Continuing to reflect on Thom Rainer’s 14 Predictions for 2014, Part 1 and Part 2.
9. New worship centers will be built smaller. There will be a greater emphasis on smaller gatherings more frequently. This trend is being affected significantly by the preferences of the Millennial generation (born 1980 to 2000). A related trend is that many congregations will find ways to downsize their existing worship centers. (70%)
Worship centers are really expensive. In fact, the cost rises faster than the capacity, because worship centers generally have to grow taller as the size grows — and this means more steel, more HVAC, more lighting and sound problems — and exponentially more money.
Borrowing seemed like a good idea a few years ago when interest rates were low and banks were easy to deal with. The loans are harder to get now, and the banks aren’t nearly as free with church credit as they once were.
Meanwhile, our younger members are less impressed with a big room. They’re looking for friends, not an experience.
10. Increased emphasis on small groups. In 2014 we will see a decided shift from nearly two decades of the “worship revolution” to the “small group revolution.” Church leaders are rapidly discovering that members who connect to groups are the most faithful members in the church by a myriad of metrics. That is not to suggest that worship will become unimportant; it is to suggest that small groups will have a greater emphasis than the previous quarter century. (75%)
For those of you in churches where the leadership sees small groups as a passing fad, they’re just wrong. Churches that refuse to organize a small group ministry will find their members attending the small group ministries of other congregations. They may show up Sunday mornings, but they’ll be in small groups Sunday nights.
Small groups work. They aren’t perfect, and they can be a pain in the neck to manage. But they work.
Sunday night worship services do not work. They drive off young couples with children, and they fail to meet the needs of members aged 60 and younger.
This ship has sailed. The evidence is in. It’s past time to get on board.
11. Longer pastoral tenure. There will be incremental but steady growth in the length of tenure of pastors at a given church. Part of the reason is the influence of the Millennials who do not view larger churches as their next step in ministry. Part of the reason is economic; moving in today’s economy is not nearly as easy in pre-recession days. Hopefully, the main reason is a sense of God’s call to stay rather than move. (75%)
Good. Studies (and experience) show that churches that keep a preacher a long time do better than those that don’t.
Preachers leave either because they get a better opportunity somewhere else or because they get unhappy with the leadership at their current church. And generally, the bigger, better paying job is not that tempting unless there are problems with current leadership.
Longer-tenured preachers means better leadership by the elders.
(Preachers, if you want better elders, encourage your elders to attend the university lectureships or ElderLink and help them find good reading materials. Don’t be passive and just hope that the elders figure it out all on their own. They probably won’t.)
Jay said: “Sunday night worship services do not work. They drive off young couples with children, and they fail to meet the needs of members aged 60 and younger”
Amen!!! They are a waste. Small groups on Sunday evening are more nourishing and exciting.
Besides, preachers who prepare and write good sermons for Sunday morning usually pull out a “prewritten” one for Sunday night. They may not want to, but they feel they have no choice. I wonder how many times the Barclay Study Bible has been used for Sunday nights in the CoC over the past fifty years. Others have used “Sermons You can Preach” until the backs came off. Nothing very nourishing there.
I always thought the night sermons were better. There was less of a long drawn-out invitation since Sunday night were the regular members. Some cofC don’t even have Sun night services any more.
“Smaller worship centers” is rather a mixed bag. Lakewood has the Summit in Houston. OTOH, Mars Hill uses more satellite meeting houses, but pipes in the preaching from the 12,000 member mother ship. Hardly anyone resists the temptation to “tear down his barns and build bigger ones”. What I am currently seeing is a move in both directions. That is, dual participation in smaller “home groups” AND in mega-churches. Members get connection from small groups, and enjoy the production value and access to programs from the megachurch. The one model that gets caught in the squeeze is the traditional 200-300 member congregation: too big to be personal and too small to do big things. Mergers are tough to accomplish. Cross-denominational mergers are almost impossible and non-denominational groups tend to be led by a single strong pastor who is not likely to give up his pulpit. Small, intra-denominational mergers are more feasible and more sensible, but have a higher percentage of people who have a high stake in keeping their own house intact. The fact is that any merger not brought about by external stresses takes a lot of vision and humility on the part of lots of people.
Charles,
Less than a month after I was hired as my church’s new Minister, I was in a whimsical conversation with my Youth Minister and a couple other members. We were dreaming big and discussing what things things we’d needed to consider when we start bulging at the seams of our current church building. (How starry-eyed we were back then!) The guys recommended we expand the building, expand the parking lot, go to two services, relocate to a bigger facility, etc. One guy pushed hard to build a brand new, bigger building. And then I said something in response that caught all four guys completely off guard. I told them I have no desire to build a new building or add onto our existing one. No desire at all! If we outgrow our current building, I told them I would like to see us take a large portion of our congregation and plant them somewhere else. Birth a church plant, support them for a couple years until they get their feet under them, and then release them to be an autonomous new congregation. And then do that over and over again as we continue to grow. They were dumbfounded! And so was I that this idea had never crossed any of their minds.
Thom Rainer is spot on. As a Millennial, I have NO desire to dump even more money into a new or bigger church building when those funds, people, and attention can be spread out and put to greater use externally.
ZBZ
I am very glad to hear of someone else who does not want to put money into a facility with a fixed cost structure. I have made more people mad when I asked how much something was going to cost just to sit there before the first square-foot had ever been used. I may belong to generation X but I believe I was one of only two people who had ever asked about the fixed cost per year of the facility. I know people love to donate money to a new facility however it still has to be kept up and those costs are not ever considered by the donors or the organization.
ZBZ, I like your vision. But take it the next step beyond simple mitosis. Jay has observed that the early church was a single entity in the city, with a single eldership. There could be a variety of meeting types and styles and purposes, without scattering the believers into disconnected autonomous clubs which are simply smaller clones of the mother church. We can do so much more. God gives wisdom and godly leadership and having leaders continue to be connected and accountable provides consistency and safety for the believers. And I agree with the objection to so much idle brick and mortar. Rent a big ballroom or a convention center once in a while if you want a big gathering!
In the illustration that Jay explained about the early church and the oneness 8000 members, I thought that the example of Moses placing men over the 1000 etc go read the story even got down to 10 individuals. Who has a concept of how many Elders there were in the Jerusalem church?
God’s counsel to Moses about an organizational hierarchy was not in the Law, and there is no later reference to it. It probably ceased to be a functional method once the Israelites scattered across Canaan and possessed it. Just conjecture here.
In the first century, there were elders in cities and villages, probably from as simple as Granddad in a tiny village, to an urban council the size of the Sanhedrin. We see elders today as elected directors of a specific religious organization, but this is not really reflective of what an “elder” was in Jesus’ day.
“Rent a big ballroom or a convention center once in a while if you want a big gathering!”
The Cross-roads(Boston movement) did this, seemed to work for them. They even rented out the Boston Gardens, every Sunday.