"It was at a staff meeting on the morning of September 12, 2001, that I realized we had finally turned the corner," recalled the Reverend Clifford Owens, the senior minister of First Church . "This congregation has been meeting at this address since 1881. The original wooden frame building burned in 1908 and was replaced by this structure. We're located three blocks from the intersection that marks the heart of downtown. When I arrived as the new senior minister back in 1994, I found people talking about four subjects. One was the aging and numerical decrease of our membership.

"Attendance at Sunday morning worship had peaked 30 years earlier at close to 800, I was told. The year before my arrival, the annual report stated it had dropped to 163, down from 340 10 years earlier. A smaller number were still second guessing a vote taken at a congregational meeting back in about 1960 that rejected the recommendation of a planning committee to relocate. By a 3-to-2 margin, that recommendation had been defeated, and a decision was made to remain downtown. Two other mainline Protestant churches here in the downtown area had relocated to the west side in the 1950s. Today both are substantially larger than we are, and that feeds the second guessing of the past. A third group of people wanted to recreate 1955. When I came, I told them I did not know how to do that. A fourth group was eager to create a cooperative ministry with three other downtown churches."

"How much off-street parking do you have?" interrupted the visitor, who was the senior minister of a downtown church in a smaller size city four hundred miles away.

"Fortunately, that's not a problem here," happily explained Cliff. "We own a total of nearly 100 spaces along the east and north sides of our property. That takes care of most of our weekday and evening needs. On our side of the next block, the city owns a parking garage that doesn't charge for parking from 7 a.m. to noon on Sundays. That does mean, however, our 10:30 service must be over by 11:40 at the latest, but that's not a problem, since we're in the eastern end of this time zone. Parking is a more crucial issue today than it was back in the 1950s when this congregation peaked in size. Today it takes at least twice as many vehicles to bring a hundred people to church as it did in the 1950s."

"Tell me why 9-11 was a turning point for you," impatiently asked the visitor.

"Shortly after I arrived, we decided we should make our top priority reaching and serving the daytime population here. Most of the people who work downtown don't live in the downtown area. They commute to work. We do have a growing number of people who live near here, but most do not work downtown. The majority are immigrants who do not have English as their first language. In recent years, we're seeing new housing being constructed for younger American-born and upper-middle-class adults, but that's another story," continued Cliff. "That was a long, slow effort filled with many disappointments, but gradually our weekday and evening ministries began to attract more people. When we heard the news about the twin trade towers in Manhattan that terrible Tuesday, we immediately decided to schedule a prayer service for 12:15 and a full worship service for 5:30 after work. One of our new members works for a radio station that is a 24-hour news station, and two others work for two of the local network-affiliated TV stations. We telephoned all three, and each agreed to add that to their civic announcements. We put two big signs out on the sidewalk on the sides of our property. The attendance at the noon service was nearly 400, and we had an overflow crowd for the 5:30 service. Our sanctuary can accommodate about 500, and we had another 200 watching the video feed on television screens in the fellowship hall."

"That's amazing!" exclaimed the visitor, "but why do you call that the turning point?"

"The next morning at our staff meeting, we decided that a lot of people who work downtown saw us as their church. The Sunday after 9-11, our attendance was the second largest of the year. Only on Easter did we have more people worshiping here," explained Cliff. "Later on, we learned that none of the four other downtown Protestant churches had crowds even half the size we had on 9-11."

"That was seven years after you arrived as the new Senior Minister," reflected the visitor. "That's a long time! Are you telling me it took you that long to re-establish your role as a downtown church?"

"I told you it was a long and slow effort," repeated Cliff, "but that's what the book says. If a new pastor arrives and accepts the role of a transformational leader, from a long-time perspective, the significant changes rarely become visible before year six or seven or eight. I knew that before I came, but at times I did ask, 'How long, Oh Lord? How much longer before we begin to see results?' The lesson is patience."

"Earlier you also said that when you came here, you rejected plans to become part of a cooperative ministry of downtown churches," said the visitor. "Why did you reject that?"

