“Where do we go from here?”
It’s a question — prompted by declining membership in churches nationwide — that encouraged leaders to bridge denominations to tackle the issue together.
Representatives from five denominations meet in person regularly to share knowledge about the steps necessary to revitalize the church at “Now What? A Symposium on Repurposing." The symposium, most recently held last fall in Dallas, was the result of a collaborative effort of United Church of Christ Church Building and Loan Fund and four other similar funds associated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (USA) and The Episcopal Church.
This combining of forces between denominations began a few years ago, says the Rev. Dr. Patrick Duggan, executive director of United Church of Christ Church Building and Loan Fund. And from the outset, the collaborative, ecumenical approach brought to light greater insights and solutions toward the mission of revitalizing churches, Duggan says.
“We understand that if we share our capacity and our financial resources, we can really advance the transformation that needs to happen in a bigger way,” he says, noting that the total assets of the five groups exceed $1 billion.
The collaboration stemmed from the recognition that the building funds are partners rather than competitors in the effort to help churches grow, Duggan says. Why? For starters, there’s no scarcity of territory: The work to be done by a church-affiliated building fund organization is endless.
“The work is much bigger than even all of us together have the capacity to meet," Duggan says. “It didn’t make sense to think of ourselves as competition when there’s too much work out there to be done.”
The greatest challenge is the first step: getting the word out to churches that don’t know about organizations like CB&LF, or perhaps are aware, but don’t realize their church could make an ideal client. The next step, of course, is to do a terrific job, Duggan says. Both are better achieved by bridging denominations.
Duggan says he expected around 30 leaders to attend the “Now What?” event, which featured speakers and small group sessions over the course of a Saturday. He was surprised when closer to 100 turned out.
The event is a framework for ecumenical communities, but it is up to the communities to continue with the mission. During the symposium, thought leaders sought to instill in attendees a tangible sense of how to convert their ideas for the church to action. Topics covered by speakers included creative building use, community outreach and leadership development, to spur creativity and stewardship.
The Rev. Janet Waggoner of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas, who helped organize the event, says that one of the most important takeaways for attendees is unique to the symposium’s ecumenical approach: finding and forging allies across denominations.
Attendees were able to identify and connect with like-minded peers in pursuit of the same mission: revitalization of the church through community investment and building repurposing. And Waggoner says that for churches with less prominent regional presence, teaming up with a local denomination that has bigger regional clout can be invaluable.
“We’re all in this together, but we sometimes miss connections with each other, and this was really powerful in that respect,” she says.
Duggan says joining forces improves efficiency for partner organizations, whose broad range of services include shepherding investments for churches, spearheading capital campaigns and helping outfit existing buildings with eco-friendly upgrades.
“We have strengths and weaknesses that are complementary in many respects," he says. "Things that each one of us do better than the other, in addition to the things that we each do very well, and we can borrow from each other or figure out a way to share.”
Waggoner and Duggan facilitated smaller group meetings, called application labs. The intent was for participants to come away with at least one action item to take back to the church for consideration and implementation. In practice however, Duggan says, emerged a need to step back and examine the bigger picture before delving into details. He encouraged participants to first clarify how and why potential building projects stemmed from the missions of their churches.
Meeting across denominations also spurred other insights, Duggan says.
“People realize that everyone is in the same place, and that is an indicator in and of itself,” he says. “It’s eye-opening when you get a bunch of these folks together.”
Many of the participants were non-clergy members, Waggoner notes, a phenomenon she found encouraging.
“We at times see the clergy to be the leaders, and in fact, our congregations work best when hierarchies are flattened and people see themselves as partners in ministry,” she says.
It was also encouraging, Duggan says, to hear the speakers’ success stories, like that of a Philadelphia pastor who was able to revive an old church building such that it became a community asset — a win-win for the church.