"One of our top priorities is to increase the number of multicultural congregations," declared a denominational official in an American Protestant denomination in which eight out of nine of the adult members trace most or all of their ancestry back to western Europe. "During the past decade, two-thirds of our new missions have been composed almost exclusively of Anglos, about a fifth are Asian, perhaps a tenth are Latino, and only five percent are African-American. We've not been able to plant any new missions in which no one ethnic group represents less than half of the charter members."

One response to that observation is, "Naturally." It is next to impossible in the contemporary American culture to launch a new mission averaging more than 150 at worship in which no one ethnic group accounts for a majority of the adults. An easier road to achieve that goal is to encourage the urban Anglo congregation established before 1960 to replace its departing members with a modest number of self-identified integrationists who are moving into that changing neighborhood. Every year, a couple of Asian families, one or two black couples, and two or three couples in a bicultural marriage choose to make that their new church. A decade or two later, the white membership may represent somewhere between 25 and 80 percent of the total constituency.

In many other urban areas, an easier, but more expensive strategy for creating what will be an ethnically multicultural congregation is to begin by organizing an avowedly Christian four-year high school with an eventual enrollment of approximately 100 teenagers. By December, the first public worship service for that new worshiping community will be held in that same building.

A better response to that initial observation almost certainly is, "You're wrong! You've defined the term multicultural too narrowly. If you would use a contemporary definition of multicultural or of social class categories, most of your existing congregations would be classified as multicultural." The exceptions probably are those congregations that are relatively small, that project relatively high expectations of every person who seeks to become a voting member, and their worship attendance in the typical weekend exceeds their membership by at least a two-to-one ratio.

What Is the No. 1 Criterion?
Instead of relying on skin color, language, nationality, or ancestry as the criteria for defining a person's cultural or social class identity, a more realistic approach is based on a newer definition of social class. This concept came from a famous contrarian, Edward C. Banfield. His book, The Unheavenly City, was published in 1970. It evoked a storm of criticism.

The primary reason for the criticism was Banfield's contention that the American population can be divided into four categories. One group consists of those who are motivated by immediate satisfactions--what Banfield described as "present-oriented." By contrast, those at the opposite end of Banfield's spectrum are the "future-oriented" people who look to the future and are confident their future can and will be a more desirable personal environment for living than is the present. They are willing to swap immediate satisfactions for future gratification.

Between these two extremes, Banfield identified the "middle class" Americans and the "working class" Americans. The former use a shorter timeframe for planning than the upper-class person who lives in the future. Those in the working class tend to use an even shorter frame for planning and tend to invest even more in immediate satisfactions than do the middle class.

At the lower class end of this spectrum are those who feel they cannot control their future and therefore focus their energies and resources on generating immediate satisfactions. Perhaps the most common criticisms of Banfield's thesis came from those who saw it as one more attack on the culture of black urban residents. In response to these criticisms, a new edition, The Heavenly City Revisited, was published in 1970. In this volume, Banfield offered a more comprehensive and gentle definition of that present-oriented group of Americans and lifted up "hopeless poverty" as a powerful factor in creating and perpetuating this world view.

By the time of Banfield's death in September 1999, a growing body of persuasive research suggested that the home environment in which a child was born and reared was far more influential than the ethnicity or formal education of the parents in determining whether, two decades later, that person would choose deferred gratification over immediate satisfactions.

A Christian Perspective
At this point most readers may interrupt by pointing out, "This line of demarcation was not invented by a political scientist in the 20th century! This is a central tenet of the Christian faith. Do you expect to spend eternity in heaven or in hell?"

Others may suggest, "This is one line of demarcation that separates the atheist from the Christian believer right after the line that asks whether or not you believe the tomb really was empty."

An Institutional Perspective
The reason for citing Banfield, rather than Scripture, in introducing this line of demarcation is that it can be useful for analyzing the behavior of individuals in institutional settings, such as densely populated urban communities, the labor force, large public high schools, American Protestant congregations, and denominations.

Most of the very large public high schools in America today include students from all four of Banfield's categories. The teachers, most of whom are convinced the important rewards for good study habits lie in the distant future, tend to prefer classes consisting of future-oriented teenagers. At least a few of the stars on the football team, however, come from a culture that has taught them the value of immediate satisfactions. They place a higher value on winning this week's game than on a championship next year. Other students prefer to spend their discretionary cash on purchasing a car this year rather than on saving money for going to college two years in the future.

The tens of thousands of evacuees from New Orleans before, during and after the arrival of Hurricane Katrina in late August 2005 included adults from all four of the groups described by Banfield. Field studies of the evacuees made a year or two after the hurricane suggest a disproportionately large number of those who moved to Houston were primarily present-oriented, while a disproportionately large number of those moving to metropolitan Atlanta were more future-oriented.

