Diagnosis: Congregational Cardiomyopathy

With chapter four of You Only Have to Die, Jim Harnish gets down to a frank assessment of the situation that awaited him at Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa, Florida. The theme verse for this chapter is "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life"(Proverbs 13:12).

In this chapter, Harnish emphasizes "clarity of mission and purpose," which includes the need to align the church's actions and resources around mission. And that, he contends, is what "declining or dying churches generally are missing." It may be what we are missing at First United Methodist Church.

Harnish described Hyde Park Church upon his arrival as a congregation "that had a very clear sense of its past, was somewhat foggy about its present, and didn't have a clue about its future" (p. 40). This once-prestigious church had fallen victim to "congregational cardiomyopathy," which Harnish defines as "the lack of heart-level clarity and warmhearted passion about God's mission and vision for the congregation." The lack of mission and vision, Harnish contends, "always leads to a gradual hardening of the heart in the present and inevitable death in the future" (p. 40).

Those are scarcely words designed to warm the heart! They are more likely to cause an inward shudder! And yet these words were true for Hyde Park United Methodist Church. They may be more true than we wish at First United Methodist Church.

One of the symptoms at Hyde Park Church was the neglect of the congregation's buildings. The condition of the physical facility, Harnish observes, "was symptomatic of mediocrity or benign neglect in other areas of the church's ministry"(p. 41). That needed to be addressed almost immediately at Hyde Park Church, along with everything else!

I believe that we have done some significant work at First United Methodist Church in the last eight years in dealing with our building's deficiencies. Does anybody remember the condition of the sidewalks eight years ago? There were so hazardous that a complaint was filed about them with the City of Hutchinson.

And what about Fellowship Hall? There was the gold shag carpet on the walls. There were no sound boards hanging from the ceiling or on the walls. You couldn't hold a meeting there and expect the leader to be heard, and we just recently held a prayer retreat for more than 120 women!

The windows throughout the building were all single pane glass, and some of them had cracks that could not be patched. Not all of the windows could be closed. One window had duct tape on it for the better part of a year.

And then there is the first level of the Education Building. Eight years ago, the Sew 'n' Sews were lodged in a tiny room, and now they have a spacious room in which to work. The room at the north end of the hall was not used by anyone, although it was still set up for the Sunday School class that used to meet there. Now, thanks to the efforts of the Chancel Choir, it has been transformed into an inviting, gracious and well kept space. The 50-50 Class has migrated from one room to another and then to their current location. The Health and Wellness Room has been transformed from a space barely usable to one that is welcoming and inviting.

But it is not all a matter of physical property improvements. In reality, we have postponed dealing with the more important issue of defining (or re-defining) our mission and vision. In some ways, the same description can be used of us that was used for Hyde Park United Methodist Church, i.e., "It had many great attributes, but it lacked a commonly shared sense of mission and had no compelling vision for its future"(p. 42).

Jim Harnish did in his first few months of ministry at Hyde Park Church what I have not done (at least not effectively) in my first several years of ministry at First Church. Harnish decided to "start with . . . mission." Once the congregation had defined God's calling for them as a congregation, they had "a common criterion for making decisions on what to do and how to do it"(p. 43).

I believe that I thought I was doing--or at least encouraging--this kind of venture, but it did not happen. And now we are making up--or attempting to make up---for lost time.

That is one of the reasons that I am so pleased with the Re-Vision Team that we now have in place. It is not their job to figure out how to "change the church!" It is their job "to lead the entire congregation in a process by which we would all listen for God's Spirit to speak to us"(p. 43). And that includes definining a mission that wil actually "guide us in making decisions about our future"(pp. 43-44).

The process at Hyde Park Church turned out to be, in Harnish's words, "exhausting and exhilarating," but they committed themselves "to a process that would go all the way to the heart." I am encouraged that renewal was able to happen at Hyde Park United Methodist Church, and I believe that it can still happen here at First United Methodist Church. I am convinced that it needs to happen, and I trust that, by God's grace and guidance, it will happen! I invite your persistent prayers of strength, hope, and courage!