“These are challenging times for many of our congregations. Some are contemplating church clustering, merging, amalgamating and closing. Others are visioning new ways of being the church through resizing, renewing and re-imagining themselves as something completely different from what they have always been. Some churches are contemplating what steps they need to take to continue to be fruitful in the communities in which they live,” said Tori Smit, team leader at the Vine. “All of these decisions involve risk and vulnerability. It is not easy, but it is necessary if we desire to continue to be a witness in this ever-changing world.”
Smit said there are many ways to help a congregation through these times of discernment.
The Vine’s website, found at presbyterian.ca under “Resources” is a good place to start. The section entitled “Congregational Development” offers the department’s most recent resources and articles.
The new website Equipping For, presbyterian.ca, brings together all of the Vine’s Equipping For articles that have been featured in the PCPak. Churches can also sign up to have new articles emailed directly to them.
The Vine has a broad range of print resources available for congregations for study and reflection. A bibliography of these resources has been collected together in the booklet Resources for Congregations in Transition, with an expanded version due out next February as a result of the Alice Mann conference. The Vine can also be contacted at thevine@presbyterian.ca or 1-800-619-7301 if congregations have specific questions, or want referrals to other congregations who might help them with a common problem.
For more information on Natural Church Development, a program designed to help churches assess their own organizational health through a benchmarking survey of church members, visit ncd-international.org or the Canadian website at ncdcanada.com.
