One of my current PneuMatrix engagements involves serving as a consultant with three presbyteries in eastern Oregon and southern Idaho as they discern whether their Christian witness in that part of the country might be strengthened by joining forces.
Each presbytery has declined in its number of churches and financial resources to the point where it’s not sure how much longer it can continue alone. Under the guidance of their synod, the three presbyteries developed a joint task force that has been talking and praying for several months to discern whether entering a formal merger, sharing staff, or some combination of the two would be a more faithful, vital, and sustainable pathway into the future.
At the same time, several of my PneuMatrix and Center for Healthy Churches colleagues are engaged in similar conversations at the congregational level. They are working with churches (and sometimes clusters of churches within a particular judicatory) who wonder if they have the resources to continue on their own. They want to explore the possibility of merging with a neighboring congregation.
This should not surprise any of us. We all experience the impact of the continuing decline in church membership and financial resources resulting from the dramatic shifts in the American religious landscape over the past two decades. Smaller churches feel this pinch more keenly than most, but even churches that have healthy membership numbers and can still balance their budgets wonder from time to time how much longer they can keep going.
When I was part of a leadership team that led the merger of Sacramento (my home presbytery) and Stockton Presbyteries to form North Central California Presbytery in 2021, we had a constructive conversation with Corey Schlossler-Hall. Corey was the presbytery executive in North Puget Sound Presbytery when they went through an earlier process of merging first with Alaska Presbytery and later with Central Washington Presbytery to form what is now Northwest Coast Presbytery.
He told us every church or judicatory merger involves three distinct but overlapping mergers: incarnational, ecclesiastical, and corporate.
The incarnational merger involves developing relationships between the members of the merging communities, helping them get to know each other, and developing a sense of shared identity and mission. This is the “people” part of the process.
The ecclesiastical merger involves the decisions required in your particular polity to approve the merger. This is the “church” part of the process.
The corporate merger involves taking the legal steps the state requires to merge the corporations of different bodies into one. This is the “state” part of the process.
Corey stressed that the incarnational merger is not only the initial step to take but is also – by far – the most important step in the process. He called it the “secret sauce” of church mergers. He encouraged us to start by creating ways to get people from the different groups together so that they could begin to build a sense of relationship and shared vision. In the case of churches, this could include worshipping in each other’s sanctuaries, sharing meals, or developing a shared mission outreach into the surrounding community. In the case of judicatories, the greater distances involved make this process a bit more complex.
Early in the process that led to the formation of North Central California Presbytery, I slightly shocked our synod’s stated clerk in a leadership team meeting. I asked her, “Can we live together for a while before we get married?” While that question might have been a bit provocative, I was using the concept of dating and marriage to help us think about how we could grow closer to one another – and maybe even begin to love each other – as we considered merging.
Incarnational community building continues even after the signing of the final documents, affecting the ecclesiastical and legal mergers. It takes time for communities that previously had their sense of family and identity to develop a shared sense of community. People will remember for a long time which former church or judicatory they were part of before the merger. It takes time for a new shared identity to emerge.
Once that incarnational commitment to one another is made, the ecclesiastical and corporate mergers are made much easier, even though they both take their share of the work.
Mergers, after all, aren’t only about extending the lifetime of a church community we have come to care for over time. At its best, the questions at the center of a merger conversation should be, “Can we be better because of our merger? Can we have a more vital witness because we have joined our communities into one? Will the cause of Jesus Christ be better served because we have pooled our gifts, our resources, and our energy? Will the resulting church/judicatory be able to have a more vital, faithful, and sustainable ministry to the community around us because we have become one?”
If your church or judicatory has been wondering if a merger is a possibility you may want to explore, we at PneuMatrix and the Center for Healthy Churches stand ready to assist you. Our successful efforts to help other churches and judicatories discern their way through the merger process means you will have experienced partners who will help guide you through your own. You can contact us through our websites or by contacting an individual consultant to have an initial conversation to explore possibilities.
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