Healthy Congregations: A National Philosophy for Ministry at a congregational level

The health of the Christian congregation has a strong bearing on the shape of youth ministry at both national and local levels. Since 1993, the job description of the National Youth Ministry Coordinator of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand has included three major foci. These three are developing networks between those involved in youth ministry at congregational and regional levels, training opportunities for these people, and providing resources. Since taking on the position in 1994, I have noticed that as helpful as these roles may have been, the service of youth ministry at a national level has been most effective when paying attention to the health of the whole congregation. This has been borne out in my involvement in my own local church.

A common cry of leaders at a local level is frustration with the context of the congregation in which youth ministry is happening. Regional and national resourcing of youth leaders has traditionally been limited to the support of leaders of youth groups. Youth ministry in many congregations has collapsed when those leaders have left their churches to join more life-giving congregations, or dropped out while battling cynicism or deep hurt. The attrition rate is becoming more and more noticeable as many Presbyterian congregations fail to find new replacements. Regional youth ministry groups set up to resource youth leaders find they are out of a job because there are so few youth groups left to network.

The development of my role as National Youth Ministry Coordinator has been shaped strongly by research I commissioned in the area of ministry with young adults. Over two years Stan Stewart has investigated the exodus of young adults from traditional churches in New Zealand. In one hundred and twenty interviews a disturbing picture emerged of a traditional church consistently alienating its future leaders. We heard of churches, proud of their club atmosphere, where no one was ever offended, and courtesy and politeness were highly valued. Young people talked about observing pleasant relationships between people barely knew each other. They experienced little intergenerational interaction. A common scenario was worship designed for older people, with no surprises and in-built inertia against sudden changes. Youth leaders and young people talked about church leadership valuing appearances more than people.

What began to emerge in Stan’s research was a need for healthy, rather than toxic, congregations in which youth ministry is taken seriously. Stan Stewart identifies a healthy congregation as one that encourages youth and builds their interest and involvement. Central to the vitality of the congregation is an atmosphere of welcome and honesty. We found many young adults who longed to be part of communities marked by outreach, with acceptance of differences of opinions and dress, where friendships spread across all ages. Young adults talked about wanting to be part of churches where people are encouraged and enabled to share in depth, and friendships are close, strong and durable. They dreamed of worship that can be understood and related to by young and old, where sermons are life related and tell it like it is. Stan presented a picture of a healthy church in which many people contribute in the leadership of worship, where there is a variety of music and musical instruments, where there is a mixture of traditional and experimental services.

In July 1998, the same month that Stan’s report was presented to the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, the General Assembly considered recommendations on healthy congregations presented by the Council of Assembly. The Council posited that the health of congregations is crucial to how effectively the church participates in the mission of God in the world. Assembly affirmed that "developing healthy congregations is vital to the mission of Jesus Christ and is the first priority for the ordering of our church life."

The Council of Assembly’s report was largely based on interpretations of the National Church Life Survey in Australia and New Zealand. The survey was undertaken by a broad spectrum of denominations and congregations in 1991 and 1996 in Australia, and in 1991 and 1997 in New Zealand. From study of the results, the National Churches Life Survey team published Shaping a Future: Characteristics of Vital Congregations.

Using Shaping a Future as a base, the Presbyterian Council of Assembly identified the following features as indicators of a healthy congregation: an outward focus among leaders and attendees, high levels of involvement, a strong inclusive sense of community, a sense of direction, an involving leadership, a lively faith, newcomers and numerical growth. Congregations and other bodies within the church were encouraged to further develop these features in relation to their specific mission imperatives and contexts.

It is no coincidence that at the same time as this material came out, congregational leaders were being exposed to the ideas of two Americans. Rick Warren and Doug Fields were both members of the staff of Saddleback Valley Community Church. In his book, The Purpose Driven Church, Warren outlines the five Biblical purposes around which he and his team have built a healthy congregation; evangelism, worship, fellowship, discipleship, and ministry. In 1998 Doug Fields, youth pastor at Saddleback Valley Community Church, released his own book, Purpose Driven Youth Ministry. He explored nine principles for development of a healthy youth ministry, based on the work done by Warren.

