I read Thom Rainer’s blog, but I’ve been reading his work since before there were blogs. Rainer is a church growth consultant who has written several influential books.
He is one of the few who studies the research and really understands his field. Everything he has written is highly recommended.
He recently posted a list of 14 predictions for the American evangelical churches for 2014. Some are good news. Some are not good at all. But we can learn from each one.
These are more than opinion. These are based on surveys and other research, as well as Rainer’s continuous contact with congregations across the country because of his work. I take his predictions very seriously.
1. Increased church acquisitions. Smaller churches will seek to be acquired by larger churches in increasing numbers. One of the big factors is simply personnel cost. Many smaller churches can no longer afford to pay a pastor a salary and benefits, particularly health care benefits. (75% confidence factor).
This is not a big trend in the Churches of Christ, but is definitely happening. One way that multi-site congregations gain a new site is by merging with a smaller congregation that has decided to stop going it alone — likely because they’ve fallen behind Church of Christ “critical mass.”
In Churches of Christ, if you’re too small to hire a fulltime preacher and youth minister, you are likely too small to grow by traditional means, that is, by attracting new Church of Christ members moving into town and by members inviting friends to church. The fact is that, today, many of our members would rather attend a conservative evangelical church with a great childrens and youth program than a smaller Church of Christ that is struggling to hold its numbers.
2. Downsizing of denominational structures. Many denominational structures are becoming smaller because their churches are declining. Others are feeling economic pinches. This trend of smaller and more efficient denominational structures at all levels will only become more pervasive in 2014. (90%).
Well, we don’t have to worry about this one!
Well, actually, we do. We have nothing that would admit to being a “denominational structure,” but look at the decline in our publishing houses and periodicals. Other parachurch organizations — missions and benevolence programs — are finding it increasingly difficult to please both the conservatives and the progressives. Some have had to make a choice because you can’t teach both doctrines at once. Old wineskins …
The larger universities seem to be thriving, but some of the smaller ones have already failed, and I expect we’ll see a few more.
The Churches of Christ as a whole are in numerical decline. The number of Churches interested in supporting traditionalist organizations is declining much more rapidly — and the pain is being felt. And by now, surely most of these organizations are past living in denial. They need to be. Denial solves nothing.
3. Decline in conversion growth. American churches that grow are more likely to get their growth at the expense of other churches. Evangelism is waning in many churches, and fewer non-believers are becoming Christians. The negative reaction to programmatic evangelistic methods has evolved into an overreaction. Too few churches emphasize personal and church-based evangelism. (75%)
Sounds familiar.
4. More megachurches. The data are clear that there are more megachurches (average worship attendance of 2,000 or more) today than a year ago. There is also little doubt the trend will continue. The only uncertainty is whether or not the rate of growth of megachurches will continue to climb. (85%)
Those who predict the end of the megachurch era have no data in support of their theory. There are more megachurches every year.
The Churches of Christ have very few, largely because (a) we don’t know how to staff a church to grow, (b) our paid staff is not trained in leading a large church, (c) our elders will generally not relinquish enough day to day control to staff to allow for growth, and (d) we have doctrinal barriers that make it difficult for a church to grow large, including our rejection of instrumental music.
Jay,
There are a lot of assumptions in Rainer’s predictions that make me NOT take him as seriously as you do. Here are a few:
– churches that are declining will not use unpaid preachers or preachers who only need to cover a few expenses in order to keep the doors open.
– downsizing of parachurch structures and denominational hierarchies is a bad thing and contributes to church decline.
– churches that do not evangelize among the unchurched are still viable through membership transfers.
– churches that genuinely love the Lord will be swayed by negative responses to overt evangelism methods.
– nobody is responding to the gospel anymore.
– mega-churches are growing churches because more people sit in their pews every year.
These kinds of assumptions have little to nothing to do with what the scriptures recognize as assemblies of saints. They have a lot to do with churchianity, but almost nothing to do with Christianity. The decline in churchianity is a good thing. It may pierce the delusions we have long clung to in order to minimize our honest reflection on what decline really is and is not, but a decline in churchianity is something leaders and other members in the body of Christ have been praying for for decades.
