Please don’t shoot the messenger.
And please wait on additional data and research that will be more positive and helpful.
But please read my words closely and carefully. I am troubled by one major aspect of the research we just conducted.
A Review of the Research
You can peruse the details of our research at my previous blog post. Simply stated, we conducted a random sample of churches with data in 2013 and 2016. The margin of error of the research is +/- 3.1 percent. It’s an accurate study – very accurate.
In the previous post, I shared that 65 percent of churches are declining or plateaued. For most of us, that number was better than the conventional “wisdom” we have heard. In that sense it was good news.
And Now the Bad News, At Least Some of It
Over 61 percent of churches average fewer than 100 in worship attendance. Yes, we are a nation of small churches. I love it. I love small churches.
But if your church has fewer than 100 in worship, it is likely to be a declining church. In fact two out of three of these small churches are declining.
Even more, there is a direct correlation with the rate of decline in a church and the size of the church. Simply stated, the smaller the church, the greater the rate of decline in attendance. Perhaps these three statements will clarify my point:
- A declining church with an attendance of 200 or more declines at a rate of 4 percent each year.
- A declining church with an attendance of less than 100 declines at a rate of 7.6 percent per year.
- A declining church with an attendance of less than 50 declines at a rate of 8.7 percent a year.
It’s a death spiral. Declining smaller churches decline much more rapidly than larger churches. Once the declining church goes below 100 in attendance, its days are likely numbered.
Here is the sad summary statement of this portion of the research: Once a church declines below 100 in worship attendance, it is likely to die within just a few years. The life expectancy for many of these churches is ten years or less.
Gloomy But Not Hopeless
Yes, I am very concerned about our churches. Yes, I am very concerned about our smaller churches. It is a gloomy scenario.
But in my next article, I will share some of the good news. I will demonstrate how growing churches are not just growing; most are growing faster than the communities in which they are located.
Once a church has a turnaround from decline to growth, the outlook becomes very positive.
In the meantime, we must seek God’s solutions to help these smaller and declining churches.
We are learning so much even as I write this information.
Stay tuned . . .
Thom,
I’m looking forward to these next posts. I appreciate the fact that you want to share data and solutions.
As a small church of 225 that has plateaued, we are already taking steps to maximize our reach by investing heavily in the social media space as well as live video. Perhaps this is part of the solution you will suggest?
Thanks for your work and effort on behalf of the church.
Phil
The challenges of revitalizing declining churches is one which deserves our attention. Likewise energizing our stable churches.
I wonder about the actual percentage in each of the three categories: decline, “plateaued”, and growing. How many are defined as plateaued, and by what definition?
I suspect that some strong and vibrant churches would fall within the category of plateaued. I wonder what percentage of churches are either “stable” or growing. Glass half empty or half full?
The statistics about the rate of decline relative to church size are revealing and speak to the fragile reality of smaller churches. By the same token, I suspect that growth rate is amplified in similarly sized churches in the growing category.
My heart goes out to those people who are deeply invested in a “death spiral” church. Some of the most encouraging stories of late involve stronger established churches who have adopted these troubled congregations to infuse a new vision and vitality.
Interesting stuff. I look forward to future info and commentary.
Thanks, Steve.
Stay tuned, Phil. We will be offering solutions from the churches that are actually doing it. Thanks!
The laws of mathematics hold true. Replacing people who move away or die is quite difficult in some areas of the country that are themselves dying. Church M&A could be useful if people would put aside their differences. Some churches remain small because their leaders want to maintain control and know that if they grew, there would be no guarantee that things would remain the same.
Thanks, Mark.
In the south,many small churches in the country have little prospect for growing as the population in many places just doesn’t grow.Farming regions as small farms are shut down causes folks to move on.
I agree based on what I’ve seen, but the way this is presented may be a little misleading. One person leaving in a church of 50 is a higher percentage loss than one person leaving in a church of 200.
True, Scott. But a smaller church with a decline rate of 7 to 8 percent every year will not be around long.
I completely agree. After I posted
that comment I went back and thought about it a little more. While that one person leaving creates a bigger percentage point loss, it also represents a bigger loss in percentage of donations and volunteers so it carries over about the same.
I don’t understand how this applies to rural churches. Most churces in my Baptist association have a worship attendance under 100, most have seen slow decline over the past couple of decades, many were over 100 at one point in their history, but none if them is at deaths’ s door.
Is this research considering these churches? Or is this another study that focuses only on urban churches and church plants?
Thanks!
This is a great question.
Jason –
The sample is based on all demographic settings. Like any study, there are churches that fit within the parameters, and those that are outliers.
>Like any study, there are churches that fit within the parameters, and those that are outliers.
For this series on church growth/decline, what would be equally useful is slicing the numbers in terms of local population increase/decrease.
