Happy new year. I thought it was worth commenting on two maps I've seen recently.
One is just to say "holy shih tzu! Look at all that snow."
The other is this map from the Unitarian Communications blog which shows the location of every Unitarian congregation in Britain:
I find it really interesting to look at this distribution, which is so obviously uneven. A few observations:
You can see the "Black Spot" from space! (small rural area in west of Wales containing many Unitarian chapels)
It's obvious that there are many more congregations in the northwest than in the southeast, even though the population in the southeast is much bigger.
It's easy to spot places with no Unitarian churches. What do you do if you're a Unitarian in Carlisle? Or somewhere like Bedford when you're pretty equally far from Cambridge, Northampton, and St Albans?
Conclusion: There's a lot of scope for church-planting.
One is just to say "holy shih tzu! Look at all that snow."
The other is this map from the Unitarian Communications blog which shows the location of every Unitarian congregation in Britain:
I find it really interesting to look at this distribution, which is so obviously uneven. A few observations:
You can see the "Black Spot" from space! (small rural area in west of Wales containing many Unitarian chapels)
It's obvious that there are many more congregations in the northwest than in the southeast, even though the population in the southeast is much bigger.
It's easy to spot places with no Unitarian churches. What do you do if you're a Unitarian in Carlisle? Or somewhere like Bedford when you're pretty equally far from Cambridge, Northampton, and St Albans?
Conclusion: There's a lot of scope for church-planting.
Comments
The pinpoints map doesn't show the size of the congregations, however, and the question has to be raised as to what will happen to congregations with only a handful of members (i.e. less than 10), which would make up a significant proportion of the pinpoints on the map. Do these smallest congregations have much chance of surviving this decade, particularly those trying to support buildings in small towns and villages? I suppose the same question was asked in the last decade, and decisions ultimately rest with the individual communities themselves.
You're right to flag up the prospect of church planting, as you have done in the past through this blog and your "live" ministry. I think this should become a priority for the GA and there needs to be further discussion and planning on this. If the following hasn't been done already recently, discussion might include identifying areas where NUF membership might be strong enough to set up a regular meeting, working towards weekly activities and ultimately to witness to liberal religion based on spiritual transformation and a search for truth, yet not on shared beliefs.
Church planting leads to the issue of professional pastoral support and strategic leadership from the GA for Unitarian church planting. I would be interested to see how ministers (and ministry funding) could be deployed in the future to facilitate church planting and supporting smaller, geographically scattered fellowships. I'd also be interested to know how the recently rejected "future ministry" model for Scotland included church planting and isolated communities. There seem to be some interesting initiatives in the URC, such as the Inner Manchester Mission Network, which ought to be looked at.
I think the traditional model of a minister serving over one or two churches won't disappear, but it is clearly becoming less viable with decreasing funds and increasing vacant pulpits. The experience of our URC and Methodist neighbours has shown that simply placing ministers in bigger and bigger pastorates, serving 3, 4 or more churches, has led to some hugely negative conseqences not only on congregations, but also on ministers' personal relationships and their health.
I think right now it's a matter of funding priorities. The GA (and the richer districts) need to prioritise getting paid professional ministry into as many congregations as possible, with no minister with more than two congregations. Recruiting, training and deploying ministers has to be the number one priority right now.
As for ministerial resources, I agree with Stephen that training high quality professional leaders for local churches should be a priority. My next question for Stephen would be whether you think church plants should be facilitated by ministers already attached to local churches, or receive leadership and pastoral support from dedicated pastors, who could manage more than one such group, but may or may not be based in the location of the church plant?
Church plants would also require some sort of "start-up capital" to sustain them for several years while they find their feet. As they won't have the trust funds underneath them that keep many of our existing local congregations going, church plants would eventually have to become financially self-sufficient, which will probably mean doing church quite differently to what many of us are used to.
By the way, I think I did link to that map from the Unitarian Communications blog, but it actually lives on the UK Unitarians site, and it is they who deserve the credit, because they did the Google Maps mash-up.
"which will probably mean doing church quite differently to what many of us are used to."
- Ah, this is exactly the point. A new church will have to have a different attitude to stewardship than exists in most of our churches. But that "doing things differently" (financially and otherwise) is exactly what will invigorate the denomination by example.
Yewtree: new churches would buy buildings when they could afford to. Until that time they could rent a space somewhere for a couple of hours a week, then permanently rent somewhere. This is what new businesses have to do. You start with what's possible and keep being ambitious for the next stage.
Yewtree: Not having buildings is barely the start of how church plants must be a different kind of church! Good of you to point it out. New church start-ups shouldn't have to adopt the kind of worship style, service or meeting we are familiar with; the regular meeting shouldn't even have to be on a Sunday.
NUFer: Spot on again about university outreach, in my opinion. Many university chaplaincies have an agreement not to proselytise on campus. Here in Manchester there is an interfaith declaration committing to this. These are commendable but they don't stop "unaffiliated" evangelical and more coercive groups from taking advantage of students' vulnerability, however. I remember writing on the UK Unitarians Facebook group some time ago how I think that Unitarians can potentially provide the safest space for students to explore their personal and spiritual identity. It could potentially be Unitarianism at its best.