Rainer may or may not have some really valuable insights to share, but so far they are not showing up. The real value in what he sees as trending now is that it proves that trends are NOT the same as high-quality insights into why the churches of many varieties are not thriving. Taking a longer view than the last 5-10 or 15-20 years is absolutely crucial to understanding the difference between a decline in popular trends and a decline in the body of Christ at large.
I look forward to seeking more gems and less fodder as this journey through Thom Rainer’s predictions continues … which seems to be your intent. After all, you said there are 14 predictions and these 4 barely get us started. Then again, maybe it is worth a trip over to his blog to see if he ever does get down to some quality insights.
Thanks for sharing. At least we learn something about what you perceive as insightful.
Grizz
PS … having or not having instrumental music is an excuse for a lack of church growth. It is NOT a valid reason. This is another example of churchianity being perceived as an insight into church growth dynamics. Churchianity is NOT the same thing as discipleship. Thinking that it is the same thing is what has contributed to churches declining for way too long. Increasing numbers of half-hearted and uninvolved pew-packers who have little to no concept of of truly following Jesus only promotes more goats being surprised at the judgment (see Matthew 25 for clarification of the differences between sheep and goats).
G
I’m sure everyone has had different experiences, but In my 35 years of being in the CofC I have never known anyone who left us to go worship with instruments at another place for that particular reason. I have known a very few who left to go somewhere else due to having a larger, more rigorous, youth program or that their kids attended the Christian School funded by said church. They of course made friends with those kids at school and wanted to be with them at worship too. Understandable. I have felt like (couldn’t prove it was THE main reason) that there may have been (like count on one hand) a few people who visited us from other denominations and who moved on who may not have liked not having instrumentation (having come from that back ground). Again, not provable, but something you could certainly consider. However, I have known visitors from other places to comment on how well we sung. So, take that for whatever it’s worth.
Some of the music argument IMO is more straw man than a real objection to growth among mature adults. Now as far as capturing the attention of the unchurched youth, then yeh, I’m sure, having a Hilsong type group would be a drawing factor. But so would having dynamic preaching, teaching and fellowship. Christ crucified is still the power to truly change lives, or are we to believe that we cannot have true worship of God and Godly living and evangelism without instruments? Doesn’t that place the power in the medium and not in the message?
It would be interesting to know what percentage of The Hills Church(North Richland Hills church of Christ) new membership comes from those previously unchurched, those who have come from other CofC’s (swelling), and those who have come from other clubs (borrowed Charles’ term) and why? Instrumental music, friendship evangelism, saw them online, etc. ??
Just because something should not be so is no evidence that it is, in fact, not so. Case in point: the ban on IM is clearly a factor limiting numerical growth in CoCs. It’s a tradition that is simply not attractive to most non-CoC believers or to unbelievers; for a similar reaction, try banning the wearing of cotton at Sunday services. Should such things make people not want to share Jesus with us? No, fabric should not be a barrier. Cotton is not important. But just try telling visitors that “we don’t wear cotton at our church” and see how fast they move down the street. Time to face reality that the indefensible ban on IM has a similar effect on other believers. Is it “valid”? I don’t know what that means, but I can see the effect with my own eyes. If your congregation chooses to maintain an archaic and unattractive tradition, they create a barrier to entry. Whether that is a “valid choice” is in the eye of the beholder.
Grizz, many CoC’s have remained “viable” -that is, able to continue holding services- for years without significant evangelism. They manage on generational growth and get enough transfers to offset losses. That’s not just a “presumption”, that’s observable fact. I could take you on a tour of such congregations that I know myself and we would be many weeks attending a different one each Sunday.
External judgments like “churches that really love the Lord” would not do this or that are essentially meaningless. What is happening is what is happening. We should be “swayed” by ongoing failures of certain human methods. If somebody tells you to plant okra under an oak tree, and it bears little or nother, you do well to abandon that technique. Programmatic evangelism is a make-do to overcome the failure of our personal testimony in changing the lives of our neighbors. Having been guilted into door-knocking, tract-passing, direct-mailing, bus-driving methods which have not generated any change in our own hearts, much less any significant increase in new believers, it can be expected that many folks will eventually plop back down in the pews until the next evangelism fad comes out in paperback. It is happening.
