Faith Church had been organized in 1893 to serve as a neighborhood church. Most of the people moving into what had been a new residential neighborhood in 1891 and 1892 had been born in Germany. That explained why German was the language used in worship for the first quarter century of its history. In 1917, the schedule was expanded to include an early service in German with the second service in English. The Sunday school had become an English-language ministry back in 1908. A fire in 1923 destroyed the original white-frame structure. The members completed construction of a new masonry meeting place on that same site in September 1924. That early worship service in German was discontinued in 1943, five years before the end of a 33-year pastorate.

The third pastor in Faith’s history arrived in July 1948. He was an entrepreneurial and high-energy young man fresh out of seminary. He traced his ancestry back to Germany, but his competence in that language was limited to a dozen words. He had served with the American Air Force based in Great Britain from 1944 to 1945 as a navigator. He had graduated from college before enlisting in 1943 and enrolled in seminary following his discharge from military service in late 1945.

This extroverted, energetic, and enthusiastic 26-year-old arrived to serve a congregation with a strong German heritage, an aging membership, and an average worship attendance of 97 in 1947, down from a peak of well over 200 in the late 1920s. Nearly all the charter members had died. Their American-born children and other American-born adults constituted the majority of the members back in "the good old days" of the 1920s. One reason for that drop in membership was many of the children born to members back in the first quarter of the century had decided to move out to newer and better housing in new residential neighborhoods. Most of their replacements were American-born adults of a western European ancestry, but nearly all of them identified themselves as "Americans," not as "German-Americans."

Another explanation for the numerical decline traced back to the age and health of the previous pastor. His health began to deteriorate in 1945, but he was determined he would not retire until after his 65th birthday in 1948. A generous description was that he served as a maintenance minister of an aging congregation for his last three or four years.
By the third month on the scene, this new pastor was devoting close to 20 hours every week walking up and down the streets in this neighborhood and becoming acquainted with the residents. His goal was to complete the transition for this congregation from a German identity to a neighborhood congregation. One reason was that was consistent with what he had been taught in seminary. A second was he was a gregarious introvert who wore a perpetual smile. A third was that congregation owned a grand total of three off-street parking spaces.

One consequence was he met and married a lovely young woman who was of Swedish and Norwegian ancestry. Her grandparents had been the first occupants of a house located a mile west of Faith Church. She lived there with her parents. They were members of a Swedish Covenant congregation, and the wedding was held in her church in June 1950. The guests included at least a dozen badly disappointed mothers from Faith Church. When the couple returned from their honeymoon, a reception was held at Faith Church. The trustees presented the couple with the keys to a completely furnished house the congregation had purchased. It was located a quarter mile north of the old church-owned parsonage located next to the church building. The chair of the trustees announced that a contract had been signed "to demolish the bachelor’s home and transform it into a paved parking lot with 17 spaces."

The surprised bridegroom responded, "This is by far the best wedding present anyone possibly could have given us." Some understood that to refer to the parking lot, while others believed he was delighted to move out of that worn out-parsonage into a newly remodeled parsonage.

The next 20 years saw the trustees of Faith Church purchase and demolish the remaining half dozen single-family homes in that block, construct a 12-room addition that included a fellowship hall that also could be used for worship, undertake a complete remodeling of that old building completed in 1924, and pave another 48 off-street parking spaces. The records reveal that for 1963 the combined attendance at the two Sunday morning worship services was 238. One estimate was one-fourth of the worshipers on the typical Sunday morning walked to church, another one-fourth lived in the neighborhood but drove to church, and one-half of the regular attendees lived beyond two miles. The transition from a neighborhood congregation with a strong Germanic heritage to a small regional church with an Anglo constituency had been completed.

A more comprehensive analysis suggested that the glue that held this congregation together for several decades had emphasized ancestry, kinship ties, geographical proximity to the meeting place, two very long pastorates, shared experiences from the past (including rebuilding the meeting place after that fire), and the denominational heritage.

The new "glue" clearly consisted, first of all, of the person, the personality, the passion for evangelism, the program, and the preaching of this young and energetic pastor. A highly visible second was the priority given to transmitting the Christian faith to the generations born after 1930. One expression of that was the construction of that new educational wing in 1958. A second was the addition to the staff of a full-time Director of Christian education in 1956. A third was in the people of the three children born to the pastor and his wife in 1953, 1956, and 1959. A fourth was in 1965, when worship attendance averaged 238, while the Sunday school averaged 274 in attendance.

