Six Equmeniakyrkan congregations in Dalsland, western Sweden, have spent about a year testing whether they can call and employ staff together instead of separately. The initiative, known as Växtpool Dalsland (“Growth Pool Dalsland”), began with conversations about each congregation’s concrete needs and has now reached the point of a shared job advertisement and interviews. Several candidates applied, including ordained deacons but no ordained pastor, according to the Swedish church newspaper Sändaren.
The province, often called “Sweden in miniature,” has seen its free church congregations shrink, age and struggle to recruit workers. Bengtsfors, Ed and Åmål have at times gone without a pastor or other employed staff. Iréne Nygren, hired roughly a year ago to map the congregations’ needs, described a “generation gap”: the large youth cohorts of the 1980s and 1990s largely drifted from congregational life, and their children did not join either. “If it continues as it looks now, there are not many years left for some congregations,” she said.
Three congregations, Bengtsfors, Bäckefors and Åmål, are prepared to contribute money for shared positions, altogether about 150 percent of a full-time post distributed unevenly among them. The model is deliberately flexible: Nygren said the person appointed should not divide every working hour by stopwatch according to each congregation’s share. The cooperation has also changed shape along the way: one congregation withdrew from the employment part of the pool, and another has advertised for staff on its own.
Recruitment remains the hardest question. Nygren quoted Cecilie BS Larsen of Equmeniakyrkan’s international unit, who lives in Ed: “Does God only call pastors and deacons to big cities?” She pointed to affordable housing and local closeness as attractions, noting that a 107-square-metre house in Bengtsfors was listed at 1.1 million kronor, compared with 10 million for a similar house in a Stockholm suburb. At the same time, partners’ employment and public transport remain obstacles. She also said smaller places often feel outside national conversations, “as if asking them to come to the moon.” This year’s annual Dalslandsmötet included a Bible study by deputy church leader Niklas Piensoho.
Interviews have been held and references checked, and Nygren hopes an appointment may follow. But she wants the initiative to change more than staffing. “Maybe then Dalsland suddenly won’t be a black dot on the map but a somewhat more colourful dot,” she said, adding: “I don’t think God has forgotten Dalsland.”
(Originally published in Swedish. Summary translated by CC / Connexion.)
Source: Equmeniakyrkan / Sändaren — sandaren.se