Another contributor to the consideration of vital churches is The Alban Institute, particularly in Peter Steinke’s book, Healthy Congregations: A Systems Approach. Steinke draws on Edwin Friedman’s groundbreaking work on the family systems of congregations to paint a picture of a church that functions healthily. Steinke focuses on seven factors of health: sense of purpose; appraisal and management of conflict; clarity of beliefs, direction and responsibility; mood and tone of personal interaction; mature interaction between leaders and those following; processes of healing; and an emphasis on resources rather than weaknesses.

The imagery of health has the potential to build on the imagery of the body often used throughout the Old and New Testaments. Paul, in particular, uses the image of the body to emphasise to his readers their life-giving links to Jesus and to each other. In 1 Corinthians 11 he addresses a church known for its dysfunction with the warning: "But if you eat the bread and drink the wine in a way that isn’t worthy of the Lord, you sin against his body and blood. That’s why you must examine the way that you eat and drink. If you fail to understand that you are the body of the Lord, you will condemn yourselves by the way you eat and drink. That’s why many of you are sick and weak and why a lot of others have died."

Using the Council of Assembly’s report on healthy congregations as a framework, I will now explore the implications of the Council of Assembly’s report for youth ministry at a local and national level. I will be drawing on the Saddleback Valley experience and Peter Steinke’s ideal types to provide comparative analysis of the Presbyterian model of healthy congregations. The seven factors of health will be tested in the context of my own local congregation, Tawa Union Church. My ministry at a national level will be informed by this analysis.

The Council of Assembly’s first indicator of health in the local context is an outward focus among leaders and attenders. An example of this is a concern for evangelism or wider community care. In the healthy congregation there is a readiness to discuss matters of faith with others and to invite others to church. The congregation works with others for justice and peace, being with those with whom Jesus identifies.

Doug Fields identifies evangelism, or reaching community students, as the first of five purposes for ministry with young people. A high proportion of mainline churches struggle to grasp this purpose. The majority of members and leaders in such churches have been involved in the church since childhood, although some may have spent time away from the church. They appear to be content with the Christian education of the children of their members. Doug Fields makes the comment,

An important part of my role in youth ministry at a regional and national level is helping churches get in touch with the young people in their wider community. Rather than assessing the number of young people in their community on the basis of the number of young people attending worship, churches are encouraged to learn about the schools in their area. In one consultation, the church arranged for a questionnaire on values to be completed by students in the local high school aged from eleven to seventeen. The results indicated the aspirations of young people, their concerns about living in Geraldine, and what they thought the church could do to help. The church followed this up with a homework tutoring service, and a determination to be advocates on behalf of the young people in their search for a community centre.

My model for this role is based largely on Jesus’ challenges to the status quo mentality of the Jewish leaders of his time. Jesus told parable after to illustrate God’s passion for reaching the unreached. In Matthew 9:12-13, Jesus explains his association with ‘sinners’ by saying: "Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do. Go and learn what theScriptures mean when they say, ‘Instead of offering sacrifices to me, I want you to be merciful to others.’ I didn’t come to invite good people to be my followers. I came to invite sinners."
 

A hallmark of healthy congregations, according to the National Churches Life Survey, is willingness to discuss faith and invite others to church. In my local church, Tawa Union Parish, a mission workgroup has implemented Alpha, a British-based ten-week course explaining Christianity. The youth ministry team group has used an interactive multimedia version of the course, Youth Alpha, to develop an atmosphere of trust in which young people feel free to talk about faith in small groups. My role as a local youth leader feeds my national role as advisor for Youth Alpha in New Zealand.

In many ways, the Youth Alpha course is pioneering styles of worship which are accessible for people without a church background. Leaders convey the content of the message using the music, movies and language experienced by young people. The youth ministry team uses a variety of interactive learning styles, making a conscious effort to work on visual, kinaesthetic as well as audio styles. The skills thus developed by the youth ministry team are the skills required for running what are commonly known as "Seeker services".

