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Why Some Churches Grow and Some Churches Decline
Orginally published on Tuesday, March 07, 2006 at 9:05 AM
by Todd Rhoades
Mark Driscoll has a great post over on his blog "Resurgence" on why some churches and movements are growing and some are literally dying. Mark writes...
Apparently a number of churches in the Presbyterian USA denomination are slowly bleeding out. While the denomination does have some godly pastors and churches that still believe the Bible and preach the gospel without wincing and apologizing, things don’t look good overall.
According to the guys with calculators at the denomination’s headquarters, membership loss for the denomination in 2005 was estimated at sixty-five thousand, followed by an eighty-five thousand projected loss in 2006. According to The Layman Online, “Both the projected losses in members in 2005 and 2006 would be higher than any prior year's downturn since the reunion of the northern and southern streams of the mainline denomination in 1983. The projected 2006 loss would represent a single-year decline of 3.7 percent, the highest percentage loss in the denomination's 216-year history.”
Curiously, no explanation was given for the continued decline of the denomination. Perhaps that is because such an explanation would require repentance for getting off track of the mission of the gospel to fight over such things as homosexuality and feminism. These cancers are eating away at many liberal denominations and are now spreading to younger emerging-type Christian networks caught driving around the same moral and theological cul-de-sacs that a previous generation wasted their life on while failing to do evangelism and plant churches.
While the truth will be received by some as warmly as water on a cat, the stats bear out that churches with a high view of Scripture, a high view of Jesus, and an ongoing call for people to repent of personal sin and trust in Jesus tend to grow while their counterparts do not. Why? Because there is power in the gospel, and the church has no power when it walks away from the gospel. As the PC-USA is discovering, churches marrying the spirit of the age instead of Jesus end up being widowed. The only hope is repentance, which is the key to all of the Christian life, and not merely another year of stats without an explanation, repentance, and a renewed sense of mission.
According to Lyle Schaller in The Very Large Church, there are multiple variables that help churches grow. The following eight variables are some of the most pertinent in light of this discussion:
- Larger churches tend to have higher expectations for their members’ active participation than smaller churches.
- Larger churches tend to be more conservative in theology and more liberal in practice, while smaller churches are often more liberal in theology and more conservative in outward practice (e.g., liturgy, hymns, and vestments).
- Larger churches tend to be non-denominational and function as independent churches or as members of loosely affiliated networks.
- Larger churches tend to present clear, authoritative teaching from Scripture while theological pluralism tends to thrive in smaller churches.
- Larger churches are governed more by local leadership in the church while smaller churches often rely more on regional or national leadership for their direction.
- Larger churches tend to have a smaller number of leaders making decisions while smaller churches are either in theory or practice more committee and congregationally governed.
- Larger churches tend to listen to a small and influential number of church members for direction while smaller churches tend to give ear to most everyone.
- Larger churches tend to hire more from within while smaller churches often hire from the outside and often depend upon schools and denominations to replace their pastor(s).
In conclusion, the way out of this sort of mess calls for theologically conservative Bible teaching, real church members actively doing ministry, drifting from national denomination leadership to more local authority, raising up pastors from within, and ignoring the parade of fools who will shrill at such changes.
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Tuesday, March 07, 2006 at 1:49 PM
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Tuesday, March 07, 2006 at 3:50 PM
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Tuesday, March 07, 2006 at 6:08 PM
Post Your Comments:Hmmm...I’m surprised that there are no posts here yet. I guess naked Christians in Florida and church splits in New Mexico are more exciting than declining denominations!
I am curious about who is saying what in this post. Todd quotes Mark Driscoll quoting Lyle Schaller.... Are the eight “most pertinent” variables noted in appropriate context in Mark’s post? Did Lyle Schaller really say (or imply) that “drifting from national denomination leadership to more local authority” would lead to church growth? Is it necessarily good that “Larger churches tend to listen to a small and influential number of church members for direction”? Again, is that Lyle’s conclusion or Mark’s?
I guess the important question I have is, what am I supposed to do with this information? It seems to be saying that if I teach the Bible, get people actively involved (and not just in committees), leave my denomination, train a church person to be a pastor, and ignore the foolish nay-sayers...my church will grow numerically. Problems: First, that’s me taking a very literal approach to the post, which I shouldn’t. Second, it implies that numerical growth in my local church should be the goal. Third, it ignores such realities as (to borrow a couple business terms) “market saturation” and (gasp!) “competition”. Fourth, it doesn’t account for “max-and-plant” methodologies (I just now - literally - coined that term!) that favor planting new local churches when the mother church reaches a certain size.
I’m assuming that Driscoll has included Schaller’s comments to support his point, however like Randy, I’m a bit confuses about who is saying what.
