THE EXPERIENCE AND COMPETENCIES OF PASTORING A DOWNTOWN URBAN CHURCH
Thomas J. Conlon
University of Minnesota, US
Abstract
As the urban United States has changed in the past 50 years, pastoring a downtown urban
church involvesunique challenges and requires special competencies. The study involved
unstructured qualitative interviews witheight pastors affiliatedwith adowntown church in
two adjoining Midwestern U.S cities, to determine thedowntown pastoral experience and
identify required competencies for such an assignment. HRD themes emerged and are
discussed, followed by a critique and recommendations for future pastoral training.
Key words: Pastoral Leadership, Church, Ministry
Introduction:
Since the founding of United States cities, the downtown church emerged and thrived as a key player in the spiritual, social and civic life of the community. Many “First” Protestant churches, such as First Baptist or First Presbyterian Church, signified the city’s first denominational church of their kind, drawing members from throughout the city. Many were built when the city was young and were the church homes of leading business, government and other civic leaders. Most were the city’s largest churches within their respective denomination and were housed in large, architecturally-significant, cathedral-like buildings that offered vast programs for all ages and interests, musical celebrations and strong pastoral leadership. A pastoral assignment to such churches was considered prestigious and was generally granted only to denominational leaders and skilled preachers. Memberships and attendance averaged well over 1,000 congregants, with peak successes into the 1950s (Jones & Wilson, 1974; Dubose, 1978; Eddington, 1996). While the church is primarily viewed as a spiritual and social institution, the focus of this article is the church as one of society’s workplaces (from the pastoral perspective) and thus impacted by human resource development.
As new U.S. frontiers and communities were developed in the 19th and 20th Centuries, old-line churches were among the earliest institutions which welcomed ethnic enclaves, responded to educational, spiritual and social needs, and provided new evangelization efforts. Today, mainline church influence has given way to religious pluralism and interfaith dialogues as has denominationalism in general (Cobb, 1997; McKinney, 1989; Wuthnow, 1993), although another study showed many members, while leaving traditional congregations, remaining in or switching to relatively similar denominations (Bibby, 1999). Downtown churches, usually among a community’s oldest, were directly affected. Many represented the traditionally liberal, high-status Presbyterian, Episcopal, Congregationalist and other mainline faiths, which some members chose for social benefits, or the low-status Baptist, Church of Christ and Pentecostal group faiths, which others chose for conservative theologies (Lauer, 1975).
Copyright © 2003 Thomas J. Conlon.
Since the late 1950s, many American churches have been in decline and found themselves in a maintenance mode. A good number have closed down (Chaney & Lewis, 1977). The 1960s brought criticism of social, civic and religious institutions, in which churches were blamed for social problems, discrimination, denominational fights and other issues of the day. Western European immigration no longer defined and built downtown congregations, and competition with members’ civic activities, politics, careers, housing patterns and other interestscontinued to hurt overall church attendance (Cobb, 1997). The post-World War II heyday of Protestant mainline churches came not by forcing members to make sacrifices for the faith, but by selling a faith compatible with white, middle-class lifestyles of the period. The 1960s generation did not identify with this movement, and increased secularization pushed out members wanting more religious compensators (Skerhat, 2001).
The 1960s also brought urban renewal, aging housing, upward mobility, increasing urban diversity and the development and growth of suburbs took root in many urban cores, causing many white middle and upper class urban residents to flock to the suburbs, often taking their downtown church memberships to new congregations closer to their homes. Mainline churches in particular have faced large declines, with the number of Presbyterian churchgoers in Chicago and Philadelphia plummeting more than 50 percent between 1967 and 1997; 65 percent in Cleveland; and 75 percent in San Francisco (Presbyterian News Briefs, 1999). Nationally, Methodists were once the largest Protestant body in the U.S., representing 84 of every 1000 citizens in 1890. By 1990, despite Catholic immigration and a general decline of church membership, such numbers dropped to 36of every 1000 Americans (Finke & Stark, 2001). Adding to this challenge, 75 percent of U.S. churches in general are no longer growing, or are experiencing membership declines, while pastors are leaving the profession.(Presbyterian News Briefs, 1999
Problem Statement and Research Question
As urban downtown churches have been disproportionately affected by suburban flight and urban blight, several unique challenges exist in 2001. Some have failed; others hang on hoping forthebest. A few have thrived. Pastoral leadership and skills in the downtown church are key to success (Jones & Wilson, 1974; Eddington, 1996). For the downtown urban church to have a future and effectively minister to its current and future congregants, are unique skills needed? How does the lived experience of pastoring a downtown urban church contribute to that knowledge base? What can be learned that may help future downtown church pastors be effective in a challenging assignment that for most is no longer a choice or desired calling? To identify the key competencies of such a pastoral assignment, as well as further capture the lived experience unique to pastoring a urban downtown church, the combined research question was “What is it like to pastor a downtown urban church?”, followed by “What are the key competencies required of a downtown urban pastor today?” The findings offer background and recommendations for improving and implementing HRD in the pastoral experience: pastoral training in seminaries, pastoral internships within congregations, and ongoing organizational and individual development for practicing (or aspiring) downtown church pastors.
