Church Growth: National Trends

I started this series out mentioning that I was reading Beyond Megachurch Myths, a recent statistical study of American Protestant Churches having attendance of 2,000 or more each week on average. I’m finished now, so it’s time to return to the subject.

I was drawn to this study because it’s fairly scientific. The authors compiled survey information from hundreds of churches across the country and compared them to similar studies in earlier years. So much opinion has been expressed on the megachurch phenomenon, some good, some not so good, I just thought it would be nice to know some cold, hard facts.

Until I get a better idea, I figure I’ll just go through the book chapter by chapter, not repeating the information so much as trying to apply it to the circumstances of smaller churches, such as my own, and to Churches of Christ in general.

In chapter 1, the authors lay out the American religious background.

From the late 1960s to 2006, the US grew from 200 million to 300 million people, they say.

However, throughout this time, about 40% of Americans say they attended a religious service in the last week. One recent poll had a 47% response! About 85% of Americans think of themselves as Christian, and this figure has also remained stable.

Today, 65% of self-identified Christians claim a church membership, while 34% are “unchurched” Christians. Manifestly, 34% of 85% of 300 million people is a huge number! (nearly 87,000,000!)

Therefore, although we have more Hindus, Muslims, and atheists than ever, as a percentage of the population, church attendance is largely unchanged for the last 40 years. (p. 4)

Meanwhile, the Churches of Christ have grown hardly at all. This is truly depressing — and grounds enough for serious rethinking of what we’re about. Now, we can make clever excuses such as arguing that much of that population growth is due to immigration. But our growth rate isn’t even as great as our rate of biological growth. That is, we aren’t even converting enough new members to replace those of our children who leave the Churches of Christ and never come back.

Half the congregations in the US have 90 or fewer members. Some studies say 75 or fewer. (p. 5)

Studies of the Churches of Christ show that we are about the same. In fact, it’s not uncommon for us to have two or three churches of less than 100 in the same town, because we are so prone to divide over doctrine.

Many scholars refer to these small congregations as “family” churches, as they are often comprised of or dominated by a handful of families. Church splits are often along family lines. (Although we all know cases where families have been tragically split by a church split. But, then, isn’t that always the case?)

As a consequence, the authors tell us, only 11% of church goers are in the 50% of the smallest churches. 89% attend bigger churches. In fact, 45% of church goers attend churches in the top 10% in size (over 300 members). That leaves 44% to worship in churches of 90 to 300 members.

The largest 1% of churches are home to at least 15% of all church goers! The largest 20% of the churches have around 65% of the members, money, and other resources. On the other hand, the house church movement is growing, pushing more and more to the very smallest churches. (p. 6)

Hence, the trend is away from the middle, toward either very large churches or churches that meet in homes.

This is certainly true in the Churches of Christ. In my own hometown, I’ve seen two churches close their doors to merge with larger churches in the last few years. The leadership concluded that families would not attend a church too small to offer such programs as a ministry for teenagers. In short, to be attractive to new families, a church has to reach a certain “critical mass” or else parents will even drive to other towns or cross denominational lines to assure their children of excellent programs.

Meanwhile, my congregation is helping to support several house church planting efforts across the country.

The International Churches of Christ, a movement that separated from the “mainstream” Churches of Christ but has recently begun to restore fellowship, operates primarily through house churches — and they have over 100,000 members!

The authors point out that the megachurch movement is extraordinarily healthy. The number of megachurches, per one million people, has grown from 0.24 in 1970 to 4.00 in 2005, representing unbroken growth during this period. Of course, the total population has grown about 50% in this time, making the statistic all the more remarkable.

Moreover, megachurches are found across the nation, with the highest concentrations in the Southeast (no surprise) and the West Coast (!). The fewest megachurches are in New England.

The vast majority are, of course, in the suburbs and exurbs, areas of rapid population growth.

Now, as we ponder these figures, we really have to ask why the Churches of Christ have only one megachurch. We are well represented in the Southeast and West Coast! If there are 4 megachurches per 1,000,000 people, and if about half the population attends church on a given Sunday, then we ought to have 16 megachurches ((4 / 1 million) x 2 million / 50%). We have one. Why are Pentecostal churches, Baptist churches, and nondenominational churches able to do this, while we — who claim to be nondenominational — can’t?

Why are there churches less than 10 years old with more than 2,000 members all over the country while we have congregations 150 years old that fail to grow over 200?

It’s easy to speculate — and impossible to prove any theory. But here are some theories (these are not assertions!) —

* Leadership. As previously noted, we aren’t willing to give the full-time, professional staff enough authority to manage a church of that size. Take a look at the organizational structure of Richland Hills Church of Christ, our only megachurch: http://www.rhchurch.org/index.cfm?pg=doc&id=157. How many of our congregations would be willing to organize that way?

* Instrumental music. All megachurches are instrumental. Every one. Even Richland Hills has an instrumental service.

* Traditional music. Many megachurches have traditional music at least some of the time. But the largest churches all have contemporary musical styles — guitars and drums. After all, this is the music everyone 60 or younger grew up with.

* Nondenominationalism. Many megachurches wear their denominational name proudly, but most — especially the largest ones — choose nondenominational names. It’s not that they’re ashamed of their beliefs. It’s because they want everyone to feel welcome and they don’t want to appear divisive. Despite our talk of nondenominationalism, we wear a name that everyone outside the Churches of Christ considers denominational.

* Exclusivity. The greatest secular sin today is intolerance. That doesn’t mean churches should give up their principles. But if your principles declare hundreds of millions of believers in Jesus damned, you’d better be right — because that teaching is extremely unattractive and makes evangelism very, very difficult.

* Divisiveness. A large Church of Christ cannot attract even a majority of new Church of Christ members moving into town. We are chopped up into so many sub-fellowships that we need at least four churches in every town just to house the varying views of newcomers! (around here: progressive, moderate, conservative, and non-institutional).

* Failure to plant. The independent Christian Churches are identical to the Churches of Christ doctrinally except for accepting instrumental music. And they are growing rapidly. They credit their growth to diligent church planting efforts.

* Legalism. I know many consider “legalism” a fighting word, but it’s a fair criticism of many of our congregations. Some of us have persuaded ourselves that no one will be pure and committed unless they live in fear of hell. But the most committed people I know are the most persuaded of God’s graciousness. It’s an interesting irony that tells us something important about human nature — something that God knows and we often misunderstand.

Now, it may not be sin for us to have so few megachurches. I’m pretty sure it’s not. But I think some of the reasons we stay small are sin. And if we were ever able to overcome them, I’m confident we’d produce far more converts, do far more good, and grow some much larger churches.

As we work our way through the studies in the book, we’ll consider these and other issues.