Nearly 11,000 ELCA congregations gather for worship on Sunday mornings.

Many other denominational and non-denominational groups also gather. In spite of that, fewer than one in five Americans are in church on a Sunday morning.

We're in the middle of one of the largest mission fields in the world!

Nevertheless, half of all ELCA congregations have fewer than 100 people attending worship each week. Attendance is neither limited by the lack of empty seats in the church, nor by the fact that everyone in these locations is worshiping elsewhere. Something else is preventing us from reaching out to a world that is less and less aware of the gift God has given to us in Jesus Christ. 

Crisis? Or Opportunity?

As we work to transform existing congregations into centers for mission, there is much that we are learning. The ELCA Research and Evaluation office studied various congregations. What they found was amazing:

• There are no programs that are unique to growing congregations that are not also being tried in struggling ones (Programs do not create vibrancy!).

• Growing congregations have a clear sense of their purpose and vision for ministry. Struggling congregations do not.

• Growing congregations have an openness to change and do new things to be effective. Struggling congregations do not.

We also discovered that vibrant congregations nurture leadership. The strongest congregations are most often those in which clergy and laity work together as a team.

Committed and capable pastors see one of their primary tasks as equipping the laity for their role as missionaries within their vocations in the world. Lay leaders are given the tools and authority to prayerfully discern and lead God's people in mission.

Some congregations have made real changes in order to do effective ministry. These congregations have much to teach us about how they rediscovered the exciting ministry that awaits us all when we discern what God is doing--and calling us to do--in Christ.

- The Rev. David Daubert,
  Director for Renewing Congregations
  Evangelical Outreach and Congregational Mission unit, ELCA

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