What changes stand out as the most significant in how Americans "do church in the 21st century"? What are the big changes since the 1950s? Among the most highly visible are these 10 changes:

* The emergence of an unprecedented number of independent or nondenominational congregations
* The erosion of inherited religious loyalties that has freed tens of millions of American churchgoers to switch from one religious tradition to a different tradition
* The shift from an emphasis on the racial integration of congregations in the 1960s to a new affirmation of the right of ethnic separation
* The quadrupling in the number of Protestant megachurches averaging more than 2,000 at weekend worship
* The cutback in planting new missions by several of the mainline Protestant denominations
* The replacement of the small neighborhood congregation by the large regional church
* The increased competition for charitable contributions, especially those made out of accumulated wealth
* The replacement of the traditional teacher-led adult Sunday school class by peer-driven learning communities
* The arrival in the 1960s of what has been described as the "Fourth Great Religious Revival" in American church history
* The expansion of the ministry - and influence - of the laity in both American Protestantism and in Roman Catholic circles in America

Many readers will find it easy to double the length of that list. One change that has been largely overlooked, and by 2020 may rank among the top five in impact, is the product of five other radical changes in the American culture.

Five Cultural Changes
The first, the most highly visible, and the most far reaching has been the impact of the combination of the widespread ownership of the modern motor vehicle and the abundance of convenient off-street parking. That combination has undermined downtown as a retail center, produced the single-family residence with a three-car garage, fed the growth of the megachurch, and lengthened the journey from home to work, to shopping, to entertainment, to healthcare services, to recreation, to visiting kinfolk, and to church.

Closely related has been the shift from geographical proximity to an affinity of values and interests in choosing a job or a place to live or a spouse or a retirement home or building one's own personal social network or in the search for a new church home.

A third cultural change in America has been the rise of the ecumenical movement. This began to have an impact in the 1940s and produced several denominational mergers over the next four decades. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s encouraged the creation of scores of interfaith coalitions. Other religious groups that had been perceived to be rivals or adversaries were now redefined as friends and potential allies. While ecumenism began to fade from the scene in the 1980s, it left a door wide open for creating new congregational clusters based on affinity and common concerns, rather than on a common denominational affiliation and/or the geographical proximity of the real estate.

A fourth cultural change has been the shift from vertical organizational command and control pyramids to horizontal and egalitarian partnerships. One example is the growing number of primary care physicians who identify themselves as the patient's partner in maintaining that person's health.

The fifth has been the shift from relying on experts to tell us what we need to know to a greater recognition of the effectiveness of learning from one's peers.

The Old vs. the New
Those five cultural changes, plus the deaths of most Americans born before 1930 and the arrival into leadership roles of those born after 1960, have created a generation conflict.

Those who are convinced next year will resemble 1958 continue to believe that congregations should cluster with one another on the basis of a shared denominational affiliation and the geographical proximity of the meeting places.

Those who believe next year will be 2008 usually begin by asking, "What can we learn from other congregations of a similar size with a similar constituency and who also resemble our congregation in terms of self-identity, role, specialized ministries, community context, and staffing?"

One driving assumption in creating these clusters, typically including five to 15 congregations, is we can learn from our peers. A second driving assumption is that the differences between the small-town church founded in 1888 and now averaging 135 at worship in a rural county and the new suburban mission founded last year that also averages 135 at worship are far greater today than would have been true with two similar churches in 1958. Back in 1958, the pastor of that small-town church might have been invited to become the mission developer of a new suburban congregation. Today, that assignment more likely will be given to the senior associate minister of a suburban congregation averaging 1,200 at worship. That assignment calls for creating and leading the team of five people who will plant a new mission with the expectation that the worship attendance on the second Sunday will be at least 350, not 135.

