what can we learn from Growing Churches?

In the spring of 2003 I spent five weeks of sabbatical leave visiting growing Moravian churches. My travels took me to Prince of Peace Moravian in Miami, Florida; Sturgeon Bay Moravian in Wisconsin; East Hills Moravian in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; and three congregations in North Carolina: the new Moravian church in Holly Springs near Raleigh; Christ the King Moravian in Durham; and New Philadelphia Moravian in Winston-Salem. All of these growing Moravian Churches are quite different in appearance. At Christ the King most members wear polo shirts, at New Philadelphia it’s ties and dresses. Three of the churches use pipe organs in worship and three make use of praise bands. One uses the old red hymnal, and another uses no hymnal at all. Yet they seem to have common threads as well. Perhaps it is like the pastor at Holly Springs said, “they are all different ships, but they carry the same cargo.”

I would describe one as a luxury liner and another as a sailboat, but every one of these growing congregations points the way to faith in Christ. They do not change the central message, but they have found a way to deliver it, which fits the people they are trying to reach.

What do they have in common? The FIRST thing I noticed is that they all do a superb job of welcoming people. There is a sense that they do not just exist for themselves and they are delighted to see visitors. Many of them have Sunday greeters and welcome centers for visitors. New members told me again and again how warmly they were welcomed when they visited, how the members talked to them and invited them to Bible studies and Sunday School classes. New people feel genuinely valued. These churches are accepting and egalitarian, there is no hierarchy of members, nor classes of membership. There are not a lot of barriers and hurdles that must be surmounted before one is trusted with positions of responsibility. A conscious effort is made to rotate leadership and bring new members into the decision making process in these congregations. This helps to promote a real feeling of ownership and responsibility among the membership.

Small groups are the SECOND thing these congregations share, whether they are Bible study groups, prayer groups, or Sunday School classes. It is in these miniature families that members are loved and community is fostered. One member told me, “All of these things allow for the development of community, but in themselves do not constitute community. The common element is the intimate sharing of each other’s lives…. As various members of our body experience joy or tragedy, the family rallies around them.” In the twenty first century, we live in an age that seems increasingly impersonal. Is it any wonder that churches, which make an effort to create genuine community, are experiencing growth?

Growing churches are also mission minded. They make a special effort to serve those in other countries and other cultures. Their members take vacation time to go on trips to Jamaica, Honduras, and Africa. They go to repair churches and teach Vacation Bible Schools. They support the Board of World Mission and also have personal connections with missionaries. Missionaries are supported with money, prayer, and even visits with them on the mission field. It is these connections outside themselves, which helps to stretch growing churches and keeps them from being selfish. This is the THIRD thing I find in these churches. They are generous and outwardly focused.

Members in growing churches say similar things about their pastors. Their pastors are seen as real, human, and approachable. One new member told me that she called the church looking for information. The secretary put her through to the pastor who invited her to stop by. When she met him in his office he was wearing a pair of shorts. She had never seen a pastor in shorts before, but his friendliness put her at ease. Again and again I heard these words, “You can talk to our pastor….” Pastors in growing churches, men and women, are seen as persons of honesty and integrity. “We can trust our pastor,” is what members say. These pastors model openness and vulnerability, and are candid about their humanity. Their members deeply appreciate their preaching, which they describe as scripturally based, clear and understandable, and filled with relevance for daily living. It was also interesting for me to listen to the pastors themselves as they told me it was the quality of their lay leadership which was a key to their growth, yet the lay leaders invariably pointed to their pastors. Perhaps one pastor understood the real secret when he told me, “It is amazing what you can accomplish in the church when you don’t care who gets the credit….” This is the FOURTH thing the growing churches all shared.

Theologically, growing churches were moderate to conservative, but they all did a good job of claiming the center of our faith, which is an emphasis on Christ. This is the FIFTH thing they shared, and perhaps it is the most significant. Their members told me the same thing wherever I visited.

“Our church centers around Christ.”

“Our people are very different. They differ on creation and evolution, they are Democrats and Republicans, they do not agree on social issues such as abortion and homosexuality….”

“We come from many different religious backgrounds; many of our new members are former Catholics and some are Baptists; but we share a common faith in Christ.”

I cannot recall hearing the word “tolerance” used in conversation. Instead I heard words like “respect,” “acceptance,” and “love.” It seemed to me these growing congregations were truly tolerant without making a god of tolerance. They were accepting, not because they believed that anything goes, but because they held so firmly to the center of their faith in Christ, and were so truly people who loved, that they were not afraid to disagree about things that did not seem essential. These congregations were places where our Moravian motto was truly lived. “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, love.”

Growing churches were perceived as “safe” and “healthy” churches. This is the SIXTH thing they had in common. Because of this they tended to attract Christians who had been wounded by other churches. Safe churches are places where openness is modeled by pastors and leaders. Decisions are communicated with the whole congregation. The “grapevine” is not constantly fed, so it dies from lack of nourishment. There is little gossip and criticism in these churches. Indeed, my visits to these six congregations reminded me of that home on the range song, “where seldom is heard a discouraging word….” The worst thing that their members said was, “We worry about our pastor because we think he works too hard….”

Members told me that the climate of safety in these churches did not come automatically. Safety needed to be intentionally created. I heard stories about members who were continually critical of the church, or who gossiped to others, and they needed to be disciplined by the Elders. In one congregation a small group who were deeply unhappy were asked to leave; in another case a man who stirred up strife was removed from positions of leadership. And one family who threatened to leave the church if they didn’t get their way was told by the pastor, “I think you would be happier somewhere else. Please let me know where I can send your letter of transfer?” Action like this is unusual in the Moravian Church, where we want to love and include everyone. Yet, my observation is that for the congregation to be healthy there must be boundaries, which people know and respect. If the members understand that certain behavior is not appropriate in the church and will not be tolerated, then they feel “safe.” Once it is established that “this is not the kind of thing we do here….” new members catch the culture from the existing members and the congregation remains a “safe” place.

It is interesting to observe that not one of these growing churches has a well organized program of evangelism. I believe all of them are growing in a very Moravian way, by attracting people to faith in Christ. This is the SEVENTH thing they share. At one of these churches, several long time members expressed concern that they should be doing “more” in the way of evangelism. As I tried to explore what it is they thought they should be doing, I heard two things, “We need to knock on doors in our neighborhood,” and “We should be sending direct mail.” It seemed to me that they wanted a more visible, organized program that they could point to and say, “There, that is what we are doing in evangelism.” And yet, this same congregation had brought many people to faith in Christ and even started new churches. I certainly considered what they WERE doing as evangelism. But the kind they were doing depended upon their members inviting family and friends who came to worship, were attracted by the warmth of the congregation, and said to themselves “I want what these people have found….” In another congregation members told me

they didn’t focus on evangelism, they emphasized discipleship and missions, and evangelism happened as a kind of “overflow” of their life together. I believe that the Lord would be pleased with this kind of “attractive” evangelism.

It was my privilege to visit these growing Moravian Churches where there were members who tried to live as Count Zinzendorf hoped, when he said, “Let everyone see what sort of people you are and then they will be forced to ask, ‘Who makes people like this?’”