Driscoll’s observations certainly are interesting and statistics don’t lie (re: the fact that PCUSA churches are in decline). However, I don’t think he does anything more than offer an unstudied opinion that he doesn’t really support. He uses Schaller to support his points, who seems to be saying that large churches generally operate with practices that enable them to grow and smaller churches generally do not operate in these ways and so they plateau or decline. For Driscoll to use Schaller’s premise, we’d have to assume that large PCUSA churches (like other large churches) are probably growing and that the denominational decline should be attributed to the smaller churches. I don’t think he has in any way proven that [the stats bear out that churches with a high view of Scripture, a high view of Jesus, and an ongoing call for people to repent of personal sin and trust in Jesus tend to grow while their counterparts do not.] I’m not saying that I disagree about these being the appropriate priorities for the church, just that I don’t think Driscoll has offered any evidence that Schaller’s variables are the reason for the PCUSA decline.
Regarding Schaller’s observations, I think . . .
# 1 – I’m not sure this is true. Often in smaller churches people do too much, and the lack of manpower prevents members from choosing ministry that matches their wiring (gifts, skills, passions). This leads to burn-out. I bet if we looked at the percentage of members serving actively in ministry, the large churches would have a higher percentage of pew sitters (unless equipping the saints for service is a very high priority and is attended to with intentionality). It’s easier to hide in a large church.
#4 – I don’t know how Schaller can possibly support this as a large/small church characteristic.
Wendi
I agree that there is market saturation…but I have worked both sides and if you are not putting 10% of budget towards outreach and focused outreach it is hard to draw crowds.
I agree with the list that was posted…I was the senior pastor in a small church and now on staff in a large one…and I am really seeing the difference in leadership…assimilation…advertising…equipping…
Large churches move faster and are able to turn on a dime without a town hall meeting…decisions are made easier and implemented better…
A comment was made that there are more pew sitters in large churches…I disagree…at least in my experience there are more people doing more because of the high expectations taught at membership…
Clearly large and small churches “do church” differently. I don’t think small churches can just copy big churches if they want to grow, however. In most cases, the small churches have been small for a long time. It’s not just that they’re small now, they’re historically small.
It’s also the case that not all large churches are alike. In small towns (my town has fewer people than many mega churches have on Sunday morning) the large churches are relatively small. This rural area probably wouldn’t support a massive church here. Sure some might like the advantages of the large church, but the local culture is alien.
IN other words, much of what I see in thelarge churches isn’t just somethine I can see as large church culture, but an expression of urban or suburban culture. So where there is no urb or suburb, such a beast is much less likely.
I think it’s more simple than that. Why are some churches bigger than others? The grace of God, plain and simple.
I was discussing this with a professor earlier today. Why has Billy Graham been so influential over the past century? His sermons aren’t particularly ones you’d want to imitate. They’re not “relevant,” or engaging, or particularly exciting. He’s nowhere near the charismatic speaker of some of the others we could point to. Yet when he speaks, thousands respond. Why? It can’t be anything other than the grace of God.
Andy Stanley talks alot about making sure you’re serving in areas that are “blessable,” and I like that, but it’s easy to study what God’s blessing to the point that we think we can relegate God’s workings to a scientific formula that will guarantee results. I have a hard time thinking God conforms much to our formulas.
Phill, it’s great to see you’ve had good experiences in large churches. I’ve been part of two large churches for 18 years and had quite different experiences. One is younger (12 years) and pastor-led, and moves quickly. The Sunday after Katrina hit, the church took a special offering and raised over $80,000 for relief.
The other church is 114 years old, congregational, led by a board. It couldn’t turn on a dime if you greased it and put it on wheels! A special offering? Submit it to the Board (a week from next Tuesday), which will delegate it to the Business Committee (two weeks later). If the BC approves, it will go back to the Board for a final vote. Best case scenario is six weeks; realistic is two to three months. (Oh - and the church only allows 2-3 special offerings per year, other than Thanksgiving and Easter, which are already spoken for.) I would submit that the ability to “turn on a dime” is less about size and more about the decision-making process.
Chris, it’s not entirely accurate to compare Billy Graham and his ministry to that of a church. He has had a tremendous influence on the world for 60 years, with one basic goal: introduce people to Jesus Christ. A local church has a much broader goal: make disciples. You’re absolutely right, though, that it is God’s grace that brings the results. While Jesus gave the task of making disciples to his disciples, he retained the authority and power to build his church.
I believe the reason that some churches grow and the others decline is because of this.
1) Is the church allowing God to have all of it, instead of the church having all of God.
2) Is the church a praying church.
3) Is the church reaching out to the needs of others or are they a recluse.
4) How do they deal with “sin in the camp”. What I mean how do they deal with sin, when a brother or sister has fallen. Do they ignore it or do they deal with it in LOVE.
5) Is the word of God being taught from the pulpit.
6) Is the word of God being taught from Sunday School.
That’s just a few off the top of my head.
I have to say that my experience has also been that the larger the church the quicker decisions and moves are made. Counter-intuitive, but my experience nonetheless. Also, the larger the church I’ve served in, the more they try (successfully usually) to learn from outsiders. In other words, we might get a great idea from a Leadership Summitt talk that actually gets implemented in short order rather than discussed and discussed and dissected and eventually forgotten…
But I too question Schaller’s conclusions (especially 4 -pretty hard to verify- and 8 -opposite of my experience-) and would love to know more about where they come from.
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