"Three reasons," quickly replied Cliff. "First, my experience with cooperative ministries is that too many are organized around weaknesses. The best cooperative ministries are those in which strong congregations come together to share discretionary resources. When I arrived, this was far from being a strong church with lots of discretionary resources. That introduces my second reason. I saw the urgent need was to strengthen First Church . The third reason is I attended one meeting. There were 12 people in the room, three from each of the four congregations. That was the fifth meeting of the ad hoc planning committee asked to create a cooperative ministry. It quickly became apparent to me that no one of the several focal points for cooperation had more than three or four supporters. An effective cooperative ministry is driven by full agreement on a No. 1 priority. I didn't have the time nor the energy required for that debate. My top priority was to strengthen the ministry and outreach of First Church ."

Designing the Ministry Plan
Scattered across urban America are dozens of large, strong, effective and vital congregations that are models for a bright future for the downtown church. They are outnumbered by those that chose to relocate, dissolve or merge. They are also outnumbered by those that are smaller and weaker than they were back in the 1950s or 1960s. What do these strong and vital downtown churches have in common?

First, they have benefited from the leadership of a long-tenured senior minister who was, or is, an excellent preacher, a transformational leader driven by the optimistic view of the future, and a person who has enjoyed success in a previous pastorate.

Second, that minister has earned the active support of at least a half a dozen laypersons who are deeply committed followers of Jesus Christ, who are convinced the best days for this congregation are in the future, and who also have enjoyed success in their vocation or profession, in their family life and in leadership roles in voluntary associations.

Third, these leaders agree the vision is to create a new tomorrow, not to attempt to recreate 1955.

Fourth, in one way or another, they have resolved the problem of off-street parking for first-time visitors.

Fifth, the primary goal in designing the ministry plan for this downtown church in the 21 st century was not "taking better care of today's members." It was not "leaving this piece of real estate to the next generation in better condition than we received it from the previous generation." The focus was on identifying future constituents and on their spiritual and personal needs.

The most common source of new constituents usually consists, not of comfortable atheists and agnostics, but of people on a self-identified quest for meaning in life. Many are Christian believers without any current active church affiliation who have been"burned out" or disillusioned by an earlier relationship with a worshiping community. A fair number may be "cradle Catholics" who have become disenchanted with that institutional expression of the Christian faith and are seeking a more compatible church family. Another segment may be Christians who recently moved to the city because of employment opportunities and are looking for a new church home.

Overlapping these categories, the primary constituency for tomorrow may be the adults who commute to work downtown but their home is five or 10 or 20 miles away. A growing constituency in many cities consists of never-married single adults who live alone and turn to the church as a place to meet and make new friends.

Another potential constituency is that growing number of mature adults who live in or near downtown. Some are active in the labor force, and many are retired. This group includes husband-wife couples, never-married adults, widows, widowers and divorced adults living alone. One point of commonality is age. A more important one, however, is their social network is slowly shrinking. The downtown church purchases or leases a large Greyhound-type bus and schedules 100 or more trips a year. Many are one-day trips. Several are over one or two nights. A dozen or more are five to seven day trips. The second reason for these trips is to visit interesting places and enjoy memorable shared experiences. The primary reason is to create a setting that makes it relatively easy to meet and make new friends.

One implication of those four paragraphs is Sunday morning is not designed in response to the wants and needs of members who joined in the 20 th century. Sunday morning is designed to increase the chances that the first or second time visitor will depart convinced, "This is the church I've been seeking! They addressed my agenda!" That usually includes a sermon designed to speak to the needs of the person who is on a self-identified religious pilgrimage.

A second implication is much of the total ministry may be scheduled for noon time on Monday through Friday, for hours after work, and/or Saturdays.

A third implication is the primary future constituency should be identified before designing the staff configuration for that ministry. That often means a relatively large number of part-time lay specialists and relatively few ordained generalists.

A fourth implication begins with that earlier reference to the value of a long-tenured senior minister. One reason is consistency in the goals and priorities in that ministry plan. Another is to recognize the importance of interpersonal relationships. The downtown church of the 1950s usually was organized around a combination of denominational loyalty, great preaching, a superb chancel choir, status in terms of social class and the relationship of people to an institution. Today the relationships people have with other people reinforce their relationships to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

That is the glue that has replaced relationships to institutions all across American Christianity.

For more than four decades, Lyle E. Schaller has served as a parish consultant to hundreds of congregations and scores of denominational agencies. His recent books include From Geography to Affinity and The Ice Cube Is Melting . The author's newest book, A Mainline Turnaround, will be published by Abingdon Press in May 2005.

Copyright © 2005 Lyle Schaller