Building Bigger Congregations
By Lyle E. Schaller
If one looks back over the past four or five decades in American church history, a score of changes stand out. The first can be seen all across the American economy. Institutions are much larger than they were 50 years ago. That long list includes public high schools, financial institutions, hospitals, dairy farms, motion picture theaters, grocery stores, airport terminals, municipal governments, medical clinics, institutions of higher education, professional sports leagues, parachurch organizations, hotels, retail shopping centers, and Protestant congregations.
A second big change is the emergence of hundreds of nondenominational megachurches since the early 1960s. A third is the change in the Catholic-Protestant migration of American churchgoers. As recently as the late 1950s, four out of five of these "switchers" chose the road labeled "Protestant to Catholic." Today, more than one-half choose the road going in the opposite direction.
A fourth trend can be described as a generational change. Americans born before 1920 tended to be influenced by inherited considerations. When that time came, they chose a spouse born in the same or adjacent state to their place of birth. Many followed in a parent’s vocation. They also tended to inherit from their parents their religious affiliation. The generations born after World War II not only represent a larger proportion of the current American adult population by a 3-to-2 ratio for persons age 18 and over in 2007, they also bring a different set of expectations to the marketplace than did their parents and grandparents. One example is most are willing to accept the anonymity and complexity of big institutions in exchange for higher quality, greater relevance, and more attractive choices. Critics often denounce this as consumerism. Others describe it as a predictable consequence of a higher level of competition. Another consequence is the loyalty of today’s members or "consumers" must be earned and re-earned.
A larger proportion of Americans born in the 1940s choose early retirement than was true of those born in the 1920s. The 60-year-olds of today also have a lower death rate than did the Americans born in earlier decades. One consequence is that unprecedented number of mature adults who are moving to another county or state for their retirement years and spend a month or two or three visiting various congregations as they "shop" for a new church home. Many are looking for the quality, relevance, and choices that only larger congregations can offer. One example is the opportunity to choose from among three different worship experiences in three different venues.
Today’s Religious Marketplace
If we view the religious scene in America as a marketplace, one of the most highly visible changes is illustrated by the corner drugstore, the four-year liberal arts church-related college, the family-owned grocery store, the state bank owned by local residents, the physician who had a solo practice, and the local public high school of the 1950s. Most of these neighborhood institutions have been replaced by larger regional institutions.
If we narrow the focus to look at Protestant congregations in America, we find that when they report their average worship attendance, the most frequently cited numbers are 35, 30, 25, 40, 45, 20, 50, 15, 60, and 12, often in that order. One explanation is when a group exceeds 35 people, anonymity becomes a serious problem. Participants often conclude, "They won’t miss me if I don’t go."
If we look at the larger scene, the first pattern relevant to this discussion is when we count congregations, the small-to-midsized churches dominate the American Protestant landscape.
Approximately 85 percent report an average worship attendance of fewer than 200. (In several Protestant denominations with a historically strong small church bias, the proportion may be close to 95 percent.) If we change our focus to counting people attending worship, the congregations averaging fewer than 200 at worship account for fewer than one-half of the Protestant churchgoers on the typical weekend. If the leaders in one of these small-to-midsized congregations want to attract more people and if they are willing to make the required changes, an excellent road map can be found in Kevin E. Martin, The Myth of the 200 Barrier, (Abingdon, 2005).
If we look for relevant wisdom from beyond religious sources, social anthropology is a useful source. In looking back over human history, anthropologists have discovered that the typical human community included approximately 150 persons of all ages, give or take 50 percent. That provides a range in size from 75 to 225 persons. In his book, The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell defines 150 as a common line of demarcation. One reason it is worth mentioning here is the number of American Protestant congregations reporting their average worship attendance in 2005 was between 100 and 200 was a significantly smaller number in that size bracket than back in 1985 or 1975. More drop to below 100 than grow to beyond 200!
A similar fork-in-the-road can be seen when we examine the worship attendance patterns in congregations averaging between 350 and 500 at worship. Relatively few of these congregations also remain on a plateau in size. One pattern is the membership continues to rise, but worship attendance continues on a plateau or drops. One common explanation parallels a pattern in congregations averaging 100 to 200 at worship. Given the choice between making the changes required to reach, attract, and assimilate younger generations or affirming "the road that brought us to today is the right road into the future," the operational decision is made not to change. The lesson is the road that brought us to today eventually becomes the road to oblivion. That sentence also explains why so many of the institutions that thrived in the 1950s became failing institutions in the 1980s and later.