It is one thing to have a team develop a "seeker oriented worship service". The biggest leap for a congregation is not the development of new styles of worship, but to start to see worship as a mission event for one’s own neighbours and friends. One of Tawa Union’s congregations, St Aidan’s, adopted ten commitments released to the press by Cliff Richard in April 1998. The ten promises outlined changes in attitude that would make the local church more approachable for members of the public. The constant use of the first person plural identifies the congregation, rather than merely the worship leaders, as the key to the newcomer’s experience of worship. When applied to youth ministry, this resource helps congregations remember that a young person coming into the church for the first time will have his or her experience shaped by the attitude of the congregation.

Kennon Callahan, in Twelve Keys to an Effective Church, claims that the first and most central characteristic of an effective, successful church is its specific, concrete, missional objectives. Such a church, Callahan points out, will soon gain a reputation on the community grapevine as a group that meets the real needs of people in the community. Unfortunately the extent of the local church’s commitment to wider community care is frequently limited to internal conversation. If disadvantaged or needy youth are identified they are too often branded in the process as the ones who are a threat to the wellbeing of the community.

Tawa Union Parish has begun to develop specific concrete missional objectives for young people in its homework centre, and in its mentoring programmes, the Boys and Girls Brigades. There is a limited relationship with the Whakapakiri Centre, a home run for at-risk young people. The youth group, recently developed as an outreach to eleven to fifteen-year-olds, has started to develop its own place on the community grapevine.

2. Involvement

The Presbyterian Church has identified its second critical factor for healthy congregations as high levels of involvement. This principle is applied to small groups, other congregational groups and in worship that is true to God, enhancing of life, and inviting to people unfamiliar with church.

Peter Kaldor and his co-authors explain that "High levels of involvement provide important motivational resources for attenders. Those who are frequently involved are being exposed more often to worship, encouragement and the challenges of the faith in a corporate setting, leading to a greater involvement in the wider mission of the church."

The typical analysis of a congregation’s youth ministry is based on an inspection of attendance statistics for Christian education and worship. While this may provide a quantitative measure of involvement in the congregation, the health of the congregation’s ministry with young people could also relate to the extent to which young people are met in their quest for intimacy with other people and with God. The development of small groups and authentic worship experiences provide an environment in which young people have enough security to explore and express their evolving spirituality.

As I speak to teenagers and young adults in churches around New Zealand, I often hear complaints that they find it difficult to relate to the worship services of their home churches. In many cases these young people find the form of worship off-putting. The music is played by instruments they perceive to be that of their grandparent’s generation, such as the organ. On a deeper level, there is a question of intent. Is the worship service designed to be an opportunity of intimacy and ecstasy, or is it rather an occasion for the sharing of information?

The development of worship experiences in which all ages can relate to God and to each other in an authentic way has become one of the goals of the parish. This is being worked out in the gradual reform of a morning service to include more contemporary forms of music, creative means of communication, and a more relaxed leadership approach. Alongside this venture, the parish has begun the development of evening meetings in which young adults can try alternative approaches to worship that relate closely to their own generational culture.

It would be tempting to mistake large attendance at worship events or home groups for high levels of involvement. A small group may have none of the dynamics of a large celebration, but may have very healthy levels of participation by those present. Communal singing, despite its unifying value, can be a cover for shallow worship that demands little of the participant. A challenge for congregational youth ministry is the development of worship events and small groups in which young people can meaningfully take part in action and reflection, rather than merely joining in the recitation of words. At the same time, I believe that a theology of communal worship must take a congregation beyond liturgical activism. There needs to be recognition that in a worship event, those from any background can experience God in person.

