A demographic history of the United States would describe how in the brief period of only four centuries, the original inhabitants of this part of North America would be joined by tens of millions immigrants from other parts of this planet. One outcome is a nation of more than 300 million residents who represent a remarkable degree of demographic diversity.

A history of how Christian policy-makers attempted to respond to the religious needs of such a diverse population could lift up two radically different strategies. The rulebook the Roman Catholic Church followed was written on the assumption one religious body could fulfill all of the spiritual and many of the temporal needs of every resident. One of the themes was that would require a high degree of uniformity and conformity in doctrine, polity and practices.

One recent outcome is that as some members of younger generations of Americans who were born, baptized, reared and confirmed in a Catholic family grow older, they have become disenchanted with their parish or diocese or with Rome. They choose what to many is a new option. Instead of simply "dropping out of church," they switch their allegiance to a Protestant congregation.

The Rise of Individualism
Why have millions of American Catholics chosen that option? One explanation, of course, is they follow others. The precedents are common. They may include siblings, parents, adult children, cousins, colleagues at work and members of their social network.

A more powerful factor is called the rise of individualism. As recently as the 1950s, millions of adults in America followed the path chosen by their parents. This could be seen in their place of residence as well as in their education, choice of a spouse, job or vocation, religion, hobbies, and lifestyle.

The babies born during and after the World War II were reared in a culture that opened the door to affirming the differences among people. Instead of conforming to an inherited culture, these generations invented and propagated the counter culture. The old tradition of "one size fits all" gradually was replaced by a demand for more choices and a customized "fit." That transformation applied to clothing, motor vehicles, single-family homes, the practice of medicine, jobs, religious congregations, women, farms, pastors, grocery stores, elementary schools, Bibles, magazines, television channels, and professional athletes. One consequence has been the specialist is replacing the generalist.
By 1970, both sides began to accept the probability that the Americans born after 1940 would outlive those born before 1940. While medical science has intervened to slow that process, what once was described as a threat is now accepted as inevitable.

During the mid-1960s, these changes began to require revisions in that old rulebook. One example is the increase in the number of American Catholics who have had their marriage annulled.

One Distinctive Protestant Rulebook
How should Christian policy-makers respond to that rapid growth in numbers and diversity in the population of America? One early response came in what in 1691 became the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The first European residents arrived in 1620. The Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock in search of religious freedom. Several years later, the Puritans founded Salem in 1628 and Boston in 1630. In 1691, the Pilgrims and Puritans came together to create the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

The rulebook they adopted, and also quarreled over, called for one religious body called the Congregationalists. It also required the residents of the Colony to support a Congregational church in every town. It should be noted here this rulebook was the creation of and was administered by a group called "The Standing Order." It was comprised of the Congregational ministers of the colony. They remained at the top of the deference pyramid in this colony for nearly two centuries.

John Adams usually is credited with being the chief author of the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 when the colony became a state. Article 3 granted the Legislature the "power to authorize and require the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies politic, or religious societies, to make suitable provision at their expense, for the public institution of the public worship of God, and for the support of and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality." Article 3 was designed to perpetuate a system officially adopted in 1692 that required towns to fund the compensation for their ministers. A custom had become a law. As one historian commented, that meant if the Pope moved from Rome to Massachusetts and purchased a home there, he would be required to support a Congregational church!

The theological assumption that was the cornerstone for Article 3 was the depraved condition of human beings meant they would not voluntarily support a Christian church.
The growth of Unitarianism, the separation of Maine to become a separate state, the failure of the constitutional convention of 1820 to amend Article 32, revivalism, the judicial decision on a future of the Dedham Church, and other quarrels led to the adoption of the eleventh amendment to the state constitution. When it went into effect on January 1, 1834, that old rulebook had become completely obsolete. (For these paragraphs, I am indebted to The Crisis of the Standing Order by Peter S. Field, University of Massachusetts Press, 1998.)

The Two Dominant Protestant Responses
Unlike the Roman Catholics and the Congregationalists in Massachusetts, most Protestant policy-makers in American Christianity have created a huge variety of

rulebooks to accommodate the demographic diversity of the American population. Many, but not all, of them empower each immigrant group, tribe, clan, denomination, congregation, new generations of believers, faction, and dissenting caucus to create its own rulebook. The outcomes can be summarized in these paragraphs.