As to what constitutes a “growing church”, mega-churches are using the same yardstick as everyone else always has: the ABC’s of church growth. (More Attendance, more Building, more Cash.) It is a bit inconsistent to sneer at growing meeting attendance as a positive at a megachurch when everybody else has had the Sunday attendance posted on their auditorium signboards for decades.
I will agree with Grizz that Rainer may underestimate the local micro-congregations’ willingness to do just about anything to keep their doors open– including cutting operational expenses to the bone. There is a sad and myopic determination among shrinking congregations to keep holding services at any cost. We will fire the preacher, cut back to one service a week, eliminate benevolence, do just about anything before we will give up our “autonomy” and join ourselves to the congregation down the street. True mergers are few. Rainer rightly calls the closures of these tiny groups “acquisitions”, for the larger CoC acquires the real property of a remaining elderly handful who have tired of trying to keep the doors open. Of course, this is not evidence against the decline Rainer describes, but merely a part of it. I think the main factor limiting the number of these acquisitions is the advances in health care technology which extend our functional life expectancy.
I must admit here an assumption that underlies my observation about the effect of banning IM. I am assuming that the other facets of our congregation are pretty much average, as relates to other clubs. That is, that we are as kind and friendly and welcoming as the folks down the block, that we make the same genuine effort to serve others, that our teaching is of essentially the same caliber as the preacher next door, and that the opportunities for fellowship and service are similar.
However, if we are highly effective at loving our neighbors and befriending them, or OTOH if we are chilly and standoffish to strangers, both those factors would likely far outweigh the effect of the music barrier.
If the 4-letter word, tradition, could just be used, the fight over IM might die down. I have heard cantors before who sang beautifully with no need for instruments. Perhaps some effort put into planning a few songs which would correspond to the the gospel lesson of the day would add some meaning to the service and allow it to flow better. The issue is the attempt to make the bible say something that it really doesn’t, that the use of IM is a major sin.
There was once a poll of the younger generation and half saw no problem with IM. I remember a particularly loud, well-known preacher telling a head of a cofC college that the young people just did not know the bible and they all needed to be opposed to the use of IM.
Now with all the issues facing the younger generation, I don’t think that is one of the most pressing issues. Perhaps if the in-fighting ended, church shrinkage could at least be halted.
I know I didn’t leave the CoC over the ban on IM but it was related. It’s the legalistic approach to scriptures behind the ban. I remember bringing a friend of mine to a congregation I joined 2 months prior. This during the.height of the Crossroads controversy—and my home congregation was Crossroads. And this time I was stationed at Ft. Sill, OK. And it didn’t bother to be in a mainline church that opposed the Crossroads Movement. I did also on key matters.
But bringing an agnostic to a Sunday night service and they are preaching against IM music and the Christian Church. I gave the go ahead to walk out and we did. The next Sunday I joined the Christian Church and later my friend. came with me. Nine months later he had faith in Christ, confessed Jesus is Lord and then baptized. That wouldn’t have happened at the CoC I was going to. I preferred acapella singing but I could not stand the legalism behind the ban of IM. This is the same legalism I see in the world and my terminology to describe it is Religious Humanism.
For me I will not go back to a CoC unless it is like The Hills CoC. Even if they were strictly acapella…but free from the divisive and restrictive legalism that is choking the life out of the CoC that is from the zealots. I’ve been with Calvary Chapel and it’s not hard to imagine how CC and CoC could work together since both are Word-based fellowships of the one body of Christ. But what’s in our way the lack of knowledge and fellowship we have towards one another. Satan has laid his landmines to keep us separated and divided. I can imagine those barriers coming down in a generation from now. I have to wonder if The Hills CoC and CC in Ft. Worth know one another and working together.
Where is the edit button, typing on a cell phone I see typos especially with I’Ms meant to be IM.
Clark,
I fixed the typos you mentioned. Didn’t bother with extra periods, since they don’t really affect reading. Hope I got it right.
