Church's Self-examination Reveals
Building a "Good Church" Not Enough

by Emily McDonald
South East Correspondent
ReVisioning at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Lookout Mountain, began with a book about the death of the church and ended with a document called "Alive! From Membership to Ministry.''

In-between, the church took a long look at where it had been, where it was in 1999 and where it wanted to go in the 21st century. The idea was to "identify and remold our mission and ministry within the context of our immediate and larger community,'' according to the Revision plan.

The plan was "not a report of a committee,'' said ReVision Chairman Jim Frierson. "It was a self-examination by a lot of selves.'' The process was completed in the spring of 2000 and implementation began in the fall.

It all started at the Diocesan Convention three years ago when the Rev. John Talbird, Good Shepherd rector, became involved with the mission strategy task force. He heard about the Percept Group, an organization that collects church demographics and helps churches plan, and about a book by Percept co-founder Mike Regele, "Death of the Church.'' Talbird then used the book as the basis for a sermon.

"I was really energized by the whole thing,'' Frierson said. "I knew there was a lot of truth to what he was saying.''

Two adult church school classes centered on the book and the Talbird also launched a series of conversations among the several generations represented in the parish membership.

"We had different generations who told their stories in terms of what religion in the church meant to them,'' Talbird said.

The conversations made him realize that "no wonder one size doesn't fit all.''

Generations ranged from people who were there when the church was founded in the 1920s to teen-agers who will one day be church leaders. Only the older generations were looking for "a good church,'' he said.

The younger generations were interested in life issues and spiritual nurturing. And that was eye-opening for him. "I spent my life believing I was supposed to build a good church.''

"The conversations made us aware of how rooted this church is,'' Frierson said. Parishioners are not as mobile or transient as in other parishes. In addition, he said, "we underestimated how much the inner world of the church mattered to people. Parishioners wanted a balance between the inner world of the church and the outer world.

Reports on the two zip codes where most parishioners live and a congregational survey were ordered from Percept. The church has about 770 active members, Frierson said, and 336 completed surveys. "We suspended church for people to quietly sit and do the survey,'' he said.

Percept returned the data it had collected and a Reflection Series was held in the fall of 1999 that involved 125 people in 11 different groups. The ReVisioning process allowed parishioners of all ages to provide input on what they wanted the church to be, Frierson said.

And the conclusion was they wanted it to be more alive than it was. Sometimes, people became nervous about what was happening and the church even adopted a slogan to reflect that: "ReVision is not for sissies.''

Percept advises churches to "keep the main thing the main thing'' and Good Shepherd identified its main thing as having four dimensions: worship, spiritual development, outward mission and community building. The report spells out ways the church can be strengthened in each of those dimensions.

ReVision is a six-year plan, Frierson said, but it will be revisited in three years.

Several other churches in the diocese have used the Percept model for Revision, among them St. Alban's and St. Martin's in Chattanooga and St. Christopher's in Kingsport, Talbird said.