Annual Report for 2005-2006
David Ray, Associate Minister for Small Church Development

Four out of five churches in the Maine Conference of the United Church of Christ are small churches, meaning they average less than one hundred in worship. Two years ago you called me to work half-time specifically with the smallest of your small churches—the approximately sixty-five churches with pastors who serve less than two-thirds time. For the last two years I’ve been working to help eighteen of our churches find pastoral leadership; staffing our Small Church Mission Team as they serve as a resource and source of small funding to our smaller churches; preaching, teaching, consulting with our smaller churches; providing leadership for gatherings of pastors and laity of our smaller churches; collaborating with Bangor Theological Seminary and its students; working with the rest of our superb Conference staff; reaching out to my ecumenical colleagues in other denominations; and, generally, doing what I can to help our smaller churches move from survival to greater faithfulness and effectiveness.
As financially strapped churches down-size from full-time to part-time ministry, the number of churches I work with is growing larger, not smaller,. The fact that many of our churches are down-sizing does not mean they’re on the slippery slope to eventual extinction. I’m fond of saying that no church has closed for lack of money, but for lack of energy, will, and creativity. I’m committed to helping any church that can define a mission for itself find a way of living. The greatest challenge before us is creating a rich range of alternative ways of being a church, beyond the full-time pastor serving one church model.
In the future we will see more part-time and bivocational pastors, more ecumenical sharing of facilities and pastors, more shared ministries between congregations, more churches abandoning buildings that have become albatrosses for them, more churches led by lay pastors, etc. Toward these ends I’ve helped create an ecumenical shared ministry in mid-coast Maine, advocated for a lay pastor training program for northern New England, helped congregations stretch to consider pastoral leadership that previously had been ignored, and helped congregations consider alternative ways of being a church.
The pastor is key. So I’m working to help churches that are searching for a pastor find more gifted pastors who will stay longer. Gifted pastors are important because a congregation will probably not progress further or faster than their pastor can lead them. Length of tenure is important because smaller churches have been plagued by pastors who stay for one or two years and then leave. We’re being effective in finding pastors who are committed to and able to stay longer, resulting in churches that will risk more toward greater faithfulness. We’re also being effective in helping churches call pastors that don’t fit the narrow guidelines that used to prevail. I commend our Brownville church who, showing real courage and wisdom, chose to call an openly gay pastor. Under his leadership the church has reversed course and is doing very well as they grow to love their pastor.
Finances are crucial. It’s costing more and more to afford being a church. Using the theme, “Affording to Be a Small Church,” the Small Church Mission Team sponsored a great event for our smaller churches at Bangor Seminary last April and conducted two workshops on small church investments in May.
Thank you for letting me serve among you and for recognizing that God is still speaking to and through our smaller churches.
Respectfully submitted,
David Ray