Small Church Article Feature: “The OG Church was Small” by Rev. Shannon Borgman
Recently I went to visit a saint at the care home. I love our visits and this one was especially meaningful. As I sat down to talk about GA and the work to better understand the role of Commissioned Ruling Elders and Installed Teaching Elders, he laughed. With a smile he said, “It seems like the church is always doing that kind of work. There’s nothing new.” Lately the denominational chatter has been full of conversation around the changing church. Small is now the new norm and the definition of small has shifted. In my own presbytery a church of 100 or more is considered rather large; there are very few that reach above 300 members. Most of us are under 50 and many of us are under 30. My own churches are what I consider micro churches. I realize that this is highly contextual, but many of our Midwest sister presbyteries quote similar numbers.
At the same time pastors are few and far between. Finding clergy who will come out to our small presbyteries and serve in our rural communities is difficult. Even churches located close to larger cities are struggling to find people who will serve in these settings. It’s because of this that the commissioners are listening to several overtures this week on serving the changing church and considering carefully what we really believe the church is.
There is a shift in our world in everything we know about church. In our smaller context elders step into the pulpits. Churches come together to hire pastors. We share our resources. We lift one another up. And we make sure we thrive. But thriving in our settings is very different from the church most of us grew up with.
I am Teaching Elder for four small congregations that share ministry and a pastor together. These congregations are known as the Oregon Trail Presbyterian Ministries. My four congregations support me in what I’ve come to embrace as a true Circuit Riding Ministry. I move from church to church, preaching in 2-3 pulpits a week. On the Sundays when I can’t be present any number of creative solutions are used by the elders of those communities. Elders have shared their own messages, we have used video sermons, liturgists have read the sermons I am preaching in another church that morning, congregations have hosted hymn sings and so many more options. Last November the elders of the Washington church made a choice to send the congregation to the Hospital Fundraiser instead of sitting in the pews. That Sunday the members of that church set up chairs, helped put out goods and participated in the activities of the day, in order to support the local hospital. This same congregation has chosen to worship twice a month. The other two Sundays members are encouraged to visit other congregations in town or other Presbyterian churches. They play in the Methodist Bell Choir. They attend worship a county over, or they stay home and have worship together as family. This is what it is like to be in the church today.
Some have said that we are creating new ways of being in the church. I find nothing new about what we are doing. Instead I think we are rediscovering who we are at our roots. In 2019 my four congregations began making plans to celebrate 150 years of ministry. All four started around the same time. A few of these churches were the very first in their community to be established, and most of them shared their buildings with other emerging congregations. As I prepared to lift up the churches I found myself struck by this reality. What we are doing now, is much closer to what the early homesteaders did.
In 1870 the Blue Rapids congregation was the first church to be established in their community. It was a fairly decent sized group of faithful servants, about 20 in total on the original charter. Before they had a building the church worshiped in the dining room of Colonial Hall (a temporary hotel or home for prospectors). Five years after they were chartered the sanctuary was built. It holds approx. 100 which was considered a large congregation. At times those pews have been full. But they didn’t start that way. It was a smaller group of faithful saints that built the church. This group of saints didn’t only care for themselves. For a long time the pastor rode on from worship in Blue Rapids to minister to the Czech church about five miles down the road. They were a congregation of 20 who met in homes for twenty years until they finally built a small sanctuary. The Irving Presbyterian Church was organized seven years prior to the Blue Rapids church. It began with only eight members, the pastor and his wife. In 1933 these three congregations became a parish and shared a pastor. For many years these congregations were sustained by worship whenever the pastor could come. It wasn’t every Sunday, and they didn’t always have a full house. Eventually circumstances caused the Irving and Czech Presbyterian church to conclude their ministries folding into the Blue Rapids church. The Irving Presbyterian Merged in 1958 and Czech church joined in 1973. That is where this church gets the name United Presbyterian Church.
The Washington congregation took two tries before it found its footing. A small group of Presbyterians originally tried to settle in the area around 1860. But the war and unrest between the natives and the settlers meant the area was too volatile to sustain life. The pastor left the people to go back to the presbytery for approval to charter the church. By the time he returned the community had scattered. Eventually 9 faithful saints came together in 1869 to form the first church in the community. Over time they grew, even boasting upwards of 60 people in the pews. They became a training ground for pastors. Instead of receiving a settled clergy they took in the students and first call pastors who needed practice. This culture of training seeped into who they are. From this church came a Teaching Elder and Moderator of GA, and the former director of Ghost Ranch.
The Marysville church also had a rough start. The community was fractured between North and South which affected the congregation. The second attempt at establishing a formal congregation began with a letter written by 4 determined people. 12 people were present at the first services held in a school. They eventually built a modest church. It wasn’t until the 1920s that they exploded in numbers and the current larger building was built. At upwards of 300 members they boasted of a choir, a full time teaching elder, Sunday school, and more. However they never lost sight of their roots. The Blue Rapids and Marysville both laid the groundwork for the Oregon Trail. Rev. Neil Bartley accepted a call in 1989 to the Marysville church provided Frankfort and Marysville were willing to share a minister. Both he and Rev. Maryilynn Sweet (an intern at the time) would eventually go to Washington as well as Frankfort to preach for them on a regular basis. Rev. Bartley encouraged the church to always be connected to one another. After he passed Marysville and Frankfort called Rev. Sweet as a temporary supply pastor. It was during her time of ministry that the four came together.
Frankfort didn’t always share a pastor. Originally the small group of faithful sustained their own installed clergy. The church building wasn’t built until almost seven years after they were chartered. But the eight faithful members occasionally held services on the outside, gathered on the very property where they would eventually build. When they no longer could support a pastor on their own they embraced a shared ministry with Marysville. Today we are in a unique four point relationship that I know is sustained by this history. They serve their communities with love and care and passion. They stand as a witness to God’s grace and mercy. They do what needs to be done to share God’s word. Sometimes we talk about the changing church as though it’s a new and unique concept. As I’ve served these four communities of faith I’ve come to believe this isn’t new. We are returning to the way we were when we started. What seems new and innovative to us isn’t. Most of our communities began with only a handful of saints. Many of our rural and western churches demanded unique patterns for worship. In some communities the ordained Ministers of Word and Sacrament would ride into town once a month and stay for the week. It was during this time that the people would gather for worship with the pastor to share in communion, baptize, marry and bury their dead and hold their session meetings. Regular weekly worship was not what we’ve come to know.
Elders took their roles as spiritual leaders to heart. They went to the homes of the members to discuss baptism, communion, and membership. They were the ones who lived in the community and shaped the mission and ministry. The members who worked to sustain their lives put forth the energy to build their churches, and sustain the buildings. The pews, the paramounts, the communion tables were not ordered from catalogs. They were built and sewn by the hands of the people. In many of our small churches these original worship items still exist. The clergy came to manage the sacraments, preach the word, and uplift the work of the elders and equip them for their work. But the church lived by the work of its people.
As we consider the church today I think we need to consider the possibility that the changes we see are not new. We hear this in the stories of small congregations and realize that where two or three are gathered God is with us. It does not take a large body of people to make an impact in the world. As we find creative solutions for ministry today we need to remember that they are rooted in work that was done long before we were born. Our faith comes from the generations that came before us. It is not new, it is rediscovered. This is what the small church can offer the PCUSA today. We can offer peace in knowing that our now small numbers are never really small in God’s eyes and we can offer a community of faith, seeped in God’s witness, rooted in faith. There really is nothing new.