The goal of high levels of involvement in worship applies equally to other occasions for gathering, such as support groups, discipleship groups, and ministry groups. Tawa Union’s Churches Life Survey results show that only nine per cent of respondents identified their involvement in small prayer, discussion or Bible Study groups, as compared to nineteen percent in congregations overall. The development of youth ministry in such a setting can only be aided by an increased percentage of people demonstrating genuine examples of community. In Stan Stewart’s survey, he discovered a recurrent disillusionment with what could be labelled "virtual community", a group which talks about community and family yet is marked by a lack of intimacy or awareness of the deeper levels of members’ lives.

The third factor in healthy congregations identified by the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, is a strong sense of community among attenders embracing all generations, different cultures and diverse ways of being human. The healthy congregation is able to create a sense of belonging, manage conflict, and work towards reconciliation, healing, and renewal.

One of the hallmarks of a healthy family is a healthy emotional distance that avoids the extremes of both disengagement and enmeshment. The implications of this for the separation of the young and the old are worth considering. What about youth churches, in which it is likely that the oldest members of the congregation are in their thirties? Or churches where the all attendees are over the age of fifty?

A vital part of my ministry in the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand is facilitation of co-operation between people of different generations. In an "Intergenerational worship" seminar held in Tawa Union Church, the ordained minister, Robyn Allen-Goudge, and I led worship leaders through a process which recognised the contributions of at least four generations: Builders, Boomers, Busters, and Millennials. I have found that hearing the perspectives of different generations liberates people to accept the concept of diversity in the congregation.

The community of a church, to relate to the everyday life of attendees, has to extend beyond Sunday meetings. One of the breakthroughs to come with Stan Stewart’s research and workshops has been a growing willingness rank and file members of congregations to befriend young people. One congregational leader talked about her parish council’s decision to follow up young adults who had left home, even when there was little expectation that they would come back to live in their parent’s neighbourhood. Pastoral notes are being sent to students at exam time, food parcels are being delivered by hand, and this congregation is celebrating memorable occasions such as twenty-first birthdays. At long last, an intergenerational team and not just the designated youth group leaders are sharing the tasks of youth ministry.

The Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand has a wide variety of ethnic groups in its membership: most notably those of British descent, Samoan, Cook Island, Maori, Niuean, Korean, Taiwanese, and Indonesian. Tawa Union Church brings the ethnic traditions associated with the Methodist denomination in New Zealand: adding a Tongan flavour to the mix. Over the past decade New Zealand has admitted a growing number of people from the African continent. Tawa Union has a number of South African families, and a refugee family from Rwanda. One of my challenges is to help the church at local, regional and national levels to embrace people of these different cultures.

At a national level, policy gatherings of youth leaders include caucus time for three broad groupings: Maori, Pacific Island, and the other group, known as Palagi or Pakeha. These "tikanga" allow each group to explore in depth the implications of developing policy for their own ethnic groupings. Leaders from Asian backgrounds are yet to be incorporated into large national gatherings, although I have included Korean or Taiwanese consultants in executive meetings of the National Youth Ministry Workgroup.

At a local level, the recognition of different ethnic backgrounds is no easy issue. Because most communities of young people develop around natural friendship networks, the gathering of a multicultural group is no easy task. Tawa Union Church hosts a Tongan-speaking congregation that has its own youth group. Cook Islanders and Rwandans have recently become involved in the Sunday night youth program. The challenge over the next year will be the possibility of catering for ethnic diversity within this group. Principles I have developed at a national level, such as freedom to develop separately and together, will be put to the test.

A qualitative measure of a congregation’s health is its ability to manage conflict. This applies to a congregation’s ministry with young people in several ways. At a national level, I am often dismayed at the impact antagonism between leaders has on the morale of youth leaders. The health of youth ministry at a local level can be one of the first indicators of health in the whole congregation. Young people and their leaders can easily become scapegoats for dysfunctional adults or leadership structures. A key part of youth ministry is helping young people deal with their frustrations or hostile feelings when in the company of other youth or older adults. The youth ministry team and the congregation in general both have the potential to provide positive role models of assertive rather than aggressive corporate behaviour.