Theoretical Framework
A scholarly literature review demonstrated that little theoretical research unique to the downtown urban church exists, particularly in HRD. However, general leadership research helps identify common skills applicable to a downtown assignment. A leader’s personal habits, values, traits, and competencies help one’s followers build trust and commitment in that leader (Ulrich, 1996), such as congregational support for a pastor. Personal credibility, self-efficacy and “unit” business success assess one’s leadership quality (Khoury, 2001), implying that pastors who believe they can effectively lead a downtown congregation and can achieve relative success have demonstrated leadership. David Bradford and Allen Cohen (1997) see leadership development as an ongoing process rather than a single event, where ministerial duties are definitely long term and could take years to see fruitful results. Certainly Abraham Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs as a motivational theory describes the varying conditions of pastors and their congregations in respect to the future of their churches. If a church is merely trying to survive at status quo, its needs are more basic to paying bills rather than on outreach or visionary growth.
Pastors, like any profession, stand to benefit from HRD: training and development identifies, assures and, through planned learning, helps develop key competencies enabling individuals to perform current or future jobs (McLagan, 1989). McLagan adds that career development, another HRD component, helps the person performing and shaping his or her various work roles. Where pastoral leadership often includes guiding staff in a church or organization, competencies shape and translate to others, thus making organization development relevant with its emphasis on initiating and managing change between groups of people.Training can become an important instrument for cultural change when sensitivities to existing cultures and attempts to change norms for a desired outcome (Rothwell, Sullivan & McLean, 1995), which, as this study shows, pastors encounter in their jobs. While this study can make recommendations for future training and possibly other areas of HRD, it does not imply training is the necessarily the only way to achieve them. Seminaries, churches and other interested organizations may find a needs assessment the best starting point in a given downtown pastoral situation, as in any organization (Goldstein, 1993) or a phased training for performance system that analyzes the conditions and needs, designs, develops, implements and evaluates the approach (Swanson, 1994).
Urban theories address housing, gentrification, race, socio-economic, economic and development issues but there appears top be little about urban religious theory. However, general urban theories directly or indirectly affect the performance of the downtown urban church. From 1900 to 1950, average U.S. metropolitan populations tripled and the number of metro areas doubled, and the percentage of those living in urban areas increased from about 40 to 60 percent (Black & Henderson, 1999). Postmodern urbanism affects the demographics as the ‘haves’ have moved from the urban core and central cities to new urban villages and edge cities, leaving older, increasingly blighted areas to recent immigrants and other ‘have nots’ (Arvidson, 1999). Local peer groups, neighborhood choice and human capital investments lead to population stratification into geographical areas, accounting for economic inequalities (Durlauf, 1996).
Urban regime theory claims that cities effectively die if deserted by people and firms in big enough numbers, so they try to capture and retain potentially mobile businesses and residents if they are to survive via developmental policies and growth strategies (Peterson, 1981). Urban regime theory attempts to put politics back into the local political economy to address struggles and bargains between differing interests (Sanders & Stone, 1987). Urban elasticity models state that cities can only revive if they revive, maintain and reacquire economic elasticity through regionalization and unification efforts with surrounding communities (Rusk, 1999). Yet different metropolitan subcenters have economic linkages independent of one another and may vary depending on the dominant economic sector such communities represent (Garreau, 1991; Blair, Staly & Zhang, 1996).
Purpose of Study
While this study identified theological and sociological strategies and experiences of eight downtown churches, its primary purpose was to determine the strengths and weaknesses of urban downtown church pastor training. It also aimed to identify themes which could serve as recommendations for practice, seminaries, or future research studies. In addition, it left open the possibility of gaining knowledge for career and organization development, which, to varying degrees, came out when applied to laity, assistant pastors, pastoral interns or other church staff who work with or aspire to become senior pastors of a downtown church. The Minneapolis-St. Paul area was selected for proximity of two independent urban downtowns, with distinct community characteristics, and a broad cross-section of denominational representation.
More than 75 percent of U.S. churches are no longer growing or are losing members, while ordained clergy are leaving the ministry in unprecedented numbers At the same time, 4 out of 10 U.S. Americans attend a place of worship at least once a week; 6 out of 10 once a month (Christianity Today, 1986), and 58% of Americans think the strength of American society is based on the religious faith of its people (Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 2002).With such a large potential constituency, HRD can impact organizational and individual performance though church leadership, setting goals, supporting and carrying out a vision and building stronger organizations, as well as personal satisfaction with one’s occupation.
