"When you’re the pastor of a small church, you have to do everything," North said.

But lately there hasn’t been enough to do. Over the years, the church’s membership has declined from 200 to about 30, in part because of an aging neighborhood and families fleeing to the suburbs. North and her congregation find themselves at a crossroads trying to decide the future of the church.

The population exodus from the District during the past decade has taken a toll on every aspect of city life. But while politicians talk about the shrinking middle class and declining tax base, it is communities like River Road Presbyterian that feel the losses most.

"People want a mega church," she said. "You know how everybody likes Wal-Mart now? The same thing is happening to churches. They want a church they can go in and sit down and disappear."

River Road Presbyterian near American University in Northwest Washington is a small, tightly-knit church where everyone is greeted on a first-name basis and unfamiliar faces are welcomed with a smile. And though its congregation may be shrinking, the church members’ sense of community remains strong.

The overall mission of the church may be changing, though, North said. Recently, members of the Kenyan Embassy staff joined the congregation and have been bringing other Kenyans to services with them.

North plans to travel to Kenya this summer to get an idea of what services and worship are like there, and to see if any aspects could be incorporated into the services at River Road Presbyterian for its Kenyan members.

River Road Presbyterian also recently baptized three members of a Kurdish family from Iran. People from China and Germany attend services also, which has allowed the church to adopt a more multicultural approach to its services and programs. And because of its proximity to American University, North said she thinks the church might be able to attract international students to services if the church decides to change its outreach strategy.

Small churches in large cities face the same competition as businesses do, North said, and they suffer the same fates that small businesses do in the face of much larger competitors. "The problem we have all faced is a demographic shift and a cultural shift," North said.

Founded in 1937, the church now faces a declining membership that threatens its very viability. Its current membership is only 40, and North estimates that just 20 or 30 members are active. On a recent Sunday, only 19 members were present for services. Two were children.

Elizabeth Southcott, a church member for 18 years, notes that River Road has lost members to other Presbyterian churches in the same part of town. Southcott, a District resident since 1946, said she settled at River Road Presbyterian during the tenure of the previous pastor, the Rev. Paul Edwards. When he retired five years ago, she said the church lost many of its core members.

"Nothing reflecting on Pastor North," said Southcott, "but they couldn’t bear to be without Pastor Edwards."

The loss of this core membership has pushed the church below the "critical mass" it needs to sustain programs such as Sunday school, North said. She said those programs are necessary to attract and keep new members.

"Mainly, Washington is such a transient city and people move away," said Roderick Engert, a member of the church since 1970. He said when he joined, membership was more than double what it is now.

"We depend a lot on people in the church inviting people to services," said North. "Recently that hasn’t worked out too well."

To try to find new members to sustain the church, they have commissioned a demographic study of the neighborhood to help find ways to attract churchgoers. A committee will be studying the report this week and North hopes this will enable the church to reach out into the neighborhood more effectively.

River Road Presbyterian is not the only small church in the neighborhood feeling the effects of urban flight. North cited two nearby Baptist churches — Briggs Memorial Baptist, just across the District line on Massachusetts Avenue, and Temple Baptist on Nebraska Avenue – as having similar problems with shrinking congregations.

North said she has met with the pastor from Briggs Memorial – whose congregation has shrunk to 40 members worshipping in a 400-seat sanctuary — to see if they can jointly solve some of the problems of their declining memberships. One option on the table, according to North, is the possibility of co-tenancy, whereby the two congregations would share the same church building.

In the meantime, North and the members of her church remain optimistic about the future of their church.

"We just have to find a need for us," Southcott said.

Copyright 1998, The Common Denominator