The most highly visible was to create a separate denomination or association of congregations on the basis of affinity such as nationality, skin color, language, doctrine, and polity. One outcome was reported in The Census of Religious Bodies of 1906 conducted by the United States Bureau of the Census. It reported a combined total of 12,703 Lutheran congregations in two dozen different denominations, each with its own denominational rulebook, 54,880 Baptist congregations in 19 denominations, which meant nearly 55,000 congregational rulebooks, and 64,701 Methodist congregations affiliated with 15 different denominations. Another 1,079 congregations identified themselves as "Independent." That required another 1,079 rulebooks. The remaining 68,867 congregations included 12,482 Roman Catholic parishes who shared one basic rulebook. The remaining 56,385 congregations covered by that census of churches reported an affiliation with one of the 130 other religious bodies. In 1936, the number of denominations was reported at 256, up from 212 in 1926 and 133 in 1906. The number of congregations, however, had fluctuated from 212,230 in 1906 to 232,154 in 1926 to 199,302 in 1936.

A reasonable guess is that by the end of 2006 at least 150 denominations, conventions, and associations of churches plus 325,000 congregations, exclusive of small house churches, park themselves under that umbrella called American Protestantism.

What Is In Your Rulebook?
How does this historical context influence the decision-making processes in your congregation in the early years of the 21st century? One answer can be found in looking at the assumptions, themes, and desired outcomes in your rulebook. Two hundred years ago in Massachusetts, the local rulebook declared the property owners in that community, not the members of that Congregational church, carried the responsibility to provide the dollars required to pay the bills. Today it is widely assumed that the current members have that obligation. In a tiny number of Protestant congregations, the current rulebook places a larger responsibility for that on deceased members. One example is the rulebook that no more than 60 percent of the annual expenditures can be funded from income from the endowment fund. The living members are expected to contribute at least 40 percent of the required funds.

Who are the folks who constitute the No. 1 constituency in planning that Sunday morning worship service? Most of the rulebooks declare it is today's members. A few pastors bring their own rulebooks that identify God as the No. 1 constituent and, therefore, that worship service should be designed to be pleasing to God. A tiny percentage of Protestant congregations follow a rulebook that states the No. 1 client is the first-time visitor. Therefore, the service should be designed to motivate all first-time visitors to return next week.

The 1985 edition of one rulebook declared the appropriate ratio was one off-street parking space for every four seats in the largest room in the building. The 2003 edition called for one off-street parking space for every two people in worship on Sunday morning. Another rulebook calls for the first dime out of every dollar in the offering plate to be sent to denominational headquarters. In a nearby independent and self-identified "self-propagating" megachurch, the local rulebook calls for 15 cents out of every dollar received to be allocated to sponsoring new worshiping communities. In one congregation, the local rulebook calls for a low threshold into full membership. They report 982 confirmed members and average 350 at worship. The church across the street is a self-identified high-expectation and high-commitment congregation, and the rulebook calls for a high threshold into membership. They report 347 members and average nearly 1100 at weekend worship.

Does your congregation have a rulebook? The answer, of course, is in the affirmative. A better question is where is it? Is it in the memory boxes of the elders who refer to it by a statement that begins with the words, "The way we've always done that here..."? Or is it in the head of the pastor? Does it resemble the one in the head of the predecessor? Or is it the constitution? Or the bylaws? Or is it in two volumes with the first volume being the denominational rulebook? Do references to your rulebook resolve conflicts? Or do those references generate new quarrels? Do all of the decision-makers refer to the same edition of the same rulebook?

Or is your rulebook a comprehensive and internally consistent five-year ministry plan that begins with a series of assumptions about contemporary reality? One assumption could be English will be the common language. In a nearby congregation, a new assumption is the time has arrived to become a bilingual and bicultural congregation. In another church, one of the basic assumptions is God has called this group of Christians to be a missionary church based on the four-self ideology of being self-governing, self-expressing, self-financing, and self-propagating. One of the consequences is no financial subsidies from any other congregation or from a denomination or from the dead via an endowment fund.

The second section could articulate what the writers believe God is calling this group of believers to affirm as their distinctive role or identity. This could be defined in greater detail such as, "We're here to help Christian parents rear their children" or "Our call is to become a multi-site congregation that can serve and minister with a great variety of people." Another theme could be "Our call is to minister to new believers and both challenge and equip them to become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ."

The third section could focus on the desired outcomes of this ministry and identify specific, attainable and measurable goals plus a five-year timeline that will provide the criteria for an annual audit of performance.

These three sections of the rulebook provide the required context for informed discussions on such means-to-an-end issues as real estate, paid staff, schedules and money.

These three sections also provide the context for a review of recent ministries and the criteria for an evaluation required to extend that five-year ministry plan one year into the future. Will that be done at an annual congregational meeting? Or is that the responsibility of the governing board? Or is your primary rulebook the annual budget?
More important, perhaps, does every decision maker understand and agree with the assumptions, themes and desired outcomes that constitute the foundation for the rules in that book?

For more than four decades, Lyle E. Schaller has served as a parish consultant to hundreds of congregations and scores of denominational agencies. His newest book, From Cooperation to Competition, elaborates on some of the themes in this essay and was published by Abingdon Press in May 2006.