Podcast Episode #092
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Trend prediction is both an art and a science. It is a science in the sense that I utilize the good objective research of credible research organizations like LifeWay Research and others. It is an art in that I depend on observations, anecdotal information, and ongoing interaction with church leaders and members.
At the beginning of every year, I attempt to present to you the major trends for congregations for the coming twelve months. I review my predictions from previous years to see how accurate I am. I have come to two conclusions. First, I am far from perfect in my predictions. Second, I do have a decent track record.
Some of my trends are called “tipping points.” Formally defined, a tipping point is the critical moment in an evolving situation that leads to a new and somewhat permanent reality. In simple terms, a tipping point here means that something has changed in our churches to the point that it appears to be permanent.
So this week, Jonathan and I cover my 15 trends for 2015.
Some highlights from today’s episode include:
- The Millennial generation is almost insisting on smaller worship gatherings.
- A larger percentage of church attendees are attending larger churches.
- The multi-teaching pastor trend we are seeing in churches is a healthy trend for pastors and churches.
- In 2015, less than 5% of churches in America will continue to hold a separate Sunday evening service.
- The majority of churches in America have been isolated from their community in recent years. But that is changing.
- Denominations are becoming more streamlined with more money going to the mission field.
- A church that does not put an emphasis on small groups is likely not a healthy church.
The 15 trends to look for in 2015 are:
- More partnerships between denominations and churches.
- Continued increased in the number of multi-site churches.
- Smaller worship gatherings.
- Continued flow of people from smaller churches to larger churches.
- The tipping point for a plurality of teaching pastors.
- The tipping point of churches eliminating Sunday evening worship services.
- Congregations growing in favor in their respective communities.
- The beginnings of prayer movement in our churches.
- More emphasis on congregational singing.
- More focus on theological education in local churches.
- The waning and reconfiguration of denominational structures.
- A rapid increase in bivocational church staff.
- Increased difficulty in matching prospective pastors with churches with pastoral vacancies.
- Growth of verbal incarnational evangelism.
- The tipping point for small groups.
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I welcome any movement toward the recovery of congregational singing in Sunday morning worship. Sunday morning worship in which congregational singing plays a negligible part is inconsistent with the teaching of the New Testament: Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16; and Revelation 5:9, 14:3; 15:3-4. Some worship leaders compare their church’s band with the Levites who played music in the Temple. They ignore these important passages in the New Testament. The medieval Catholic Church made a similar comparison between the clergy and the Kohanim, the Levites who offered sacrifices in the Temple. The result was the unbiblical doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass, which taught that through the priest Christ offered himself for the sins of the world at Mass. If one studies the history of congregational singing, its decline and even disappearance is associated with periods of spiritual stagnation in the Christian Church. On the other hand, its resurgence is associated with periods of spiritual awakening, renewal, and revival.
Two trends that you identify seem to run counter to each other. They are the migration from small churches to larger ones and the desire for smaller worship gatherings. Would this have to do in part with the desire for the type and quality of the music found in large churches and community found in small worship gatherings? A wag might joke that they want to have their cake and eat it too. People’s expectations in worship music have gotten so out-of-hand that small churches with limited musical resources cannot meet those expectations. They can offer community but struggle to offer the band concert that many folks expect on Sunday morning. Some small churches don’t have enough strong voices to sing a simple hymn or worship song. Even if they concentrate on what they can do well, they still fall shy of present day churchgoers’ expectations.
I would wonder if those two seemingly opposite trends aren’t actually fairly intertwined. There is a culture within our congregations that see the Sunday worship service as a performance, or an event, and if you buy into that the mega church model is likely going to give you a slicker performance with better music, and likely a better, more charismatic, speaker.
On the other hand, if you don’t buy into that performance model, the mega church movement would also serve to magnify a mindset that you don’t agree with. You see a handful of people who are called to entertain the sometimes thousands of people that are passively sitting by in this “worship” service.
In that situation, you would expect to see the double trend.
From most of the people that I know that are craving that smaller gathering setting, they are also interested in a more pariticipatory experience as well.