I used to offer commenters the option to edit their comments but lost that feature when I got on the Wineskins server — but I’ll be working on getting that back. It’s on the list.
PS – my own church went through the Crossroads thing many years ago. I have the scars to prove it. I’m glad we got out and chose to pursue grace instead.
[deleted by JFG and reworked into a new post]
Charles wrote,
Thanks. (I wish I’d read this comment before the other one.)
I agree with Clark entirely. IM is simply a symptom or an exterior manifestation of a church’s heart. So when I’m looking for a new CofC to plug into, yes, I’m definitely looking for one that uses instruments, has women actively participating in the Sunday assembly, and offers an open communion with everyone present. Not because those three things are essential to me, because they are not, but because they reflect the church’s approach to scripture and understanding of their relationship with God. I can walk into a CofC that’s doing any of the three things I mentioned above, and instantly know how they make their decisions and where their priorities lay.
It’s not the IM that turns us millennials on or off, folks. That’s losing the forest for the trees. It’s the heart behind it.
ZBZ, try the cofC in Stamford, CT. They have Naomi Walters on staff, and she goes to the pulpit quite often. Her homilies are on her blog and the audio is on the church website. I must say from listening to them online or reading them that she is excellent.
ZBZ,
Thanks for your comment. (I’m thrilled to have millennial representation in the comments.)
PS — I think you nailed it.
I know that very soon someone is going to locate the text that teaches and requires A’Capella singing from an Apostle. So far I am unable to find it. Could this be a teaching of MAN and not God?
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.”
Looks to me as if that time has come. People looking for churches that teach what they want to hear.
PS – in respect to my previous comment, What I don’t understand is why one needs to be taught what they already know, or at least think they know.
Laymond, “People looking for churches that teach what they want to hear” applies to hard core, traditional churches of Christ too. Going to a church that condemns instrumental worship and constantly hammers correct baptism could be tickling the ears of hard core members who keep wanting a steady diet of legalism.
Jay, In defense of Crossroads, I became a Christian there because they heavily stressed evangelism. Because of this emphasis a classmate shared his faith with me and I was saved. I was consistently blown away by the love shown towards me at Crossroads. Initially they had an awesome thing going on. It all went south when the one-another relationships started to become one over another relationships. But in the beginning it was a wonderful church with an incredible loving atmosphere. Had we bottled the beginning and preserved it – history would have told a much different story.
Skip,
Thanks for the correction re Crossroads. My congregation was not touched until they were very much “one over another.” It was bad. It’s a shame that the original loving passion became corrupted.
I think today people really want to hear about Jesus and not about topics such as why we take communion every Sunday, why the church can’t have a kitchen, etc. now Paul is commonly preached on and I realize he did a lot of good but taking his instruction out of context becomes proof texting, and that is not well recieved.
Charles and Clark,
Great observations from both of you.
Charles, what I meant by “viable” is that they remained alive and healthy. That doesn’t happen where congregations sit idly by and content themselves with generational and transfer members to maintain the ‘status quo’. Those congregations, like some of the ones mentioned in Revelation chapters 2-4, are dying and yet wholly unaware of the fact. They think they are holding their own against decline and decay, but the rotting has already begun without their notice.
The point here is NOT to cast out the dying. Jesus didn’t “snuff out the dimly lit wick nor did He destroy the bruised reeds”. Saving the apathetic and the sick and the wounded (spiritually speaking) requires infusions of new perspectives and spiritual surgery in many cases – both things that are NOT hallmarks of declining and decaying congregations. After all, who wants to begin by admitting how sick or hurt or dead the body they assemble with is dead? Self-assessment, like a lack of communications, is often a death-blow to local churches who do not even realize how close they are to ‘losing their lampstand’.
Clark, when I left off preaching in the churches of Christ, I never consciously decided to turn my back on anyone. I sought with all my strength to keep communications open and relationships intact and growing. What caused me to leave was the lack of a place among the churches of Christ to heal and renew my strength after our family had started to crumble. I found that place among the independent Christian churches, to my great surprise at the time. It has been and has become a place to thrive again, as well.
Grizz