What Is the Secret to Mainline Church Growth?
- Posted by: Todd
- Posted on: Tue, June 12, 2007
- Viewed 39
- (2) comments so far
From 2002 to 2006 she studied congregations that were experiencing renewal in the Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), Disciples of Christ and United Church of Christ. They ranged from 35 to 3,500 members and covered all demographics and most would not describe themselves as evangelical.
Americans are looking for new ways to experience religious community. Thriving congregations have been able to change the way they do ministry to create those communities, she said. Those that keep offering conventional church programs from the 1950s wither and die.
Today’s American’s don’t inherit faith, they choose it, she said. Her research suggests “that millions of people would choose mainline denominations if we gave them something worth choosing.”
She has found no single formula for a successful mainline congregation. Music can be classical or contemporary as long as “people feel the presence of God in it and can participate in it,” she said.
No matter what their worship style, thriving mainline churches are strong in basic practices of faith, renewal through tradition and helping people develop spiritual wisdom, she said.
Practices include obvious things like hospitality. But she was surprised to identify diversity as something that strong churches cultivated. Experts used to preach homogeneity as a key to church growth.
But her most successful congregations “created communities that were purposefully diverse. That included racial diversity, theological diversity, political diversity and diversity of life experience,” she said.
During the divisive 2004 election, “these churches extolled the fact that they would not vote the same—and yet their churches were not breaking apart.”
Read more of this article here in the Post-Gazette.com...
Diana Butler Bass knows all the gloomy statistics about declining mainline Protestant churches but believes in their future. She studies mainline churches that are thriving to see what sets them apart from those that are dying. Her findings contradict some popular theories about church growth... Successful congregations cultivate spiritual practices in daily life, promote tradition without using it as a fence to keep people out and offer a quest for wisdom, not pat answers, she said. "When all three of those things are knit together, I call it the architecture of vitality," said Dr. Bass, currently senior fellow at the Cathedral College of the Episcopal Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C...
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Peter Hamm on Tue, June 12, 2007
I would like to think that biblical fidelity would have some impact on mainline church growth, as many mainline churches and denominations seem to be departing from this quite a lot lately.
Stewart on Tue, June 12, 2007
I’d be curious to see the details of the study. I’ve read articles about “mainline” renewal before that disappointed when you got into the specifics. For instance, the article doesn’t give any details about how many churches were studied. 5 or 500 or 5000? It doesn’t give any information about rural, suburban and urban breakdown. I’m curious, but not holding my breath.
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