What would be most useful to study are:
* Churches where the numbers are going up, but the local population is going down;
* Churches where the numbers are going down, but the local population is going up;
OK… Critical pieces here at the basic level would be: what is the parameters, the demographics, church sizes, and where are they located?
Can you give that info?
I’m from Holland and live in a place thats famous for its churchloving people. we see the same thing happening here. Smal churches disapear and the ones that are left start to grow and are becoming to big to feel like a family. After a few yars of growth there is an split up about something minor and everything is happening again. Whats the matter with us? Where is Gods love for those who are different? Compassion for one another?
Thanks for joining us from Holland, Sophie!
The problem is that protestants churches want always to eliminate the Catholic Church, the only one founded by Jesus himself, the only one with apostolic succession so, as God did to the builders of the babel tower likewise he is doing to the rebellious. Is it over 50.000 denominations and dividing more?
Does this take into account the dramatic differences in the size of communities? Rural churches seem to survive under 100 frequently.
Pete –
Keep in mind, these conclusions are based on declining churches. If a church in a rural community is not declining, it naturally would not enter the metaphorical death spiral. But churches that do enter the death spiral do so regardless of the size of the community.
Rural churches shake out differently in the following ways:
1.) Many have not “declined” to below 100, they just always have been there. So the increase in decline rate doesn’t apply as directly.
2.) Rural churches are, more often than urban ones, in a place of limited choice. The 5 years I pastored in rural Arkansas, we were the only Southern Baptist church in a 9-mile radius. Some folks drove on to the “big town” 10-15 miles to go to church, but there were many who stayed put.
3.) Rural churches are also more prone to sudden drops which average lower across an annual statistic. Different rural church seemed stable until the matriarch of one family passed away. The family members who were faithful to that church but were already driving to another town for work started driving over to bigger towns for church, too. They loved Jesus but wanted a different church life, and we saw a one-year drop of more than 25%. This after 2 years of no decline and followed up with some slight growth, but if you spread the stats across the years (2004-2008) we went from 65 to 50 in that span, so it averages out to more than 20% decline. Because one extended family moved on.
Every situation is unique, but that’s some of the particulars of one church and how the numbers were accurate.
Oh, and that rural decline? A new industrial plant opened in the big town up the road, dozens of families moved into the rural town to be close enough to work, and now the church clears 100, easily. Yes, the pastor and church have worked to reach new families but the outside events brought those families in.
Your response is on target, Doug, especially number 1. Thank you for your contribution.
Over the years, I’ve seen cyclical grow in most churches; including my own. Some churches manage to experience significant growth over the years in spite of the cycles. For many others, years of growing/declining cycles result in little or no significant growth in the life of the church.
Unfortunately, the declining side of the cycles catch the pastor and congregation off guard. The growth usually catches off guard as well.
I’d more research on the common causes of declining attendance. What are the events, actions or persons that kill a church’s growth momentum? How can you spot in advance potential growth killers? How can you maintain or extend the growth?
I have been a Director of Missions in South Georgia for over 19 years. I have not seen what your research shows. I have seen small churches decline, but not close. It is not that they are healthy, they just find a eay to survive. You are basically saying a church of under 100 will close, yet you began by saying you love small churches! I am afraid you left the impression that there is no hope for them.
Tom –
Please read my post carefully. I am writing about small churches in decline, not all small churches.
I think someone did not read this article very carefully.
I was wondering if you guys dug into the decline more precisely in terms of new members vs members leaving? Is there a significant difference in replacement among the different sizes mentioned (ie. Is it possible that all churches are seeing the same percentage of loss, but larger churches also see a larger percentage gain, making the net change smaller?)
Thanks for all you do.
Good questions, Tod, but we don’t have the data to know for certain.
Thom,
When I had a little over a year to go in seminary, a nearby church in my denomination asked me to do some pulpit supply. The church had been in this sort of death spiral and they had just asked their pastor to leave. The first Sunday I preached there we had 22 people present including all of the children (Being an Orthodox Presbyterian – we count the children!).
I spoke to one of my professors about the situation at the church. He put his hand on my shoulder and said: “David, perhaps the LORD is sending you there to close down this church.”
I so appreciated that. It was very liberating for me that he didn’t give me some pep talk about how the LORD would use me to turn the church around. Instead, I was able to think about how best to care for the members in this congregation even if that meant helping them move to other churches that were not going through this sort of death spiral.
It turned out that the LORD had other plans for our congregation. We have subsequently slowly grown over 9 years to around 100 members. I am very grateful for the Lord’s grace in reviving this congregation but I think it would be extremely unwise to use this as an illustration of what can happen – as though it is something that will happen.
