What Is Your Self-Identity?
By Lyle E. Schaller

What is the best route to take to our daughter’s dorm at the university? What is the quickest way to get to the hospital from here? What is the best route from here to the county court house?

All three of those questions cannot be answered unless there is agreement on where "here" is located. Frequently, there are two or three attractive routes from here to there, but both the current reality and that future goal must be identified before that logical route from here to there can be described.

"Our church was founded in 1948, and it was designed to attract and serve the young parents born in the 1920s. Can you tell us the best way to reach and serve the generations born after 1975?"

One beginning point in developing a strategy to fulfill that wish could be to describe the ministries in a congregation in which a very large proportion of today’s adults were born in the 1975-1990 era.

A different beginning point, and one that is widely used in church planning, asks the question, "What do you do best?" That often leads to opening the door to a discussion on how to reach, attract, serve, assimilate, nurture, disciple, challenge, and equip for ministry adults who were born before 1970. That opens the door to a choice on building this customized ministry plan on "what we offer" vs. on "what today’s church shoppers are seeking."

One more useful question for those seeking to design a 7-year or 10-year ministry plan, a different question begins with a different perspective.

How Has the Larger Context Changed?
This question could evoke a 44-point response, including (1) new sources of immigrants into the United States, (2) the impact of the Internet, (3) the quadrupling since 1960 in the number of Protestant congregations averaging more than a thousand at worship, (4) the operational decision by several mainline Protestant denominations to replace the focus on evangelism and missions with a greater emphasis on ecumenism, denominational mergers, social justice issues, and intradenominational quarreling, (5) the increase in the competition for (a) that growing pool of charitable dollars and (b) the loyalty of future constituents, (6) the arrival of a generation of teenagers unlike any previous generation of teenagers, (7) the emergence of a huge number and variety of nondenominational megachurches, (8) the impact of affluence, (9) the growing affirmation of atheism, and (10) the decrease in the proportion of 30-year-old Americans who spend considerable time every week reading printed words on white paper.

From Neighborhood to Regional
Fifty to sixty years ago, Christian congregations in the United States usually relied on several criteria for defining "our service area." First, it was defined in geographical terms. Most congregations focused on people living within one to five miles of the meeting place. That traced back to the 19th century and early years of the 20th century when most American churchgoers either walked to church or were transported by horses. (Thousands of rural congregations in the North had a barn on the grounds where the horses were protected from the winter weather for two or three hours while the owners were in Sunday school and worship.) That criterion of geographical proximity continues to be influential today, but usually is expanded to a radius of 7 to 15 miles as "the community served by our church."

A secondary set of criteria often referred to new residents of this neighborhood, skin color, language, nationality, denominational affiliation, theological stance, tenure of the magnetic personality who was the founding pastor, location of the meeting place, social class, and the place of birth of the policy-makers.

The 1960s brought what has been described as the beginnings of the fourth great religious revival in American church history. One consequence was to reduce the emphasis on geography and denominational affiliation in defining "our potential future constituents" and replace it with "reaching the unchurched."

The Jesus Movement brought a more narrowly defined response in the 1970s as a small but rapidly growing number of Protestant congregations and new missions focused on the older teenagers and young adults born after World War II. That expanded the geographical area to be served from "our community" to (a) a reference by year of birth or generation and (b) the journey to church by motor vehicle rather than by walking or by horse.

One important consequence was the small neighborhood congregation began to be replaced by the large regional church. Some of these were the result of the relocation of a neighborhood congregation founded in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s to a much larger site. More represented an affirmation of the new reality and were new missions meeting on a large, highly visible and easily accessible parcel of land.

The service area of these regional megachurches varies from 10 to 35 miles. One consequence is a 10-mile radius includes more than 11 times the land area of a 3-mile radius. It also means (a) including many more potential future constituents, (b) many more congregations competing to serve the same constituency, and (c) an increase in the demand for church-owned off-street parking. A common goal is one off-street parking space for every two people worshiping here on Sunday morning.

One consequence was that by 1980, a growing number of Protestant congregations in America chose one of two words as their self-identification: neighborhood or regional.

Four Twenty-First Century Responses
While it began as a consequence of several denominational mergers in the second half of the 20th century, another response to this question has become increasingly common in recent years. "How have we changed our identity? The big change is we have dropped (or switched) our denominational affiliation." Examples can be found among what were Episcopal, Lutheran, Evangelical, Baptist, Presbyterian, Congregational, or Reformed congregations.