The potential conflict between two cohesive forces often becomes a reality when what had been a numerically shrinking and aging congregation meeting in obsolete physical facilities becomes a numerically growing fellowship. The satisfaction of an older generation with "what we built" is replaced by the discontent with the physical facilities expressed by younger generations. That remodeled and expanded building filled with 35 years of sacred memories had become a cohesive force for one segment of the congregation and a barrier to ministry for a younger generation. This younger generation had been taught for a dozen years that the top priorities were to gather together to worship God, to transmit the Christian faith to their children, and to fulfill the Great Commission. Many of the long-tenured members placed a high priority on "our obligation to pass this meeting place on to the next generation in better condition than we received it from our predecessors."

Discontent with the limitations of the real estate reached a point in 1962 that a Long Range Planning Committee was appointed to study the issue. A year later, that group submitted a report recommending the purchase of a seven-acre vacant parcel of land three miles to the west. At a congregational meeting, the report was presented, discussed, and rejected by a vote of 82 in favor of relocation and 126 opposed.

Two years later, a second committee was appointed. It came back several months later with two recommendations. The first was to relocate the meeting place. The second was that approval of relocation would require an affirmative vote by two-thirds of the members present and voting. That report was presented and discussed at a congregational meeting held with advance notice that a vote would be held at a second congregational meeting to be held a month later. At that meeting held in March 1966, the first vote affirmed the recommendation that a two-thirds majority would be required for approval of relocation. Two hours later, the vote on relocation was 142 in favor and 81 opposed. The 63.6 percent majority meant the motion to relocate failed.

Lessons Learned
In May 1966, the pastor announced he was resigning effective on the 18th anniversary of his tenure there. He left to become the senior minister of a suburban congregation founded in 1954 that had averaged 642 in average worship attendance in 1965. A decade later, he reflected, "There is a vast difference between becoming the new pastor in a congregation with only a dozen years of history behind it and one carrying the institutional baggage accumulated over more than a half century."

In 1991, after 25 years in that productive and rewarding second pastorate, this 69-year-old pastor chose retirement. A few months later, he explained to a visitor, "There are three lessons I would like to pass on to younger generations. First, I was too impatient in that first pastorate. I now realize I made a hasty response to that second vote on relocation. Instead of interpreting it as another defeat, I should have affirmed it as a near victory. That first vote was overwhelming rejection. Three years later, we came close to that two-thirds majority. A switch of seven votes would have carried the motion. As I look back, I am sure we could have gained approval for relocation a year later. I underestimated how much time people need to talk themselves into supporting radical change."

At this point, the retired pastor’s wife interrupted, "As I’ve told my husband many times, if, instead of marrying an outsider, he had picked a daughter from one of those three interrelated and influential family trees in that congregation back in 1950, he would have had all the votes he needed in favor of relocation."

"A second lesson," continued this lifelong, ordained learner, "is I failed to recognize the power of how the issue is articulated. I went along with both of those two long-range planning committees that assumed we should ask our people to vote on relocation of the meeting place. Real estate belongs in the same category as other means-to-an-end concerns such as money, schedule, and paid staff. When we ask for a choose-up-sides congregational vote, it should be on ministry, not on means-to-an-end issues. In retrospect, I am confident if we had stated the issue as for or against improving our capability to fulfill the Great Commission and we needed modern physical facilities at a larger site at a better location in order to do that, at the second congregational meeting in 1968, the motion would have carried with at least a 90 percent majority.

"My third lesson is I unintentionally set my successor up to fail. I followed an aging pastor who should have retired at least three or four years earlier. I arrived as a healthy and eager single young man who enjoyed working 70 to 80 hours a week. Without realizing it, I became the hub of congregational life. When I left after 18 years, I left a huge hole. I had failed to enlist and equip a large cadre of volunteers to carry part of the load. That may have been why we failed to secure approval for relocation. My successor came in, and everyone waited for him to become the new visionary leader. He was more of a scholar and an excellent teacher, but not the person to challenge the people with a vision of creating a new tomorrow. When I left, it became clear to everyone that the possibility of relocation was dead. By the time my successor left in 1974, attendance had dropped to about 75. Rather than call a successor, the congregation voted to merge with another church. If I had stayed until after we had relocated, we could have set a successor up to succeed rather than fail. Instead I left my successor a legacy of two defeats rather than a legacy of a victory."

Another lesson out of that experience goes back to those two votes on relocation. By asking the members to vote "Favor" or "Oppose," that appeared to suggest the choice as between change and the status quo. When given that choice, the initial reaction of most adults is to choose the status quo. One other realistic alternative could have offered a choice between placing a ceiling on size and removing that ceiling.

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, The Ice Cube Is Melting, and A Mainline Turnaround.

Copyright © 2006 Lyle Schaller