A Congregational Perspective
Two Protestant congregations affiliated with two different denominations were founded as neighborhood churches in the early 1920s. Their meeting places were nearly four miles apart in two different neighborhoods, but both could have been described as working-class parents. Both peaked in size in the early 1950s, averaging about 150 to 160 at worship. Both experienced a loss of the adult children of members who were moving to new homes out on the edge of the city. After nearly five years of declining attendance, special study committees in both congregations recommended relocation of the meeting place. Both committees concluded that what had been an adequate site at a good location decades earlier had become too small at what was now a poor location.

The congregational meeting held in April at Faith Church to vote on the proposal to relocate was well attended. The motion to relocate was rejected by a 63-to-41 margin. A month later, the vote at Hope Church to relocate carried by a 72-to-29 margin. Most of those 72 votes at Hope Church to relocate were cast by adults who had joined during the past eight years following the arrival of a future-oriented minister. Back at Faith Church, 47 of those 63 votes rejecting relocation were cast by persons who had joined before 1970. In one congregation, the future-oriented members produced a favorable vote in favor of creating a new tomorrow for Hope Church. At Faith Church, the present and past oriented members, perhaps supported by those who wanted to perpetuate the past, produced a majority vote against creating a new future.

That is but one of many examples that could be cited to demonstrate that most Christian congregations really are multicultural. Many members evaluate that congregation's ministries with a single question, "Is this church helping me progress in my own personal spiritual growth?" Others will ask, "Is this church transmitting the Christian faith to my children?" If pressed, more than a few may explain, "Even though I don't like the new minister, I can't leave. This is where all my close personal friends go to church." The past-oriented member agrees, "I don't like the new minister either, but we can't leave. My grandfather helped found this congregation in 1922, I've been going to church here every week since before I was born, this is where I met my wife, we were married here, our children were baptized and confirmed here, and our daughter was married here two years ago."

Revitalize the Old or Create the New?
"Good stewardship of our resources calls us to allocate scarce resources to help in the revitalization of some of dying churches that meet in a good building at a good location rather than dissolving the congregations and selling the property for 50 or 60 cents on the dollar," declares a denominational official.

The operational translation of that policy could read, "Rather than invite future-oriented adults born after 1970 to come and help create a new worshiping community, let's use those resources to help an aging and shrinking congregation composed largely of past-oriented people design and implement a strategy to reach, attract and serve other past-oriented adults born before 1930."

Who Designs Our Future?
Another application of Banfield's line of demarcation arises when the time comes to choose the members of a Long Range Planning Committee. What are the criteria for choosing these seven individuals? One approach uses the representative principle. Every interest group, age cohort, caucus, faction, group, organization and policy-making body must be represented. Sometimes ancestry, gender and tenure are added to that list. A completely different approach asks, "How can we encourage creativity, undergird a climate of innovation, and design a ministry plan for reaching, attracting and serving new generations of Americans?"

Maximize the number of members who display a strong future-orientation and minimize the number who prefer immediate satisfactions over deferred gratification.

Applying This Concept
While the database is less than perfect, a variety of denominational reports and surveys suggest that at least two-thirds, and perhaps even three-fourths, of the Protestant congregations in the United States at the end of 1986 either (a) no longer were in existence at the end of 2006 or had merged into another church or (b) were on a plateau in size or reported a lower average worship attendance for 2006 than in 1986.

In other words, only about three out of 10 were experiencing an average annual increase of more than one percent in their average worship attendance over those 15 years. To qualify for this category of "growing," the congregation that averaged 100 at worship in 1986 would have to be averaging at least 115 in 2006.

Those two paragraphs make it easy to classify these congregations into three categories: growing, on a plateau in size, or decreasing in size as measured by average worship attendance. That can be a useful system for describing contemporary reality, but it does not offer useful insights into the question of "Why?"

During this 15-year period of time, Protestant church attendance in the United States increased by at least 20 percent. Why did that rising tide of churchgoers fail to lift all the ships in the religious harbor? One explanation is an increase in the population often is accompanied by a rise in the level of competition among the churches seeking prospective future constituents. Most Protestant congregations simply are not competitive. Why? One reason is they tend to focus their resources on perpetuating the past and/or on "taking better care of our people."

By contrast, the numerically growing churches tend to focus on identifying and responding to the spiritual and personal needs of new generations of American residents. The future-oriented leaders usually place deferred gratification above immediate satisfactions.

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 © 2007 Lyle Schaller