My professor was right: It is much better to tell those in such situations that perhaps the LORD is closing down this church and it would be better to help people move elsewhere than to simply keeping the doors open.
David
Love your story, David. Thank you.
How to shake a church into realizing they are in decline? A church persists to keep open even while a pastor has stated they should close.
Just curious if house churches are studied at all. I have seen an increase in the desire for intimate settings and organic settings like house churches. Are they at all part of the study? They all tend to be small and multiply when they can’t fit more people.
Dawn –
Our data does not indicate if they are a house church or not.
> if house churches are studied at all.
All of the major denominations, and most of the minor associations have a minimum congregational size, for a specific church to join, and retain its membership in the association. For SBC, this threshold is somewhere between 25 and 35 members, which correlates with the upper limit of congregants in a house-church. (About a decade ago, SBC examined changing policies and procedures to enable house-churches to join, but various issues mitigated against changing their policies.) As such, Thom’s data won’t include house-churches.
There are a couple of associations that specifically target house-churches. However, even those associations claim that results derived from researching their members may not be representative, or even typical of house-churches in general.
Probably the least contentious point in house-church research, is that the half-life of a house-church is eighteen months. Even that point is contentious, due to issues such as:
* What defines a house-church;
* Is a house-church still a house-church, if it meets in a school classroom or hotel conference room?
* What defines a congregation;
* How small can a house-church congregation be;
* How large can a house-church congregation be;
I am curious as to what state conventions truly think about declining churches. They communicate concern of declining churches and profess a vision to revitalize.
And then they plant two new church starts in a declining community which only squeezes sheep out of existing flocks.
It seems like state conventions would prefer these death spirals speed up so they could plant new churches in this old existing buildings.
What can state conventions do to truly help declining churches?
I agree with concern over declining churches. I see it as a result of our not equipping the congregation to witness as they should and not teaching them how God said to so church.
On the other side Christ said He would build the church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it.
Do pastors understand when they are called to administer palliative care to a dying church? Or do they feel compelled to provide it life support? Also, one trend that goes along with decline of a church is the tendency to go from full time pastors to bi-vocational pastors. Does having a bi-vocational pastor quicken or forestall the “death spiral”.
I don’t know if anyone else has addressed this .. but you know what they say about two witnesses, anyway, so…
For the 36 years we’ve been in an SBC church, much of the emphasis has been on planting new local churches, many many times within a mile of one or more SBC churches. I am guessing that is a holdover attitude of long standing.
These days, with the crop of younger folks, travel attitudes are different. 100 years ago, people lived close to where they worked (can you say “mill town”?), but modern roads and automobiles fostered a move to the suburbs. People will now drive 20 or 30 miles for a theater or a job or a restaurant.
Or a church that has something going on.
I don’t know how many of those declining churches are in distant rural areas, but I wonder if the dying off of the more distance-sensitive generation might account for a substantial part of the decline of those churches. I think it just might.
I am and have been a pastor of rural churches for the last 20 years. As I visit other churches it amazes me how they can hold on with so few members. What worries me the most in many is the lack of young people. Last year I started post-graduate study in theology and ethics. My focus is the rural black church. I have found that many of the issues faced in the 1930’s and 40’s by those churches are still front and center today.
We know that every church goes through a life cycle. This applies to churches of all sizes. Each church begins small, grows rapidly, eventually plateaus, and begins to decline . Each church is impacted by many factors–changing demographics, generational mix etc.
This why it is a good idea that a comprehensive self study of each church be done every so often. Things do change and churches have to be prepared to meet the changes,
Above all, we have a hungry flock out there who is eager to hear God’s life changing Word.
After all, all of us are called and gifted by God.
Interesting numbers. Thanks.
A couple of follow-up questions:
1) How many of the people who are leaving small churches are ending up in other small churches (or larger churches)? How much of this is people going form “churched” to “unchurched,” and how much is shuffling/consolidation within and among groups?
2) A church of 100 that declines by 8% per year still has 15 people a quarter of a century later. My experience with churches of 15 is that the last thing they want to do is give up, especially if they have endured a quarter century of decline. At what point is their hand forced?
3) In my tribe, the sizes of many small churches run in cycles, where the low end is roughly half the high end. Sometimes those cycles can be quick, and other times it can take a generation for a church to go from 90 to 45 and back. And the cycles track more closely with birth rates (and to a lesser but still significant extent, denominational geography) than anything going on within the church itself. Are there any similar patterns in the churches in the data set?
The Brooklyn Tabernacle once had a weekly attendance of twenty or less. The Lord told Jim Cymbala to lead his people to pray. Look at how the Lord moved in that very tiny congregation.
The Brooklyn Tabernacle – which was once a church in mega decline – chose to obey God and as a result, has now become a powerful force in furthering God’s Kingdom throughout the entire earth.
