential differences between the Pastoral and Program Congregations accepting what is required to make the shift determining a game plan for initiating or completing the shift

Critical to confronting the issues of the shift is becoming aware of the distinctions between these two types of institutions. Many of our congregations have been Program Congregations in terms of attendance for years without ever having perceived the need to consider the manner by which their members relate, the style of basic leadership they need, the nature of their manifested community, the structure of their reflecting organization, or the focus of their decision-making process in contrast with those characteristic of the Pastoral Congregation.

One consequence is that such congregations may continue to organize for failure and tend to call professional leadership that is inappropriate to their needs. The vital resources they expend in ministry simply disappear down a black hole of ineffectiveness. Another consequence is arriving at an attendance or membership plateau that seems impossible to surmount. The cause, in both cases, is likely a lack of awareness of the dynamics that are driving congregational life. Only when this awareness is awakened will the resources expended doing ministry find a maximum and satisfying effectiveness.

Thus, one of the more pressing needs in Unitarian Universalism is to grasp and institute this pastoral-to-program shift in congregational life. On a continental basis, it is possible that up to 35% of our congregations are either trying to initiate or complete this shift. And another very large percentage are already solidly participating in the numerical probabilities of one or the other of these attendance-size cultures without doing so in an effective fashion. These two groups of congregations represent the greatest social and financial influence in our religious movement. Until this shift need is engaged and understanding of cultural differences is grasped, a large number of our congregations will continue to languish in ineffectiveness, and their power to transform will remain at low ebb.

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