Pastoring with Integrity in a Market-Driven Age (part 2)
July 1, 1997
(Second of two parts; click here
to read Part 1)
Kent, when you served the small church in California, did you feel
successful?
Hughes: I wrestled with a deep depression: I was giving everything
I possibly had and yet was having great difficulties. When I came to College
Church, I didn't do anything differently,but the church took off. The only
thing that had changed was the setting.
Schaller: Today, what's the condition of the church you served in
California?
Hughes: When I left, it was a church of about 150. Then the church
went through a succession of pastors and shrank to less than 100. Today it's
a preschool with a congregation that worships there on Sunday morning. It's
a beautiful, Spanish-tiled building sitting on several acres in a beautiful
suburban area right off the 57 Freeway.
Schaller: That illustrates what we're talking about. The number-one
victim of competition is the church that runs around 150 at worship. It is
too big to have the advantages of a small church and too small to have the
discretionary resources to compete.
In the last five years, there has been a sharp drop in the number of middle-sized
congregations that average 150 at worship, or, to put it more broadly, run
between 100 and 200 in worship.
The loss of the middle class.
Schaller: In a sense. Thirty or forty years ago, a church of 150 was
the best of both worlds: It was big enough to offer what people wanted. It
had a full-time resident pastor and yet was small enough that people could
know one another.
Kent, I would say that the difference between College Church today and your
church seventeen years ago in Southern California is not just sociological;
it's a different era today.
In 1975, a high proportion of ...
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