If we measure this trend in terms of people, rather than congregations, the reference is to the millions of individuals reared in a Roman Catholic or mainline Protestant denomination family who are now active constituents in a nondenominational megachurch.

While it began back in the 1970s, another definition of "our self-identity" did not become a widely accepted strategy until the 1990s. This is "the multisite option." Should we relocate our meeting place to a larger and more accessible site? Instead of choosing from among the old three choices of "Yes" or "No" or "Let’s sponsor a new mission," the decision was, "Let’s continue our ministries from this place filled with sacred memories and launch a second site at a better location to reach more people with the Good News about Jesus Christ." When that venture exceeded the initial expectations, it became easy to win support for a third site.

A third 21st century response is, "We have expanded our multisite ministry to a multistate ministry. Our weekend worship schedule now includes 30 services at 10 sites in three states. Seven of the 10 sites are ones we planted, and the other three are congregations that asked us to adopt them as one of our off-campus ministries. Every one of those three now averages more than 15 times as many people at worship as they did before they were adopted."

A fourth response is illustrated by this statement of self-identity. "Our congregation includes seven off-campus worshiping communities in this metropolitan area plus five in other states plus nine sister churches on other continents with which we have a continuing relationship."

How do the leaders in your congregation define the current identity of this collection of believers? What do they project will be the self-identity of this congregation in 2020?

The Community Image
Finally, if we switch the focus from the internally generated self-identity of a congregation in America to an external perspective, this may prove useful to the policy-makers who are designing that new customized ministry plan.

"When I say these three words, First Presbyterian Church, what image do those words evoke in your mind?" was the question addressed to the Pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church. "That’s easy," came the instant reply. "They have far more than their fair share of the most respected and influential community leaders in this town. When I came 21 years ago, that proportion was close to half. Today, my guess is it is at least one fourth."

"You told me earlier you live five houses west of the Pilgrim Congregational Church on Montgomery Road. What’s the image you carry in your head of that congregation?"
"We moved here 19 years ago, and several of my friends were members there," replied this 71-year-old grandmother. "Nearly all of them are now retired and have moved or switched to another church or died, so I know only one of today’s long-time members. She told me how they had two consecutive pastors, neither one of whom was a good match. Attendance dropped from about 150 to 75 to 20 when they decided to be adopted as the south campus by an independent multisite church founded about 30 years ago. Their main campus is located about 20 miles north of here. Pilgrim Church had a five-acre site. so the multisite church spent close to a million dollars doubling the size of the parking lot and remodeling what was a 40-year-old building. The sermons are delivered by the senior minister of the multisite church via videotape and my friend tells me their attendance is now about 350 at their two Sunday morning services, and most of the people were born after 1970."

"If you ask me, Central Church, despite the fact it was founded in the late 1800s, is one of the most progressive churches in this community," reflected the mayor of this city of 135,000 in population. "They were the first to televise their Sunday morning worship service at 9:00, they were the first to add a full minister of community ministries to their staff, they were the first church in town to take advantage of financing by the federal government to build and administer housing for the elderly back in the 1960s, they were the first to have an interactive Web site, and they were the first church in town to build continuing relationships with sister churches on other continents."

"What’s the general community image of Bethany Church? I can’t speak for anyone else, but my wife and I were talking about it the other day," recalled this 43- year-old banker. "I came home and told my wife the pastor had been in to close his account, and he explained he was moving to another city in two days. Later, I asked one of our tellers who is a member of Bethany what had happened. She explained the Board of Elders had demanded his resignation and insisted it be effective in five days. She added that this is the fourth pastor who had been dismissed by the Elders in her 12 years as a member. One other pastor had resigned on his own initiative after only a year."

"You ask about Calvary Church," responded a partner in a small business in a city with about 3,800 residents. "My partner’s parents were one of the two key families in organizing that congregation after World War II. Two of the adult children, one of whom is my business partner, from one of those two families and the granddaughter and her husband from the other family, are among the most influential leaders today. My impression is those three families also are the biggest financial supporters. That’s why they are able to have a full-time pastor with fewer than a hundred at worship on the typical Sunday morning. Their current minister has earned the reputation as the best pastor in town in officiating at funerals. He strikes me as an exceptionally loving shepherd."

What impact does the image of your congregation that is carried in the minds of non-members have in designing the future of your congregation?

Lyle E. Schaller is a retired parish pastor and parish consultant. His most recent book, From Cooperation to Competition, was published by Abingdon Press.

Copyright 2008 by Lyle E. Schaller