Annual Report for 2007 – 2008

David Ray

Assoc. Minister for Small Church Development

I’ve been your Associate Minister for Small Church Development for four years and been involved with many of our smaller churches (less than 100 in worship) over that time. I’ve watched some churches shrivel and barely hang on. I’ve watched some come to life and become vibrant places of significant ministry and mission. I’ve seen both happen in the south and the north, in the west and down east. And I’ve been doing this work long enough here and before that in the Midwest and West to come to some conclusions.
If a church is content to shrivel until it’s on life supports, here’s how to do it. Put all your energy into merely surviving—cut the budget, reduce the pastor’s time, make sure that change never happens, fight with one another, cut your OCWM and local mission, make sure there’s no greeter at the door and that visitors are given the cold shoulder, and—for heaven’s sake—don’t invite someone from the Conference to help find a better way. Don’t laugh. Many churches do this and it always results in little if any life!
If your church really wants to become a more vibrant place, a people engaged in really significant ministry and mission, I’d suggest the following. Create a Welcoming Team with three of your most positive and caring people and give every visitor a very warm welcome. Reform your worship to make it more lively, personal, related to the life of your people. Serve refreshments following every worship so people hang around and talk. Ask your people to pray for their church. Identify one pressing need or opportunity in your community and develop a mission project to address that area. Thank your pastor and give him or her a raise. If you don’t have a pastor, tap your reserves and search for a more gifted and committed pastor. Ask one of our Conference staff to come meet with you to explore new possibilities for your church. These are just some of the turn around strategies I’d suggest to you.
I believe none of our smaller churches are in a hopeless situation. I believe all of them can and need to be more faithful and effective than they are. From my four years with you, it’s abundantly clear that the primary “business” of our Maine Conference is the strengthening of our local congregations. It’s abundantly clear that the Maine Conference is not them or Yarmouth but us wherever we are. I feel privileged to work with as dedicated a Conference staff as we have here.
My half-time work on your behalf includes staffing two Church and Ministry committees (Franklin and Washington associations), staffing the Small Church Mission Team and the Resourcing the Local Churches committees, helping to staff the committee planning the all-Conference Learning Event that happens every year, and helping to dream into reality the new and promising Academy for Church Life and Leadership. I’m the Conference staff to twenty-five percent of our churches engaged in the search for a new pastor and work closely with the other three members of our Placement Team. The rest of my time is spent being a resource to associations, pastors, and congregations who invite me to help with their church issues through faith development, problem solving, and finding new solutions. The most exciting and promising work I do is helping to develop new and more faithful and effective ways of being Christ’s Church—a cooperative ministry between churches here, a lay ministry there, or some other fresh way of being a living church in this difficult times.
It is my privilege and pleasure to serve you! If there’s an issue in your smaller church, call me (563-1032) and let’s talk.
David Ray
Associate Minister for Small Church Development