Bulletin 92 Date : 16th Mar 2007
CLC : Adolesence Congregational Life Cycles Part 3 – Adolescence / Growing Up
Believe it or not, each congregation has its own personality. It’s worth taking a step backwards and looking at the personality of the congregation in which you worship week by week. Adolescence is the stage at which the basic characteristics of the congregation are becoming evident.  They can be summed up in the following three questions:-
- Who am I? (identity)
- What am I here for? (purpose)
- Who is my neighbour? (context / mission field)
For most Christians, these are not the questions which are at the forefront of their minds when they go to church each week but they are the questions which are at the heart of the reason for decline or growth. If a congregation is struggling, then it could be because the answers to these three questions have changed over the years but the congregation has not. Hence it could have become detached from the community which it is seeking to serve.
In botanical terms, the adolescent plant is now showing clear similarities to its mature relatives. Seedlings all look the same to an untrained eye and it’s hard to distinguish a petunia from a marigold, but by the adolescent stage the plant is becoming recognisable. It's also a time when you have to consider whether the pot in which the plant is housed is the right one.
At the adolescent stage, a child emerges from their parent’s domain to discover what life means for him or her as an individual. Decisions taken at this stage can have a big influence on their future life. They may decide to embrace challenges and make the most of every situation or they may decide to keep a low profile and adopt a cautious approach to life. Some of this will have been determined by their upbringing and personality but they do not have to be constrained by this. Opportunities seized at this point in life are crucial.
William Temple, who served as Archbishop of Canterbury during the last century, once said, “The Church is the only organisation which exists for the benefit of non-members”. If the congregation or church has removed the words I have underlined, then it becomes insular and self-serving and the community around them will see no reason for wanting to join it. Jesus said, “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39).
Michael Moynagh in his book ‘emergingchurch.intro’[1] , writes this:
Sometimes [church] plants merely cloned the existing church. A group of Christians might move on to a housing estate or into a school, start perhaps a more relaxed version of mainstream church and then issue the invitation, “Come and join us”. People came – some from other churches, some were lapsed Christians, one or two possibly had no Christian experience. But not enough newcomers arrived to sustain the new plant.
Numbers plateaued at 40 or 50, perhaps including children. It became a struggle to crank up the pre-existing model of church every Sunday – to set up the hall, find musicians and give the children’s teachers a break. Leaders burnt out. The [church] plant either folded or stuttered along, exhausted. George Lings and Stuart Murray Williams comment, “The high failure rate of plants surely related to replicating obsolescent models of church.”[2] |
Another factor which needs to be considered is that when a new congregation is planted, the core leadership which brought it to birth may decide at the adolescent stage to either return to their original church or move on somewhere else to start another congregation. It is important to ensure that the leadership are just that, and not simply mid-wives.
As parents we are only too well aware of the tribulations of our adolescent children. To older people, teenagers can pose a threat because they look at the world differently and want to express their own personality and individuality. Let’s remember that we were adolescent once!
1. Monarch Books ISBN 1-85424-664-X
2. George Lings and Stuart Murray Williams, Church Planting: Past, Present and Future, Cambridge Grove |
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