Five Lessons
Five other lessons from experience are shared by thousands of other Protestant congregations that could and should have continued to grow in numbers but have either plateaued or declined in average worship attendance.
1. The larger the size of the congregation and/or the faster the growth rate, the greater the degree of the continuity rests with the pastor and the program staff and the smaller the degree of continuity in kinfolk ties or local traditions or the denominational affiliation or the real estate. One consequence is the tenure of the founding pastor or the senior minister or the team leader should be at least two decades.
2. A closely related lesson is the greater the probability of successful transition is when the successor to the senior minister joins the staff at least five years before the departure of the senior pastor.
3. For several decades, specialists have been replacing generalists. This can be seen in the practice of law, in the practice of medicine, in educational institutions, in communication, and in the practice of ministry. This often is one of five factors that explain the failure of five out of six congregations that achieve an average worship attendance of 750 to 850 to continue to grow. About one-third plateau and one-half gradually drift lower in size. The most serious reason for the decline is succession produces a mismatch in ministerial leadership. The second is only rarely are generalists able to produce the rise in the quality of ministry and the attractiveness of choices required for continued growth. A third is when the effectiveness of the processes for the assimilation of newcomers fails to keep up with that increase in visitors, church shoppers, and new constituents. A fourth is when the real estate places a ceiling on size. A fifth is when the system for financing the growing costs of ministry continues to resemble a system that is appropriate for the congregation averaging 135 at worship.
That long paragraph can be summarized in one 20-word sentence. When your average worship attendance grows beyond 700, begin to act like a congregation averaging 1,200 to 1,500 at worship!
4. In the congregation averaging 135 at worship, it may be appropriate for that full-time resident minister to declare, "This is what needs to be done, and my job is to do it." In the congregation averaging 450 or more at worship, the team leader or senior minister is confronted with the fact the week includes only 168 hours. One alternative is, "I have to keep doing what I did in the church I served before coming here, which averaged about 200 at worship." The rest of that sentence usually reads, "and watch our congregation grow older and fewer in numbers." A second choice is to neglect family and one’s own personal health and try to do what must be done. A third option is to divide the staff responsibilities into two piles. "This is the pile I must do. That is the pile I must make sure gets done by someone else." When the worship attendance averages more than 850 on the typical weekend, that responsibility is to divide the work load of the staff into three piles. "This is what I must do. Our executive minister is responsible for making sure that pile gets done, and our director of ministries will make sure the third pile gets done."
In many very large and rapidly growing congregations, the team leader’s professional work load is subdivided into two parts. "One is what I must do as the senior minister. The other is to fulfill my responsibilities as the visionary leader." That sentence leaves unanswered a crucial question. Who will be our chief strategist? Who will lead the process of translating that captivating vision of a new tomorrow into a detailed operational strategy? The senior minister? The director of ministries? The executive minister? The minister of missions? A lay elder? A lay volunteer who spends many hours as the chief strategist for some other organization?
Ignoring that question leads to the most heavily traveled road to creating an aging and numerically shrinking congregation.
Who Is Your Chief Strategist?
One lesson from systems theory is systems produce the outcomes they are designed to produce. One approach to the parish ministry is to design a system that requires a full-time resident pastor as the leader, add the resources (real estate, schedule, lay volunteers, money, and other ministries) required to produce a congregation averaging 115 to 150 at worship, and that will produce a congregation averaging between 115 and 150 at worship. The big variable is the competence of that pastor and the quality of those ministries has to be higher today than was required in 1965 to be able to compete effectively with other congregations in attracting new constituents in the 25-50 age bracket.
One lesson from recent American church history is the system required to create and maintain a congregation averaging more than 850 at worship in 21st century American Protestantism is a radically different system than is appropriate for creating a congregation averaging 450 to 750 at worship.
Is the chief strategist for your congregation a person who is skilled in designing a system required to produce a small church? A mid-sized congregation? A large congregation? Or a megachurch? For American Protestant congregations averaging more than 60 at worship, that question belongs at or near the top of the agenda in planning for what 2015 will bring.
After more than four decades as a parish consultant, Lyle Schaller is convinced that every Christian congregation in America needs either to (a) identify the person who will turn out the lights and dispose of the assets after that congregation votes to dissolve or (2) design and implement its own customized ministry plan for an increasingly competitive religious marketplace.
Copyright 2007 by Lyle E. Schaller |