Steinke’s systems approach to congregational health provides some helpful insights into the management of conflict. He points out that every church faces times of difficulty, stress or anxiety. What makes the difference in these situations is whether or not people are active, focused and imaginative in their responses to tension. Part of my ministry as National Youth Ministry Coordinator is to build the hope of congregational leaders and members in the future, so that they come to believe it is worth doing something about their stress rather than merely watching as the congregation slips into terminal illness.

Steinke suggests that a healthy congregation should be characterised by interactions charged with spontaneity, intensity, hope and wholehearted involvement. I believe that leadership teams and decision making bodies, be they local youth ministry teams, parish councils, Presbyteries or General Assemblies, have the potential to model a tone and mood which rubs off on the local congregation. In 1997 I had the privilege of being one of the moderators of a national forum of people involved in Co-operative Ventures. One of my briefs from the organising committee was to develop a process that would inspire regional committees to step out of the predictable, bland and ineffectual mode of meetings that had become the norm throughout the country. I am now applying the same directive to my involvement in all national, regional and local gatherings of Christian leaders, be they youth group leaders, ministers or key lay leaders.

The fourth descriptive factor of healthy congregations, as identified by my denomination, is a sense of direction. Congregational leaders are being advised to ensure that attendees perceive their congregation as having a definite sense of direction and purpose. Rick Warren asserts that having a clear congregational purpose builds morale, reduces frustration, allows concentration, attracts co-operation and assists evaluation.

At the first meeting of the Tawa Union youth ministry team in 1999, we identified for ourselves the need for both direction and purpose. Two of the youth leaders had put together a program framework for Sunday nights, with a renewed focus on ministry with young adults. Having just completed my reading for this assignment, I was keen to ensure that we under-gird our work with some defined purposes. We put together a list of five general purposes for our work, aligning ourselves with the mission of the whole church. One leader was overwhelmed with fear that we would become lost in the construction of a mission statement, never achieving anything. We pressed on with our process, finding that within two hours we had come up with some positive aims and concrete strategies.

One of the factors behind the anxiety of my co-worker at Tawa was his observance of indecision at a congregational level. The Parish council had issued many vision papers, identifying goals to be a seven-day-a-week church, develop a variety of worship styles and reach the unchurched. Vision statements had come and gone, and yet the congregation was still facing uncertainty over worship patterns. An essential component in the rise of vision and purpose, I believe, is clear and effective communication. Rick Warren claims that when a church clearly communicates its destination, people are eager to get on board. At a national level, the communication of clear purposes and strategies is central to the growth of trust that is so essential for support and training networks.

Every five to ten years a fresh vision for youth ministry is developed by the national youth ministry workgroup of my denomination. I am not convinced that this kind of exercise actually feeds vision and direction at a local level. In my local youth ministry team, our development of vision and direction did not come directly from an issue paper. It came from our own ability to discern and articulate both the mission of the church and the particular calling we had to work with young people. Doug Fields, in his book "Purpose Driven Youth Ministry", focuses largely on the importance of purposes and direction for youth ministry, and processes for developing these, rather than on the specific model that has grown in his local setting. Likewise, my ministry at a national and local level will nurture in key leaders the development of the skills of dreaming, listening to God, understanding the church’s mission and discerning patterns in the culture of young people.

The fifth element of the Presbyterian Church’s profile of the healthy congregation is "involving leadership". In the ideal scenario, leadership has a strong sense of vision for the growth of the congregation to which attenders are committed. Leadership is inspiring and purposeful yet puts a priority on listening to attenders’ ideas and encouraging them to discover their gifts and use them. In the healthy community, those with roles receive adequate levels of support.

Tawa Union Parish undertook an examination of leadership issues at the time I joined the congregation. One pastor had given notice of his impending retirement and was recommending that the congregation take stock of its directions for the future and the kind of leadership that would take them there. The Ministry Task Group, set up to explore possible changes in leadership style, pointed out that the Parish Council had a management function rather than leadership role. Now, with a reform in the process for choosing Parish Council members, visionaries are leading the church alongside strategists, mobilisers and organisers.

