Posted by : Shawn in (Church, PC (USA))
Do Presbyterians care about their children?
WARNING: This post talks about membership numbers of the PC(USA) and individual churches. If you are one of those people who has a fit anytime someone shows the slightest interest in numbers then I invite you to skip this post and check out this intriguing link.
Like most other mainline denominations, the Presbyterian Church (USA) has been losing members since the 1960s. We are down to about half the size that we once were. And this decline logically comes from many (most likely a majority) of churches losing members on a near-yearly basis.
But the average Presbyterian church seems indifferent to this reality. Sure, there is nervousness and some small lament of the declining number of “nickels and noses,” but how many churches actually acknowledge this reality and really wish to do the hard work of trying to reverse the decline? Acknowledging churches: few. Really working to reverse it: even fewer.
So here comes my question. Let’s put aside the notion that members and numbers may not be the best indicator of a faithful or successful church (duh). Doesn’t the average Presbyterian with kids/grandkids want the church to be around for their grown kids/grandkids? The writing is on the wall but most people seem interested in preserving the church they are used to, rather than helping to create one that will be there in the future.
I think we can certainly disagree about what changes need to be made, but I think it should be pretty obvious that if we make no changes the denomination will continue to shrink and individual churches will continue to die.
So do today’s Presbyterians care about leaving a church for their children? Or are we merely concerned with making sure it lasts just as long as we do?
I think it’s important to understand why there is such a decline. Research shows that the main variable boils down to the reality that mainline churches do not produce as many kids as more conservative congregations. The fact that many parents are having babies at older ages does not help this a whole lot. Religious switching has an effect here, but it is a much smaller proportion of the variance than we are often lead to believe.
This is not to say that the marketing of mega-churches does not have its influence. It does. But in my state, I am not sure where the closest mega-church is that markets itself this way.
Finally, another effect is that the more sectarian and exclusive the membership requirements are, the more likely someone will persist. This is because the effort one has to expend to maintain membership tends to be much higher.
So two things can happen to reverse the trend that I do not see as being very plausible: have more babies, and keep them there by having a more sectarian kind of organization that places more demands on its membership.
You can check out some of this research here in a presentation I gave at a conference about 18 months ago where I compare religious participation with college attendance. http://notes-from-offcenter.com/publications/
BTW; I am pretty sure that Rick Astley is Clay Aiken. Has anyone seen them together? Hmmm…
Drew,
If a big part of the decline is because we aren’t having as many kids, that doesn’t mean the only way to reverse it is to have more kids. There are too many churches out there that are growing by attracting unchurched and dechurched folks for me to think that more babies is the only (or best) solution.
And why is it implausible to place more demands on members? I can think of a number of growing churches that are explicitly setting high expectations for members in terms of participation, giving, and education.
But even if these or other ideas won’t work, the average Presbyterian church will never know because they aren’t trying anything dramatically new or different.
Shawn,
I’m not trying to be a fatalist, even though it does look that way…
I think more demands are fine, it’s just that what we know is that sectarian types of demands that make the organization less open are what seem to have the best effect to retain members.
The other option is to find a niche in which the typical PCUSA church can compete with the local religion market. In other words, what is the unique identifier and what might attract people to for a relationship with the community? That will account for making up some of the decline by catching the random fly-by folks who are church shopping and engaging in the switching behaviors that Pew has been documenting. One way is to work well with other churches so that you are not canceling each other out. However, you are still competing with other churches like it or not.
Of course I get a little queasy with “marketing”, but it is the world in which we live I guess.
To your point, trying something is key. Then find out how to assess how well it worked - and that itself might have as much to do with numbers as retaining the people you have with a vital community they learn to love.
Shawn,
I always wonder about this… I mean, why we say that the numbers don’t matter, that they’re not a good indicator of what’s going on. Perhaps you could say that about membership numbers, but attendance numbers are a good indication…
I think it’s because as church leaders, we don’t want to feel responsible for the sinking ship. Only four percent of PCUSA churches are growing. So, that’s a lot of leaders having to say, “Something’s wrong. We need to change.” It’s just a whole lot easier to say, “We don’t care about numeric growth, we only care about spiritual growth, etc.”
Only 4% of Presbyterian churches are growing??!?! I had no idea it was this bad.
And I might buy the “we only care about spiritual growth” line if those pastors actually appeared concerned about spiritual growth.
Have you heard of the theory that church growth and decline goes in cycles? It’s tied to generational theory, and it argues that traditional mainline churches experienced a prolonged growth in the 50’s and 60’s - the characteristics of those generations led them to Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episoscopal, etc. At the same time, more evangelical churches were struggling.
Now, the trend is reversed. Mainline is declining, evangelicals growing. I don’t think it’s fair to say we are declining because we have botched evangelsim - althoguh I agree we can do better.
According to the theory, we’ll see a resurgence in the next 20-30 years - regardless of what evangelism
programs we enact right now. It’s kind of catch-22 if you buy the theory.
Some people poke a hole in this theory, saying that we are crossing a major historical line right now into the post-Christian era. With the church no longer a fundamental part of the culture, decline is perhaps inevitable.
That being said, I certainly got frustrated at my last church for being more willing to die than to change. What I keep telling myself is to be faithful to my calling to spread the Word, and to not base my feeling of success on numbers - otherwise, I’d just have a big nervous breakdown!
I think we could see a resurgence… if we work very, very hard.
Speaking generationally (I’m sorry. I hate the labels… but… sometimes it’s the easiest way to talk about this stuff), I think if the church allows GenX (25-45) some space and money to plant churches, then we could see growth with the Millennials. They are huge, very progressive, very community oriented.
But, the under 25 crowd are turned off by the churches that are out there currently (see After the Baby Boomers and UnChristian).
One of the challenges here is that the “average Presbyterian” already has grown kids, or at least, already has kids who should be part of the church. Our children are already at the point where they should be among the formal and informal leadership of churches…but they aren’t around.
The time to leave the church to the kids is not after you’ve passed over into the great beyond.
[...] Shawn Coons raises an important question or two about membership and mission that seemed to dovetail with a couple of emails that have gone around my own session. [...]
Shawn,
Gosh, and I thought we Disciples had it bad when it came to growing churches.
I think you are correct in that most people want the church to be open long enough to take care of them as they get old and die. It’s interesting, I’ve interviewed for churches where there is an expressed desire to grow, but you look around at the architecture, how they welcome visitors, if they have a strong web presence and you see that they aren’t really serious. What they want is the church to be like circa 1965, which is kinda impossible for me since I wasn’t born yet.
Sometimes, I think what needs to be done is to just bypass the current generations that want things the way they were, and just start planting new churches.