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Written by Leslie Scanlon
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Saturday, 25 September 2004 12:00 |
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LOUISVILLE -- Here's the bad news. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has lost about 24 percent of its membership in the last 20 years.
Here's some news that's a little better. Some Presbyterian congregations are growing, are taking risks, are taking evangelism seriously. And there's research available on what growing congregations are doing -- research which often shows a gap between what many Presbyterians expect will make a church grow, and what really does.
The General Assembly Council, meeting this week in Louisville, has been talking about how to implement its Mission Work Plan for 2005-2006, and spent part of that time thinking about what the PC(USA) does well, and not so well, in evangelism. Deborah Bruce, of the denomination's Office of Research Services, shared some of the findings that she and colleague Cynthia Woolever have mined from the U.S. Congregational Life Survey -- a study of more than 300,000 people in the U.S. who attended worship one weekend in April 2001, involving more than 2,200 congregations from more than 50 faith groups.
LOUISVILLE -- Here's the bad news. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has lost about 24 percent of its membership in the last 20 years.
Here's some news that's a little better. Some Presbyterian congregations are growing, are taking risks, are taking evangelism seriously. And there's research available on what growing congregations are doing -- research which often shows a gap between what many Presbyterians expect will make a church grow, and what really does.
The General Assembly Council, meeting this week in Louisville, has been talking about how to implement its Mission Work Plan for 2005-2006, and spent part of that time thinking about what the PC(USA) does well, and not so well, in evangelism. Deborah Bruce, of the denomination's Office of Research Services, shared some of the findings that she and colleague Cynthia Woolever have mined from the U.S. Congregational Life Survey -- a study of more than 300,000 people in the U.S. who attended worship one weekend in April 2001, involving more than 2,200 congregations from more than 50 faith groups.
A piece of that research involves looking just at the PC(USA) congregations that participated, and looking even more narrowly at the fastest-growing churches in that group.
For all congregations in the study, the researchers make the argument that focusing on strengths -- finding what particular churches do well and building on that -- is more productive than trying to diagnose what's wrong in each place and fixing it.
There's no quick fix for problems, but strong congregations do share certain distinct strengths, Bruce said -- for example, they provide a sense of community, educate people about the faith, share their faith with others, serve others in their congregations and communities, and convey "the sense that life has meaning."
Despite what some people think, "there's no magic bullet," no one all-purpose solution for congregations that want to be stronger, she said. Some churches think if it can just get 250 (people) its problems will be solved. Or a church thinks everything will be fine if it starts a contemporary service or hires the right pastor.
But there are a lot of myths, Bruce said, about what makes a congregation succeed or even what makes it grow in numbers.
For example, some think that congregations located in rapidly-growing suburbs will naturally grow themselves, but the research does not bear that out.
When all factors were considered, Bruce said, only three congregational strengths actually turned out to be predictors of numerical growth. Those are 1) Caring for children and youth; 2) Welcoming new people: and 3) Getting people to participate in the congregation.
Some other factors don't seem to have any impact at all on numerical growth, among them the size of the congregation, the income of the worshippers, their age and their denomination.
Bruce also ran through a list of myths involving Presbyterian churches that grow -- things people think should be true, but aren't. Among those myths:
Only congregations that are new or relatively young are growing. But the survey shows that fewer than half of fast-growing Presbyterian churches were established after 1960 and nearly four in 10 (37 percent) were founded before 1900.
Only big churches grow. In fact, smaller Presbyterian congregations have many strengths and some are experiencing numerical growth. Of the fastest-growing Presbyterian churches that participated in the survey, 39 percent have fewer than 200 in worship today and another 40 percent have fewer than 300, Bruce said.
Most folks have attended the same congregation for years. In this work, a new arrival is considered someone who's begun attending a congregation within the last five years, Bruce said. For all the PC(USA) congregations involved in the survey, about one-third of people in the pews were new arrivals, Bruce said. But in fast-growing congregations, half were new arrivals -- a significant difference.
Most people who come to a congregation are new to the faith. Bruce said the researchers have identified four groups of new arrivals. First-timers have no faith background. Returnees have some experience with church, but haven't attended recently. Switchers are changing denominations -- Baptists becoming Methodists or Presbyterians-turned-Lutheran. And transfers are changing congregations within a denomination.
In Presbyterian congregations, only 8 percent of their new arrivals were are new to the Christian faith, Bruce said. Another 26 percent were returnees, 30 percent were transfers and 35 percent were switchers, people who didn't grow up in the Presbyterian church -- a figure that Bruce said definitely has implications for new-member classes and for churches that might assume that everyone knows what Presbyterian history and polity and Reformed theology is all about.
New people learn about a church from advertising. In the survey, only 6 percent of the people said that was true for them and just 10 percent said they showed up because they'd passed by and noticed the church. But nearly half -- 47 percent -- said they came to a particular church because someone there had invited them.
New people come back after the first time because of the coffee hour. Asked what impressed them and why they came back (people were allowed to give more than one reason), 36 percent cited the quality of the sermon, 32 percent the friendliness of the people, 30 percent the overall worship experience, 18 percent the style of the pastor or priest, and 17 percent a sense of God's presence.
But the survey also revealed that some congregations do absolutely nothing to encourage these visitors to return again -- there's no follow-up from the congregation at all. In the survey, 38 percent said the congregation did not contact them in any way after that first visit -- not a letter, not a postcard, not a phone call, nothing.
Growing churches rely solely on big signs and advertising campaigns. In reality, growing churches use a variety of techniques, and there were some significant differences, Bruce said, in what fast-growing Presbyterian churches did compared with other Presbyterian congregations.
Fast-growing churches were more likely than other Presbyterian churches to hold special events to meet new folks or add members, to send materials to or to phone first-time visitors, to use e-mail, to have a church web site, and to put ads in the newspaper or telephone book.
All congregations do the same things to integrate new worshippers. With fast-growing churches, 70 percent had some kind of class or program for new people, compared with 45 percent of Presbyterian churches generally, and 67 percent of the fast-growing churches gave new people an invitation to join a group or get involved in service at the church, compared with 43 percent of the other churches. But amazingly, Bruce said, 18 percent of PC(USA) churches surveyed admitted "they don't do anything to integrate new people" -- they made no effort at all.
Worship services in growing churches offer only contemporary music. In truth, traditional hymns are sung in about 9 of 10 Presbyterian churches among both fast-growing congregations and among other Presbyterian churches. Fast-growing churches were more likely to use contemporary music -- 67 percent compared with 55 percent for Presbyterian congregations as a whole.
Fast-growing churches were more likely than other Presbyterian churches to report laughter during worship, applause, using drums or electric guitar, involving teens in leading worship, and using visual projection equipment.
Council member Mike Castronis is pastor of one of those fast-growing churches -- James Island Presbyterian in Charleston, S.C., which averaged about 200 people in worship in 1992 and now draws about 600.
Castronis said his congregation did what Bruce suggested works: it decided to find out what it did best. The congregation came up with four ideas on which to focus and turned them into a mission statement that guides the congregation's work. "We can't be all things to all people," Castronis said.
James Island decided to keep traditional worship rather than going to contemporary services, even though some people warned the young people wouldn't come. But the average age has dropped by 20 years, Castronis said, and the congregation has lots of children and young adults. They decided "the important thing is not the way we worship, but the quality of the worship," he said.
James Island also decided to be really honest about what kind of church it is -- what people will find there and what they won't -- so if people decide to join, they know what they're getting, Castronis said.
And he argues that there's room in the world for different styles of Presbyterian churches, churches with distinct personalities and different strengths. They need to know what they're doing and why, but they don't have to all be all alike.
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