There is an item of key interest for all church leaders in the western world that I hear almost no one talking about.
First, what has been observed and noted widely: the losses churches sustained during Covid. That story is out.
* In most cases, American churches have lost about 40 percent of their in-house 2019 attendance. A few churches of all sizes and theological orientations avoided this dip, but very few churches have actually posted net gains in the last five years. Many assume that the big box megachurches sailed through unscathed, but this is not borne out in reality - the parking lots still have plenty of cars, but not nearly as many as pre-Covid.
* Age level ministries collapsed in thousands of churches between 2020 and 2021. For many leading denominational churches that had managed to maintain minimum critical masses of children and youth, enough to continue to run traditional age level ministries up until March 2020, their kids and the families are now gone. After more than a year of disruption to Sunday school and youth gatherings, many families formed new Sunday habits. Some joined up with more fundamentalist groups that eschewed the quarantine protocols in order to keep their children connected with church. We know from past patterns, that when churches lose their age level ministries, they will begin to rapidly age out of existence within thirty years. We have watched this pattern in the Disciples of Christ, in the United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church and in the Presbyterian Church, USA - among others. Now we are watching this play out in thousands of United Methodist churches - even within the Midwest and Southern regions of the USA. We can expect profound losses in the years ahead in any denomination where age level ministries are collapsing.
This is all terribly discouraging, But, there is another story, even more shocking - and it started years before the pandemic. I hear almost no one talking about it: Many flagship churches all across North America - some of them enormous, with hundreds of younger participants in the first decade of this century - simultaneously and suddenly shifted into free-fall during the 2010s.
* Many denominationally-affiliated large churches diversified their worship options to include both traditional and contemporary services back in the 1990s. This strategy, along with strong investment in age level ministries, enabled many of these large churches to avoid or reverse the declines that were setting in 25 years ago. Up until 2002, I served on the pastoral team of one such church, a church which continued to grow into this century, well past 4000 members. Ours was one of many such churches in the United States adding new campuses and diverse ministry programming, and continuing to grow as nearby (smaller) congregations stagnated. These churches were the innovators, the ones to watch, inspirations to other churches in their judicatory regions.
* However by the mid teens, the contemporary worship services in many of these churches were struggling. Post-covid, these declines only intensified, so that thousands of such services were stopped altogether as churches returned to a single service format (either traditional or blended).
* The result: Hundreds of congregations accustomed to crowded parking lots and hallways on Sundays are now at one third their 2010 size - the church that had 600 may now see 200 on a high Sunday. The church that had 1200 Sunday attendees a dozen years ago, might now see 3-400. It all happened so fast!
In the late twentieth century, we saw large Anglo congregations collapse when their communities turned over ethnically. But in the 2020s, we are not seeing massive racial shifts to the degree that we once did. The shifts are more subtle. Ethnic and religious diversity is increasing in most zip codes. The numbers of non-religious people is rapidly increasing. For at least a generation in most cities, youth sports and other extracurricular activities have been scheduled on Sundays, making Christian parents choose between church and (fill in the blank) for their kids. All of this has nibbled away at the volume of new people coming into our large churches.
With all the attention given to the churches that are closing, and (in United Methodism) to the churches disaffiliating with the denomination, few have noticed what happened to the flagships. You may assume that the large churches are the survivors in this Darwinian tale. They are not, for the most part. Back when atmospheric conditions changed and the dinosaurs mostly died - the big ones did not fare any better than the small ones. It would appear that churches as we have known them, rooted in twentieth century paradigms, are like the dinosaurs. Unless they evolve quickly into new ministry models that are engaging their neighbors and sustainable financially, they will pass away.
The Opportunity of the 2020s: many of these flagship churches have the resources to reinvent themselves for a new ministry moment. Epicenter Group works with several of them. In almost no case, will the build-back be fast, but churches can re-tool and re-design ministry. This is not what we used to call ‘revitalization.’ The changes required will be bold and even disruptive. The road ahead may feel more like revolution than revitalization. We at Epicenter Groups believe that the formerly-large church which has slipped to 200 may be able to build back to 300, and to lower its median age by 20 years. We do not expect that many will ever see a return to the masses of people they served just a few years ago. But it is possible to stabilize a declining large church in most cases if the leadership senses the urgency. To this end, a couple resources:
1. The new 2024 edition of I Refuse to Lead a Dying Church will be out in just a few weeks. This is a total re-write of my best-selling 2006 title. It has been refreshed for this very new terrain where we live in the 2020s. You can make pre-orders now, for yourself and for your church's leader team and expect delivery by early May. Pre-order copies at https://www.thepilgrimpress.com/collections/new-releases/products/i-refuse-to-lead-a-dying-church-second-edition-nixon
2. Epicenter ministry consultations are helping flagship churches revision and organize for ministry action in a new era. If you know a sinking flagship church, or are a part of one, we at Epicenter would love to explore with you a year-long process that could offer hope and new life to such a church. You can reach us at epicentergroup.dc@gmail.com.
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