As a pastor and the father of two Millennials, I can tell you anecdotally what I see: Both of my children (one a senior in high school, the other a recent college grad) and their friends do prefer a smaller, more intimate worship gathering as opposed to what they refer to as “the big show” that they see in larger churches. Rather than discovering this type of gathering in a more traditional/blended existing church (like the church I serve as pastor), however, they seem to connect more with a new, local startup church.
This new church is contemporary in worship style, but with just a few acoustic instruments as opposed to a full band with lights, multimedia presentation, big production value, etc. Nor is it a traditional piano/organ/choir/ seminary-trained minister of music approach to worship. As a new church, it is also not bound by organizational traditions and long-standing programs that have it stuck in a state of frustrating institutional stasis, as is the case with many older churches. From conversations I’ve had with my kids and their friends, I would surmise that the main points of attraction they find in this church are simplicity, authenticity, enthusiasm and excellence.
My son plays bass guitar at this new church plant, so my wife and I took the opportunity of my son’s invitation to attend their Christmas service back in December. Ironically, my wife and I knew every song that was used in their worship, which made us quite comfortable, and we thoroughly enjoyed the worship gathering. When I mentioned to my son later that we knew all of the songs, because we use them in our services too, he was quick to point out,”Yeah, but we didn’t do them they way y’all do them.” He was right, but it was still the same music, just with an acoustic guitar-driven feel rather than piano, organ, and a vocally trained minister of music backed up by a choir.
I guess the way I would reconcile the ideas of Millennials demanding smaller worship gatherings versus mass migration to larger churches would be first to assume that a large number of the ones migrating to the larger churches are not necessarily Millennials. Additionally, #2 (continued increase in the number of multi-site churches) might play into this whole equation, in that the Millennials who do migrate to the larger churches may be finding what they’re looking for in the smaller campuses of these large, multi-site churches, where they experience more intimate gatherings, and perhaps even the simplicity and authenticity that they would not find at a main campus where “the big show” is going on. Still, they would experience the excellence that they crave.
Thank you, brother Thom, for this. As I read these items, I was encouraged to find that in my small, sometimes struggling, congregation we appear to be doing a few things right. We are forming small groups for prayer, fellowship, and encouragement, reaching out more to the local community, and we are blessed with talented people for what is actually some very blessed and uplifting music. On the other list, I am in that camp that has become bi-vocational for purely economic reasons resulting from decline in attendance over the years (This a source of bitter contention from some older folks who think I can support my family on my small salary.). We also have a number of Sr. adults who tenaciously cling to worn out traditions that are no longer viable while bitterly resisting changes that could lead to growth. We have Sunday and Wednesday night services, yet these are a few years away from extinction.
Your blog continues to inspire and encourage me.
God bless you, my brother.
Just curious, how do ou reconcile #3 with #4?
Check out my response to Robin up above, that would be my best guess at least.
The note here that there seems to be a generational divide on this gives some insight as well.
A friend of mine and I can often be found discussing how most of our most authentic experiences of community seem to happen, not in a Sunday worship service, but in a weekly small group, so the presence of increased focus on small groups on the list is probably significant as well.
These 15 are as good a guess as any I suppose. Sounds like more of the same will happen churches will shift locations and continue to exchange sheep. It is sad that 1. Churches will increase in impacting their communities, and 2. Commitment level to Jesus Christ through his Church, was not on the list.
In my experience, it is the larger church that offers more of the small groups. So people are going for the coffee and fellowship on Sunday morning but craving the intimacy and deeper learning they get from being discipled in the small group. It’s milk in the morning and meat in the evening. Pastor Sathe used to do a small group – before they were called small groups – during the week we used to long for Sunday evening church, gathered around that table in the fellowship hall so we could dig in! It’s a good balance.
As I’ve often been a weekend shift worker, I find it very disheartening that very few churches have a Sunday evening service–it does serve a function other than tradition. One of the most robust Sunday evening services I’ve encountered is in an Evangelical Presbyterian church near a university. It’s big, well attended, blend between traditional and contemporary, and very worshipful. Personally, since I’m not a morning person, I’d rather sleep in and go to church later if I have to settle for only 1 service on Sunday.