Methodologyand Research Design
During August and September 2001, 22 Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN downtown church congregations that have existed for at least 75 years (most up to 150 years) were invited to participate in this study. It is believed that all congregations, regardless of faith, were included and given an equal opportunity to participate in this study. A Fax was sent, personalized to the senior pastor’s name, to the church office with information about the study and purpose. Within one week, the researcher followed up by phone with each respective church to ensure receipt of the FAX, answer questions, determine willingness to participate and, if interested, to schedule a one-hour interview with the senior pastor. Newer congregations, those without a traditional church building, or separate congregations leasing space from an existing congregation’s building were not solicited, although few are believed to exist in the two downtowns. Others were considered downtown churches when built, but freeway construction in the 1950s and 1960s separated them into distinct neighborhoods while maintaining a downtown and metro-wide status. All other known congregations were invited to participate, of which 14 were in Minneapolis and 8 in St. Paul. Of these, only 3 have a current building built since 1950, although some have newer additions to existing older structures. Of the 22 congregations, 17 represent Protestant denominations, 5 Roman Catholic, and 0 synagogues, mosques or other faiths.
Eight congregations volunteered to participate (5 Minneapolis; 3 St. Paul) representing six denominations (two Lutherans, two Baptists, one Presbyterian, one Methodist, one Evangelical Free, and one Covenant). Of these, four identified themselves as Mainline congregations (of which three tended to be theologically and socially progressive); the remaining four called themselves Evangelical congregations (which all tended to be theologically and socially conservative). All but one had lost large numbers of members since the 1950s; most have stabilized and a few have achieved modest growth. At least half had, at one time, considered closure or a congregational merger. All made, at one time, a deliberate choice to remain in their respective downtowns.
A 60 to 90-minute interview, using qualitative or interpretative research methods, was scheduled with 6 senior pastors, one staff pastor with responsibility for Urban Ministry, and one recent senior pastor who had taken a new pastoral assignment elsewhere in the city (by one week). Each interview was tape recorded to capture text which was evaluated to identify individual and common themes. All interviews were conducted in a church office or conference room. Each participant was asked the same research questions, followed up with specific questions or clarification of the individual experience. For both questions, the epistomology used was a mixed-qualitative case study format. The first question, “What is it like to pastor a downtown urban church?” followed the Van Manen (1997) and Gadamer (1976) approaches to phenomenological-hermeneutic inquiry which is less descriptive and more interpretative for the meaning of the lived experience. The follow-up question, “What are the key competencies of a downtown urban pastor today” focused more on general qualitative methods to seek future knowledge rather than lived experience. For both questions, follow-up questions were asked to provide clarification, detail or depth of experience; the second question split from pure phenomenology of lived experience and probed for opinions and ideas which could lie outside of the lived experience.
Following interviews, the tapes were listened to in full for themes as the researcher made written notations when key points were raised. To guard against researcher bias or error, the tapes were played a second time to confirm and identify quotes verbatim to ensure themes were accurate. The second review also served to ensure no themes were inadvertently overlooked in the first review, or confirmed that themes were correctly identified and interpreted, in the appropriate context.
This study had several limitations. The findings reflect only opinions and experiences of the participants from only one urban area in the United States. While all denominations in this study were solicited, only Protestant denominations participated, so the Roman Catholic experiences could be quite different, particularly in that they traditionally, though not now, followed parish boundaries as opposed to a more competitive approach to recruiting members (Warner, 1993). The study also did not consider new or nontraditional churches that have merged as new immigrant congregations, storefront churches or specialized ministries defining themselves as a church but not meeting in a traditional church building or setting. None of the congregations were predominantly-minority or dominated towards a particular ethnic group. Only two participants represented churches with memberships and Sunday attendance over 1,000 (most were less than 400), which could create some differences based on budgets, endowments, predominance of a particular denomination in the area and other factors. Whereas four evangelical congregations and one conservative mainline denomination reflected a majority of participants in this study, they in total reflect a minority of total downtown congregations who tend more towards a progressive theological and political stance. Most of the larger congregations also fall within the mainline category. A wider study including more mainline participants could evoke additional or conflicting knowledge. In addition to survey methods, a literature review was conducted using electronic, library and other printed sources.
Findings and Implications
Five HRD themesemerged from the study:
Theme 1: Comfort and an ability to work with diversity
All participants raised and agreed on this theme. The downtown urban church, once homogenous with European immigrants or leading business and civic leaders, will not return to its heyday of full serviceandfilledpews in cathedral-like buildings. Since the 1960s, all experienced periods of membership decline as suburbanization led many of their members out of the city to churches closer to their new homes; only one evangelical church is larger than it was in the heyday era. Remaining urban church members were often poorer, from different denominational backgrounds, or senior citizens with a long-term commitment to the church they often grew up in.
Minneapolis and St. Paul, beginning with the 1980s and accelerating in the 1990s after relatively stable decades, attracted many new immigrant groups, particularly Southeast Asians, Hispanics and North Africans. Most settled in the central cities and have been open to attending inner-city congregations. In Transforming the Mainline Church, Robert Chesnut writes that “city churches drawing their membership from the city as a whole, as well as from their immediate neighborhoods, are in a unique position to reach all sorts and conditions of people, to become diverse and inclusive communities of faith” (2000). Churches that maintain dominant ethnic or quasi-ethnic ties will also have a greater hold on members (Sherkat & Wilson, 1995; Sherkat, 2001), while those with little distinctiveness from other traditions or from secular society will have high membership turnover (Stark & Bainbridge, 1985). This offers hope to congregations willing to embrace diversity in their ranks.One participant added,