What Will We Do Together?
One hundred years ago, or even 50 years ago, one of the most common reasons for building a geographically defined cluster of two or three or four or five congregations was so they could mobilize the financial resources required to (a) attract and retain the services of a full-time resident pastor or at least a part-time student minister or (b) build and financially support the three or four people required to staff the ministry of a larger parish consisting of five to a dozen small congregations.

More recently, one motivation for creating clusters of small congregations in the central cities was to build a larger and more influential lobby in support of a social justice issue. Another was to organize the residents for that community so they could be more successful in bargaining with the established centers of power. A third reason was to do ministry together. Each participating congregation was too small to be able to offer a full-scale ministry. Together, they could offer a Vacation Bible School or assemble a large choir for special occasions or share in a mission project or gather a reasonable crowd for Lenten services or for a special Christmas Eve service or a confirmation program for a dozen teenagers.

Today's cluster designed for learning from peers may consist of a dozen MultiMate churches. The leaders meet for a day once a quarter to learn from one anther's experiences on how to utilize modern technology that can enable one minister to deliver the message at a score or more of worship services at 10 sites every weekend. The next quarter may focus on how to persuade family foundations to help fund a new site. The next one may focus on staffing a network of weeknight learning communities. Another day may be devoted to replacing paid staff with fully equipped volunteers at several off-campus sites.

A completely different cluster may consist of one big Methodist church, one independent megachurch, two large Presbyterian congregations, and one Lutheran parish. The point of commonalty is how to be "reproducing churches." Instead of creating MultiMate churches, the focus is on planting new missions that will become Four Self congregations: self-governing, self-expressing, self-financing, and self-propagating.

A third cluster may include six or eight megachurches, perhaps four with a strong denominational affiliation and three or more non-denominational congregations. The point of commonality is the evolution of paid staff positions in very large congregations. The Director of Christian Education is being replaced by the specialists in creating and nurturing learning communities. The Church Business Administrator is being replaced by the executive Pastor. A new position, Minister of Missions, is becoming more common. The Youth Minister is being replaced by a ministry with families that include teenagers. The congregations contemplating one or more of these changes turn to the two or three that have made the switch for help in changing the staff configuration, for advice on evaluating candidates, and for mentoring the new staff person.

Seven Points of Commonality
If the primary purpose for creating a cluster of congregations is to facilitate learning from peers, this is most likely to happen if the participating churches share at least five of these seven common characteristics.

1. The average attendance at weekend worship has been increasing for at least three or four years.

2. At least one-half of those worshippers on the typical weekend were born after 1960.

3. Each congregation has been worshipping at their current address for fewer than four decades. The explanation for this point of commonality is the leaders are convinced their future is larger than their past.

4. In most suburban communities, the average worship attendance exceeds 800. In other communities, that number may be 450 or more. The reason is larger and growing congregations are the ones most likely to make creative contributions on "how to do church in 21st century America."

5. The three most valuable or influential paid program staff members in each church expect to continue to serve that congregation for at least another three years. The larger the congregation, the more likely that much of the continuity is in the paid staff.

6. The larger community context is the same for all participating congregations.

7. Every individual is motivated to attend "because I want to learn how to create the new, rather than how to perpetuate the old."

What Are the Alternatives?
Why are these new affinity clusters of congregations being created? One reason is the denominationally affiliated church discovers its denomination is unable to provide the desired customized researching. The independent church does not have a denomination to turn to for help. The parachute organizations tend to focus on that 97 percent of the congregations in American Protestantism averaging fewer than 800 at weekend worship. A teaching church may be helpful if it is a good match in terms of doctrine, polity, size, staffing, and community context, but that cluster of five to seven congregations in the same metropolitan area is likely to provide more relevant help.

One consequence is the relevance and value of these affinity clusters of very large congregations is contagious. It is now beginning to be copied by affinity clusters of congregations of various sizes in both urban and rural America.

The author's book, From Geography to Affinity (Abandon Press, 2003), elaborates on the larger theme.

Copyright 2007 by Lyle E. Schaller