The various celebrations held during 2006 encouraged tens of millions of Americans to look back in time and to reflect on all the changes that have affected their lives over the past several decades.

The passage of the legislation to fund a system of interstate highways in June 1956 received considerable publicity on the 50th anniversary in mid-2006. Church planters recalled that, in the 1950s, one definition of the ideal site for a new mission was a three-acre parcel of land either across the street or adjacent to the site reserved for a new elementary school in the middle of a proposed residential subdivision designed for 300 to 600 single-family homes that would sell in the $12,000 to $20,000 range. (After adjusting for inflation, that would be the equivalent of $100,000 to $160,000 in 2006.)

The typical goal was to create a neighborhood congregation that would average somewhere between 125 and 250 at Sunday morning worship.

A half century later, one of the ideal locations for a proposed new mission is a parcel of land ranging from 80 to 160 acres within two or three miles of an exurban interchange of two interstate highways. That farmland can be developed with a retirement village consisting of 200 to 300 single-family homes, perhaps a small private Christian day school, outdoor recreation facilities,  20 to 30 acres reserved for commercial and retail uses, and 40 acres reserved for the facilities to house a congregation averaging at least 3,000 at weekend worship.

One year-long celebration in 2006 was for that record number of married couples who celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. Thanks to the combination of modern medicine and the end of World War II, 1946 set a new record of 2.29 million marriages in the United States. The old record of 1.78 marriages had been set in 1942. The all-time annual record for marriages in the United States was 2.48 million, which was set in 1984, the last year the annual total exceeded 2.39 million. Former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in July 2006.

The United States Bureau of the Census announced that the population of the United States would reach 300 million in October 2006, which is double the total of 1949. When that trend is compared to the plateau in the annual total of 2.20 million to 2.48 million marriages between 1972 and 2006, that has caused more than a few mothers and grandmothers to lament that "Marriage seems to be going out of style."

The most useful single indicator on marriage rates is the proportion of never-married women, age 15 and older, who marry in a given year. Between 1920 and 1985, that rate

varied from a low of 5.6 percent in 1932 to a high of 11.98 percent in 1946, but in recent years, it has hovered around 5 percent.

A more widely celebrated anniversary in 2006 was that the "front edge" of the "baby boom generation" turned 60. In 1946, for the first time in history, more than 3.4 million babies were born in the United States. One of them, the son of a future President of the United States, was born in July 1946 and named George Walker Bush. Forty-four days later, his predecessor in the White House, a baby named William Jefferson Blythe IV had been born to a widowed mother in Arkansas. Later in life, that young man adopted a new surname, Clinton, the last name of his stepfather. That total of 3.4 million births in 1946 set a new record. Only twice before, 3.06 million births in 1926 and 3.1 million in 1943, had that total had ever reached 3 million. A decade later, in 1956, that total exceeded 4.2 million births. Between 1965 and 1988, live births in the United States fluctuated between a low of 3.1 million in 1972 and a high of 3.9 million in 1988. Since 1989, that number has ranged between 3.8 million and 4.2 million. One consequence is the number of impatient or disappointed would-be grandmothers is at an all-time high.

One of the most narrowly focused celebrations in 2006 was the summer birthday party for Tai Shan. This baby weighed four ounces at birth. A year later, this giant panda was an active 56-pound cub.

One of the more significant celebrations in 2006 was the 50th annual conference of the National Association of Church Business Administrators. While many of the people now filling this role carry the title "Executive Pastor" or "Chief Strategist" or "Executive Minister" or "Team Leader," this anniversary symbolizes several significant trends in the past half century of American Christianity.

Perhaps the most significant single trend is the ministries of the ordained or licensed generalists are being supplemented and strengthened by skills of specialists, both lay and ordained. Back in the middle of the 1950s, it was widely assumed that a seminary degree prepared a candidate not only for ordination, but also equipped that person to accept an invitation to be a solo parish pastor, to plant a new mission, to be a chaplain, to serve as a program staffer in a denominational agency, to counsel troubled individuals and families, to serve as an associate minister in a large congregation, to staff a youth ministry, to oversee a congregation’s ministry of Christian education, or to become a career missionary.

As we look back over the past half century, it is now obvious that a variety of specialized staff roles have been created to meet new needs. The Coordinator of Peer Driven Learning Communities that focuses on learning and mutual support has begun to replace the generalist who focused on teaching and carried the title of Director of Christian Education. The Senior Associate Minister has been replaced by the Program (or Ministries) Director. The Church Business Administrator has been replaced by that

member of the leadership team who often carries the title Executive Minister. Instead of collecting and sending money to hire someone else to do missions on our behalf, the Minister of Missions organizes teams of volunteers who are challenged and equipped to be engaged in doing missions within a radius of 12,000 miles of the congregation’s meeting place. The overlapping responsibilities of assimilating newcomers and enlisting and supporting volunteers have become the responsibility of a team led by a staff specialist.

