January 2007
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From the Pastor: Natural Church Development I wish a happy year 2007 to all the readers of our Communicator! Hope you have had a good Christmas time. For me and my family, is was special to have "Den første jul i et fremmed land" – the first Christmas in a foreign country, as one of the verses start in a popular Norwegian Christmas song: "Du grønne, glitrende tre, goddag"! Because of all the strong traditions connected to this holiday, it has to be different to celebrate Christmas far away from home. But we are happy to have Mindekirken as an "island of Norwegian culture" on the other side of the Atlantic! Traditions are important at Mindekirken. And we really have many strong and good traditions that help our faith and our fellowship not only to survive, but also to grow and thrive! This is in all, a crucial question for our congregation: How can our church live and develop in a healthy direction in changing times, while still keeping our roots and uniqueness as the only church in Minnesota regularly offering a Sunday service in Norwegian? I have learned that both the Planning Committee that was started during Pastor Bruce Arnevik’s time especially, and the council and congregation generally, have dealt with these issues, and found some outside forces acting on Mindekirken. So there is a very good basis for continuing to ask how more people can be attracted to our church, and that all our members can feel that Mindekirken is a strong spiritual home for them. On a Saturday in October, 3 members of the church together with me attended an information meeting about "Natural Church Development" (NCD) that our area synod invited us to. I have some experience from one of my congregations in Norway, using NCD as a tool to find out the "temperature" of the local church: What are our strong sides, and what is our weakness as a church? What hinders people from coming to our worship? Research in more than 1000 different congregations in very different cultures in the world has shown that there are 8 "qualities" that are needed if a congregation can be expected to grow. They are listed as follows: 1)
Empowering leadership, Now, if a local church through a NCD survey shows to be very strong in some of the qualities, but has a low score in perhaps just one, this "minimum factor" is to be considered very carefully. The good thing is that a congregation can use its strong sides to put in an effort to heighten its lowest point. It is like a chain that is not stronger than its weakest link. NCD is not that a church is asked to imitate other churches, or using other congregations as "models". Instead, NCD is based on principles that have the same value anywhere. If you attend Mindekirken, you surely will hear more about Natural Church Development in the time to come, as the congregation council now has decided to use this tool in the year(s) to come. I find this very exciting, - how can we use our strength, which we have a lot of in Mindekirken, to do better the things we are not so good at? Per Inge Vik |
The Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church · 924 E. 21st St, Minneapolis, MN 55404-2952 · (612)874-0716 |