Steinke in his criteria for healthy congregations includes mature interaction between leaders and others in the community. He explains that healthy leaders function and learn well, and those who are being served grow to maturity. As National Youth Ministry Coordinator, I should maintain mature interaction with those I serve. This should lead to a growth in maturity of those working at a congregational level, so that they become "healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous and more likely to become servants." The discovery of spiritual gifts, their development and their responsible use will be an outcome from my ministry, and of leadership in a healthy congregation.

The sixth gauge of healthy Christian community, as listed by the Presbyterian Church, is evidence of a "lively faith". When compared to ailing churches, healthy congregations tend to have higher levels of attenders growing in their faith or experiencing moments of conversion or faith commitment. Among attenders in such churches, there are high levels of devotional activity such as prayer and Bible reading.

Thomas Bandy explains that people are longing to experience the healing power of God, "something that can transform dull, impotent, sick, meaningless routine into vibrant, useful, healthy and purposeful living". Young people, in particular, are searching for life-changing experiences that will convince them of their value and connect them with someone beyond themselves. When a congregation fosters the expectation that God will transform people’s lives on a regular basis, the growth of youth ministry is provided with a rich environment.

Sharing of faith is one of the foci for the development of the evening worship event at Tawa Union. Young adults will have the opportunity to listen to recent and not so recent accounts of how God has changed the lives of congregational members. Prayer for one another will be linked with stories of God’s intervention in the world.

As a national resource person for healthy congregations, one of my highest priorities is the spiritual development of leaders of young people. I know from experience that professionalism, burnout and cynicism can wipe out any expectation of spiritual development in the life of a youth leader. The ongoing development of personal prayer, Bible study and worship need to be kept alongside practical workshops and intellectual stimulation. As a national youth ministry co-ordinator, I have the opportunity to stimulate the expectation of God’s "healing power" by sharing the stories that I hear from around the country.

The seventh and final measure of healthy congregations is linked to numbers: newcomers and numerical growth. According to research and common sense, healthy congregations are more likely to be attracting and holding newcomers, retaining young adults and growing numerically. Using another analogy, the effective church will have an open front door and a carefully monitored back door.

Kaldor and his team highlight the importance of retaining young adults because of the high level of attrition among adolescents and young adults in the Australian and New Zealand churches. Stan Stewart’s survey highlighted the stark reality that most mainline churches were experiencing a haemorrhage of leadership as their young people left and stayed away forever. The loyal young adults who stayed in their home church or denomination usually had a role in their church, such as teaching Sunday school, or playing a musical instrument in worship services. However these people should not be taken for granted, as they could drop out through burnout or disillusionment.

In a healthy congregation, the gathering of young adults from a broad geographical area will be a spin-off from the attractiveness of the church’s life. The National Church Life Survey team observed that young adults tended to gravitate towards congregations that had a focus on serving regional networks of people, rather than congregations limited to the local community. I believe that this preference for regional congregations is linked with the need for a critical mass of people of a similar age. As young people move out of their parents’ homes to study or work elsewhere, or to further a relationship, those left behind face an ever-diminishing circle of peers.

At a local level, Tawa Union is facing the results of a massive loss of young adults two years ago. A strong regional network, based on contemporary music, was lost when a key leader resigned, married and moved to another church. Youth ministry was re-established with a younger group of teenagers, while the few remaining young adults were nurtured in a small home group setting. The congregation is now returning to the challenge of building a regional network of young adults, once again using contemporary music, multi-media exploration of popular culture and spirituality, and informal gatherings in a café culture. Recruitment of young adults from a non-Churched background is once again becoming a priority, with strategies being developed for the baptism, confirmation, and mission membership.

At a national level, the last two years have been spent researching and promoting strategies for growing ministry with young adults. Intergenerational friendship, contemporary music, and the growth of authentic community have been the primary factors emphasised in workshops throughout New Zealand. The desired outcome is a growing expectation, at the local level, that churches will thrive in their youth ministry, attracting rather than losing young people.