Not quite sure how to reconcile these two on the list?
The Millennial generation is almost insisting on smaller worship gatherings.
A larger percentage of church attendees are attending larger churches.
http://bareknuckle.org/2015/01/21/gods-poor-sense-of-timing/
Larger churches will continue to move toward more services through additional venues, more campuses, and additional services. Large churches will thus have smaller worship gatherings.
I am always challenged and encouraged by what you share, Doc. I learned about small groups the hard way, all of us at a conference asked by a Discipleship speaker to share with others at our table what we did for discipleship in our church that wasn’t Sunday School. I was ashamed to say we did nothing. That was 10 years ago and the Lord has helped me to formulate these small groups in 2 different congregations. The results are staggering! Personal growth, miracles of grace, one on one learning, tightening of bonds are just a few of those results.
Personally, I know that Sunday evenings are part of our tradition and heritage as a church…but I feel that we get out of those evenings what we put into them and it is evident if a pastor does not put much into Sunday night, not many will be coming out. So is it a pastor problem or a people problem, this dying of the Sunday evening service? I have consistently had a 70-80% return for Sunday evening in the past 29 years. And it does appear the Lord doesn’t have any trouble giving the praying and studying pastor 104 sermons every year…after year. Blessings on your ministry! Keep us thinking!
I like your books! God use You!
I think I have learned just this past week one reason for the migration from the smaller to the larger churches.
I was visiting with a friend that told me that he and his wife had finally decided on a new church to attend. When I asked how they arrived at their choice his very words were…….”We decided on the largest church of our choices because we can go there and hide”.
I said…hide?, and he said “yes, hide”. “We knew if we attended the smaller church we would be constantly hounded to work within the church”. “The much larger church, he said is much easier to hide in”.
He informed me that the small church they were leaving was so needy that they found themselves doing everything in the church except preach. And in order to recover from exhaustion and burn-out they literally had to flee.
After giving it more thought, I recalled a similar story that a new couple shared with me as their reason for leaving their last church and was now attending ours.
Part of the problem is if you are good at something everyone seems to want a piece of you. One area I have notice where this is especially prevalent is in the area of the arts. If you have a gift in the visual arts like drawing and painting it will seem everyone in the congregation is laying awake nights trying to keep you busy. Will you make these props for us?. Will you paint a mural in the nursery, will you paint a mural on a wall in all of the classrooms, will you do the props for VBS, will you paint the props for the gigantic Easter program we are planning? On and on it goes. And the problem is the people that so flippantly come up with these requests just think you can whip out a mural or set of props overnight and they are not the ones who are there to see you put in every spare hour during the week and evenings and weekends for months on end in order to complete these projects.
And if you dare complain, their comment is “Well….but your sooooo good at it and you MUST use your gift for God’s kingdom”. So because of this we will just grind you into the ground until you can’t take the work load or the guilt trips any longer and you finally leave.
You made a comment in the podcast about larger churches becoming more of a partner in denominational work. Just a couple weeks ago, I was thinking about that too. http://www.harvestministryteams.com/blog/2015/01/large-church-new-denominational-headquarters/
I am amazed. Your comments on #9, “More emphasis on congregational singing” are true, and for me, heartening.” As a music development specialist and worship pastor with a Masters in theology, for over twenty years I have been observing and researching the trend toward non-singing in local churches around the world. I am thrilled to see we are finally acknowledging it as a problem, and talking about solutions. Thank you for bringing attention to this growing need.
I am presently preparing to write an action-thesis to equip church leaders to nurture participatory singing in worship (in completing my DWS degree at Robert Webber Institute of Worship Studies). I am working hard to find a church context or a small group of worship leaders to do the teaching component for the thesis. I’m willing to go anywhere in North America to help churches learn to nurture fearless singing together in worship. Any ideas of churches or worship leaders who might be interested – I’d be grateful to hear (Ruth@JoyofMusicCo.com). More info is available.
What is meant by tipping point for small groups?