Either we believe ”all things are possible to those who believe” or we do without His blessings through our unbelief.
Does the type of pastor change these stats? I served a church that was worshipping 85 a week and when I left we worshipped 140. I was always visiting and in people’s homes and calling and welcoming vistors. The next guy after me brought it down below 100 again. Does an outward focused pastor affect this number? .
It would more depend on theology. If a church go liberal it will die.
From David Murrow, to the Barna Group et al, to always spotlighting pastors who are leading “dynamic, amazing churches that are growing” and other pundits and experts who conduct studies about “the church” it seems to be always the same to me:
You want your church to grow? Offer a cool n’ hip teen room. Scrap all the hymns and old music that is stuffy and boring. Don’t be a legalist. Let people use and be buried in their cell phones in church because we all know they are reading “the Bible” and would never, never, never, ever not pay attention in church. Let them dress as they please (Sunday morning nightclub), have cool and hip young people be seen and in positions of “leadership” because that attracts the young people. The pastor should dress in jeans and an ironic tee-shirt to “connect” with the youth. Yes, have a latte and coffee bar, snacks. People should be allowed to do what they want in the church, it’s their house, not God’s………God doesn’t need “holiness” anymore, he just wants you to be there. Come as you are, but leave not changed…be more affirmed in your sin, choices and expectations about life. Give spineless, weak and ineffective sermons. Throw a dig at all the “men” here and there for not manning up enough at home / work / church (especially before the collection plate is passed). Talk about football to show how much of an “average guy” you are. Condone and uplift single motherhood. Sing repetitive songs. Never talk about sin, or when you do….make sure you don’t offend ANYONE. Jesus is only about love, parties in heaven and he’ll forgive you anyway, no matter what!
Yeah, being a bit over the top here…….but this is always what it boils down to. A show, a sham, and a flock still on a broad road to hell.
Not saying we have to stay in the Victorian Age…….but come on, pastoring has become a profession……not a passion. The flock is never uplifted to be tight, trusting of each other today. It’s all about money, money, numbers, money, the new building program, the new PA equipment, the fund to send all the child to ‘bible camp’ to get psyched about Jesus, when they should be taught this at home.
But hey…….I am just a sinner saved by His grace. My suggestions don’t matter. All the “experts” have deemed this “as such” and they know it all anyway, and will boast like the Pharisees of old of how “schooled” they are in these matters…..
And then, the wringing of hands, the shaking of heads, the terse lips of ‘Well, we live in a nation that turned its back on God”
However, they will never admit that The Church needs God much more than this nation does.
Jason,
brother you aren’t just over the top, you are off base, mixing style and substance. All churches that use traditional forms and methods aren’t biblically sound in message an all that use non traditional forms and methods aren’t biblically watered down: as a church planting pastor and then a church starting strategist I’ve seen a wide variety. I preached in jeans and a sports shirt, and our music was of the generation, and we didn’t use many traditional methods, yet many lives were transformed by the power of God through Jesus Christ. Other churches that had the honor of consulting did the same. And yes, some of them watered it down; as do some churches very traditional in methodology. Examine the fruit; that is where we are to discern the root. Thanks.
Well ….. I guess we’re dead
I attend an ELCA congregation in Muskegon that has declined in the same percentage track of the decline of the ELCA itself. Due to the advanced age of many of our existing worship service attendees and their actuarial expected death within five years, their loss, and the loss of their drivers (in most cases, daughters) will require the closing of the doors of the church building due to the inability of the remaining members to pay for maintenance and repairs. I have frantically studied all congregations, up to two hundred miles away that have been pointed out to me by well-meaning friends to be ‘growing’. The growth was in fact a decline in most cases, and any growth was due to being the beneficiary of transferees from either a split congregation elsewhere or the closing of a church, or a member (s) is a multi-millionaire who is financing wonderful things, or a subdivision is being built across the street from the church. Nothing, though, that can be duplicated. I have found that old mainline congregations are declining as well as churches using projections and screens and large TVs, and electric guitars and drums and praise music. I have an idea of using small ‘adult ed’ type short-term classes oriented toward the Gospel starting out and ending with a prayer but in between cover ever so lightly the next Sunday’s sermon, in our case, the Gospel reading. Then, use the classes to encourage attendance the subsequent Sunday. I’ll prepare a proposal for my own church council in a month and see what happens. If it’s Good News, I’ll scream the model from the roof tops and let you know.
I recently completed a statistical analysis of twenty one PCUSA churches in my area which explored the correlation between the age demographics of a church and its five-year growth rate. The correlation is about 0.7 (I can post the graphics here if you request it.)
In other words, the younger the members are in a congregation, the more likely it is to be growing. The older the members, the more likely it is to be caught in a “death spiral.”