Stages of Growth

I have a theory that churches go throught at least three distinct stages of development as they move from a clergy-dominated model to a fully collaborative model.

Stage one, is all about admin. This is usually motivated by the idea that lay people will take on administrative and organisational tasks to ""free the ministers to do what they are called to do"", i.e. pastoral care, teaching and leading worship.

There is a certain ammount of fantasy involved in this, since all tasks involve a certain ammount of admin and paperwork. On the other hand it can result in a broadening of ad-ministry which can enable churches to do things that they couldn't do before. In other words, while it may not achieve the desired results, it can be a very important phase in the development of a church.

The Second stage involves worship. This is often intiated by a reduction in the number of full-time ministers which results in lay people stepping forward to ""fill the gaps"". It is far more challenging than Stage One, since it requires lay people to take on some of the tasks that have usually been reserved for the ""professionals"".

I suspect that this is a very significant stage for many lay people in our churches because of our traditional emphasis on Sunday Church. It can be quite frightenning to loose your Vicar, and it can also feel that whoever stands at the front of the church is replacing him or her.

The third stage is far more challenging because it requires us to think very differently about the nature of church. The focus of this stage is Pastoral Care. It is easy for churches to assume that caring for people is the reserve of professionals, and yet ministers and vicars are quite incapable of meeting all the needs of the individuals in their congregations. The truth is that only mutual care has the potential to achieve what we may long for, and ministers often obscure this fact by taking this role upon themselves.

Of course, many churches may be going through all three stages simultaneously, and some may have very good reasons for dealing with these issues in a very different order, but I would not be suprised if this pattern were repeated in many different churches (at least in the UK) as they tackle some of the issues of our age.

It may be that there is a Stage Four, perhaps involving the integration of different ministries in the formation of a Team. I'll keep my eye out for this too...