THE CONTINUING PROMISE OF NICHE MINISTRY

In the ever-diversifying culture of North America and Europe, the day of  "one-size-fits-all" church is over.  There never really was such a church that could serve everyone with equal effectiveness.  However, many of us remember communities with extremely homogenous population.  In the years of monocultural neighborhoods and three national television networks, a neighborhood church might find itself able to relate culturally to 80 percent of the residents in its neighborhood.  However, today, human diversity is increasing in most zip codes.  This diversity can be seen in terms of race, education, political tribes, lifestyle hobbies, income, etc.  Today, in the rare homogenous neighborhoods that remains in the South or Midwest, we might find a dominant congregation that relates to one out of five households (20 percent), but even this is rare. Involvement (or market share) of even 1 percent is notable now - and also increasingly rare.

 

The 2020s will likely be marked by more niche churches: churches that serve and gather specific lifestyle groups as a major focus.  Rarely will any lifestyle group comprise 100 percent of a niche church's membership - this is after all still an age of multi-cultural church!  But certain niches will dominate in certain congregations - and give some of the flavor that defines that church's ministry and personality. And this will further increase geographic regionalization of church participants - members flung across many miles who gather because of the church's niche emphases.

 

Examples of the niches that we see flavoring certain churches:

 

* LGBT couples with kids

* Cowboy lifestyle

* People who like coffee houses

* People working the 12 Steps

* Rule of Life (neo-monastic) covenant-makers

* Yoga/Mind-Body enthusiasts

* Traditional couples who value patriarchy and/or having lots of children

* People who resonate around certain music genres (jazz, Black gospel, Euro-classical, etc)

* Activists, passionate about specific justice issues

* Immigrants within the last ten years, often from same part of the world

* Three or fewer extended families (the family chapel church)

* People who have differently abled family members in their households

 

In the latter part of the book Weird Church, Beth Estock and I share 19 distinctive models of church which we see as likely to thrive in many places well into this century.  Many of them are founded on population niches - not all.  In my latest book Multi, I talk about "host culture."  In a niche church, the niche population forms the host culture, often comprising the majority of participants.  But there may be scores of others who make a church their home even though they are not a part of this dominant group.  The niche group is invited to make space at the table, while continuing to emphasize things that are meaningful to their cultural focus.  In a church with a large LGBT population, this could be a church-wide Pride emphasis in June that universalizes Pride values so that everyone can participate.  In a church with a large Black population, this could be an annual Juneteenth celebration that is conducted in a way that invites lots of people to make meaning around the holiday.  In a neo-monastic congregation, this could be an emphasis on covenant-making and accountability groups, even among those who are not fully engaged in a monastic lifestyle.  The host culture need not shy away from sharing the gifts of its heritage with everyone!

 

I am currently working on a book to be released in 2021,tentatively titled Launching a New Worship Community.  It will relate both to new church starts and to existing churches that wish to widen their bandwidth beyond the current circle of participants.  One reason that new worship communities fail to take root is that leaders are insufficiently clear about who they are seeking to gather. Come one, come all sounds nice, but it rarely grabs anyone and gets them out the door on Sunday! Such a fuzzy sense of  church identity is about as engaging as the old 1960s newspaper ads that read, "Attend the church of your choice next Sunday!"  With a target so vague, rarely was anyone motivated to point themselves to a specific church and actually set the alarm in order to get there.

 

I often encourage churches to get more focused on specific groups and lifestyles within their larger community.  There is nothing exclusionary about focusing on particular people God is calling your particular church to love and to embrace.

 

One of my favorite stories is how Cathedral of Hope in Dallas got started during the 1980s.  Pastor Michael Piazza and his friends saw a segment of the population struggling with and dying from AIDS.  This population segment was almost universally ignored by the churches in a city where you could hardly throw a rock without breaking a church window. Lots of churches, yet no place for thousands of God's children in that city!  So Cathedral of Hope started out specializing in AIDS patients and the people who loved them.  We are now decades past that crisis, but a strong UCC congregation remains: themed around LGBT concerns, even as they reach a diverse urban constituency of persons who are in the sexual majority and HIV negative.  Cathedral of Hope offers a reminder that in a big city, niche church does not necessarily mean small church!