What Do We Celebrate?
These introductory paragraphs illustrate three types of celebrations. One is the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of this congregation or the 25th anniversary of the ordination of our pastor or that couple’s 60th wedding anniversary. These and similar celebrations tend to motivate people to (a) celebrate what years earlier was the creation of the new, (b) look back in time and (c) reflect on all the changes that have occurred during those years.

A second category calls for celebrating an accomplishment. Up through the 1940s, graduation from high school was a common example. During the 1930s, for example, 47 percent of all Americans in their 20s had not graduated from high school. By the 1960s, that proportion had plunged to 13 percent, and it is now down to about 11 percent. High school graduation for today‘s seniors is not the big event it was for their grandparents.

Today congregations celebrate the completion of a building program, the call of members who have embarked on a full-time Christian vocation, the creation of a continuing relationship with a sister church on another continent, the addition of another worship service to the weekend schedule, the launching by the multi-site church of its third off-campus ministry, the championship earned by the women’s softball team in that church league, the launching of a new ministry designed to feed the hungry, to shelter the homeless, to visit those in prison (Matthew 25:35-36), and victories in the continuing struggle for social justice.

The Erosion of Loyalty
Before identifying a third category of celebrations, it is necessary to take a brief side trip and review a major trend of the last half century. The early 1940s marked a peak for patriotism in the United States. This feeling of national loyalty was reinforced by the affection and respect most Americans felt toward their kinfolk, their neighborhood, their church, their local public school, their grocer, their doctor, their bank, their village or city government, and a whole array of voluntary associations such as lodges, veterans organizations, the local Parent-Teacher Association, political parties, professional sports teams, service clubs, denominations, alumni organizations, department stores, movie stars, television personalities, and radio stations.

All of these have experienced an erosion of loyalty. Among the many explanations are the rise of individualism and egalitarianism, the decline in the level of respect
automatically granted persons holding a high office, the Americanization of the grandchildren and great grandchildren of the immigrants from western Europe in the 1865-1925 era, the national publicity now given to misbehavior by respected leaders such as adultery, pedophilia, and the embezzlement of money, the polarization of the American population over highly divisive issues such as American foreign policy, the urbanization of the population, the tendency of college graduates to move away from their state of birth, and the refusal or inability of the leaders of many voluntary organizations to meet today’s standards for transparency and accountability.

Two of the most influential factors have been that sitting at home before personal computers or watching television are more attractive options for the use of discretionary time than going to meetings.

Several of the larger Protestant denominations now design their national conventions to force delegates to choose up sides on one or more polarizing issues. One consequence is 25 to 48 percent of the constituents are made to feel like "losers." Making your followers feel that "headquarters doesn’t trust us" or "headquarters is not going in the direction I want to go" has turned out to be an effective strategy for persuading members with an inherited loyalty to that denomination to switch their affiliation to a nondenominational congregation.

Another tactic has been to ignore the impact of the denominational reward system on loyalty. In the June 2006 annual meeting of one regional judicatory affiliated with a mainline Protestant denomination, the performance of 152 congregations was celebrated. One was recognized for doubling their average worship attendance. The other 151 were affirmed for the number of dollars each sent to fund denominational budgets.

Reinforcing Loyalty
The third type of celebration was most highly visible during World War II. These were the ceremonies, parades, rallies, programs and other events designed to undergird patriotism and to generate the feeling, "I’m glad to be an American."

A dozen parallel celebrations in contemporary American Protestantism include (1) the annual "State of the Church" sermon that recalls the ministry goals that were adopted a year earlier and the success stories on how most were achieved, (2) the big crowd at the "Welcome home!" celebration for the teenagers when they return from a 10-day mission trip, (3) the celebrations of that continuing relationship with a sister church on another continent, (4) the annual celebrations of the ministries of those volunteers who staff the community outreach ministries, (5) the occasional visits by adults who grew up in this congregation and are now engaged in Christian ministry elsewhere, (6) the annual award of scholarships to high school seniors paid for from investment income from the endowed scholarship fund, (7) the congregation’s float in the big annual local parade celebrating Memorial Day or Independence Day or Labor Day, (8) the 10th anniversary celebration of a new mission sponsored or co-sponsored by this congregation, (9) the annual
celebration of the ministries of missional groups such as the women’s organization or the men’s fellowship or the missions committee or the task force on alleviating world hunger, (10) the weekend completion of the schedule of the day camp offered every summer by this congregation, (11) that annual weekend celebration of the ministries of the music groups that add so much to the worship of God, and (12) the annual service of thanksgiving to give thanks to God for how He has blessed this congregation. This often is organized around a videotape or DVD that visually recaptures some of the highlights of the past year and it may be the God and Country project for a Scout.

A task force of five to seven creative people that focuses on the question, "How can we strengthen the loyalty of our people to this congregation?" will be able to expand that list to two dozen or more and subsequently prepare a customized range of possibilities for next year for your congregation.

What will your congregation celebrate next year that will reinforce the loyalty of your members?

For more than four decades, Lyle E. Schaller has served as a parish consultant to hundreds of congregations and scores of denominational agencies. His recent books include From Geography to Affinity, The Ice Cube Is Melting, and A Mainline Turnaround.

Copyright © 2006 Lyle Schaller