Church Outreach

[mike]

When individual churches of most denominations like Baptist or Catholic get too large to be manageable, they usually just build another church down the road or across town. They don't feel the need to pack up a bunch of families and send them away.

When conservative Anabaptist congregations get too large to be manageable, they generally start what is called an "outreach" congregation, doing exactly that - packing up a bunch of families and sending them away. Naturally, there's often a bit of angst when the leadership begins to discuss the idea of an outreach, because you might end up being one of those families. Most of the ones I've seen happen involve people volunteering to move, but some years ago my parents were part of a church where ten families of the church were selected by lot to move. It was a 5.5-hour move to another state, and you had to have a decent excuse (such as being a new church member) in order to be excluded from the lot.

Particularly with the volunteer scenario, these outreaches take a bit of time as people figure out whether they want to move, who the other people are that might be moving, who the leadership will be, where they will move, and whether that all affects whether they want to be a part of the outreach. It's an interesting process to say the least.

I would be interested in hearing discussion about what other conservative Anabaptists here have experienced, what you have learned, and what you think is the ideal way for a congregation to expand. Why don't more CAs just plant another church in a neighboring community or even in the same community when a church is full? The time I've seen that happen, the outreach eventually took on a different flavor from the "mother" church and ended up pulling members who preferred its particular culture over the mother congregation. I don't really see that as a problem, but in this scenario the churches involved were independent/autonomous and that wouldn't be the case in many CA church outreaches due to them being simply being another congregation in the same conference.

[steve-in-kville]

Never heard of using the lot, but I do know of many folks within the Pilgrim conference who were asked to move to establish a new congregation. The one situation didn't work out and the family asked suffered a large financial loss. The rest of them seem to do okay. I know of a few that volunteered but under questionable motives.

[Josh]

Holdemans used to have “mega churches” exceeding 500 members in the 1960s and early 1970s. As they got bigger, things did not go very well. Eventually the decision was made to divide these into more manageable sizes of 100-200 members each. However they still shared a school which could be large.

Experience has since shown “clusters” of churches 5 - 15 minutes from each other don’t work so well, either, so nowadays church plants are encouraged to be at least an hour away, preferably farther.

Some of the problems that emerge:

- It is impossible for 500 members to all know each other
- You end up with a lot of youth in one place, numbering over 100. (Holdemans typically have 25% of their membership being youth, that is, unmarried members age 11 - 25).
- The rowdy youth who misbehave congregate together and cause trouble. Worse yet is if other plain people are nearby and such youth start congregating with the rowdy youth from other congregations.
- A distinctive “regional” cultural can develop which is at odds with the rest of the church.
- Large extended families stay in the region and end up forming clans and dominating local church matters and even local business.

In short, it is easier to be salt and light as a small congregation that must take efforts to be more involved with their local community instead of keeping to their own.

[RZehr]

We did this. Home church was around 250 in attendance. Church decided to send ten families off to start a new church. If you were willing to go, you volunteered your name in the lot. We are 3 hour from the home church.

I think once a church gets a certain size, maybe 150 - 200 problems unique to that size are prone to happen. And the problem with a bunch of churches in the same area, I suppose, reduces the need for getting along. And people lose the skill. And they lose the vision. Each person can easily and quietly just go to a different church. I don’t think it is good at all to have Grandparents going to a conservative church, while their children go down the road to a more liberal church, while the grandchildren go to an even more liberal church. I find that strange.

[steve-in-kville]

I think once a church gets a certain size, maybe 150 - 200 problems unique to that size are prone to happen.

I've been part of churches that had maybe 75 members all the way to 500+. Each will have different dynamics, for sure. I will say that a church above 200 or so, people tend to become clique-ish. On the smaller level, it tends to get "nosey."

My experience, obviously.

[Sliceitup]

I think once a church gets a certain size, maybe 150 - 200 problems unique to that size are prone to happen.

I've been part of churches that had maybe 75 members all the way to 500+. Each will have different dynamics, for sure. I will say that a church above 200 or so, people tend to become clique-ish. On the smaller level, it tends to get "nosey."

My experience, obviously.

What I noticed most after the 200 mark was that too many people weren’t ‘needed’ anymore. You didn’t need the help of everyone to run summer/winter Bible school, teach Sunday school classes, etc. There were so many people that someone could go years without being asked to do something. (Yea people can volunteer, but not everyone has a personality like that.) I think that leads to people not being as invested.

[Josh]

Plain communities almost always settle on the Dunbar limit (125) or smaller.

[Ken]

Is it only Menno or plain Menno churches that practice this sort of territorial exclusivity?

For example, just out of curiosity I google mapped Lutheran churches and found 21 of them within about a 20 minute radius of my house. So it's obviously not something the Lutherans do.

[mike]

Is it only Menno or plain Menno churches that practice this sort of territorial exclusivity?

For example, just out of curiosity I google mapped Lutheran churches and found 21 of them within about a 20 minute radius of my house. So it's obviously not something the Lutherans do.

In my area, there are probably that many or more Lutheran churches within a 30-minute drive, but many of those churches are closed or on life support. For example, about ten years ago my neighbor told me that the four parishes in our immediate area rotate having Sunday services to keep all of them open for the sake of the few older members that still attend.

[Josh]

Is it only Menno or plain Menno churches that practice this sort of territorial exclusivity?

For example, just out of curiosity I google mapped Lutheran churches and found 21 of them within about a 20 minute radius of my house. So it's obviously not something the Lutherans do.

Well, different plain denominations may set up shop next door to each other (in the most extreme case, where I live, literally on the same street are 3 different flavours of churches, although 2 are no longer plain).