Sarai Rice Congregational Consulting Group

Can Small Congregations Change?

by Sarai Rice

No question is more vexing to me than this one, because I see so many small congregations struggling with the tendency of a body at rest to stay at rest. It’s a relevant question, too, for students of congregational life, given that the median size of a congregation in this country is currently 75, only 11% of Christians worship in such congregations, and most are experiencing decline. Lots of seminars and workshops have been spawned on the subject, with the same implicit subtext–can small churches change in order to grow?

Rules for the Too-Busy

by Sarai Rice

“While I understand the reasons for believing the pastor needs to be the primary evaluator of staff, my personal concern comes from my sense of overwhelm-ment I already experience sometimes with this work. There is not enough time to do all that needs to be done…”

Bee eye from Flickr via Wylio — © 2008 Jack Wolf, Flickr | CC-BY-ND | via Wylio

This is the comment of a student in a webinar I’m leading on aspects of small church ministry.

And I get it. I, too, feel as if I don’t have enough time to do all that needs to be done. I work days, nights, and weekends, and it’s still not enough. I always feel as if I’m letting people down.

Calculating the Cost of Ministry

by Sarai Rice

by Sarai Rice
If the “cost” of something is “the price paid to acquire, produce, accomplish, or maintain it,” and calculating it is going to require manipulating numbers, then I’m pretty sure your first instinct when reading this article’s title was to run for cover! We’re just emerging from the glow of Christmas and the sparkle of the New Year. Who wants to talk about math or money? (read more)

“The tree this year is monkeys”

by Sarai Rice

As I write this, we are just hours away from the beginning of what I call “Happy-Thanks-Merry,” that period in the calendar year when secular and religious holidays align to create five golden weeks of charitable giving (and non-charitable spending). It was during this time last year that I heard the single most tantalizing statement I’ve ever heard in a council, session, or board meeting—an elderly woman’s announcement to the group that “the tree this year is monkeys.”

The Self-Organizing Congregation

by Sarai Rice

Most congregations occupy buildings. They gather for meetings around long or round tables in the library or parlor. They worship in the sanctuary. They learn in classrooms. And when they want to eat, they organize in the kitchen and sit together in the fellowship hall. Their buildings have been designed for these kinds of activities, and these activities are shaped by their buildings.

Visual Cues, or Sometimes You Can Tell a Church By Its Cover

by Sarai Rice

Six years ago, I made my very first trip overseas – to New Zealand – and it was fabulous! Breathtaking scenery, generous people, amazing art. With the exception of the indigenous Maori culture, which was literally another world, I felt like I “got” everything about the country.

My next trip? China. And again it was fabulous, but this time I “got” nothing. I couldn’t automatically tell whether someone was well-off or not. I couldn’t distinguish one neighborhood from another. I had no way to process cultural norms like split pants or outdoor kitchens. That’s when I realized for the first time that I carry in my brain an enormous vocabulary of visual cues that didn’t apply in China, and that I was used to processing these cues at lightning speed without even noticing.

We do this with churches all the time – we look at the building and draw conclusions without even noticing.

How do we practice change?

by Sarai Rice

by Sarai Schnucker Rice
Congregations unavoidably, inescapably, inevitably, unalterably change. Which is really a good thing, of course, or we would still be lighting our sanctuaries with candles and timing our sermons with sundials.

So, given the inevitably of change, how do we make it possible for our congregations to move their furniture around, sing different songs, change staff, and follow God’s ongoing call to them without coming apart in the process? How do we practice change?

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