In a culture increasingly dominated by huge institutions such as very large public high schools, hospitals, retail stores, financial institutions, banks, megachurches, convention centers, dairy farms with several hundred milk cows, factories employing hundreds of workers on two or three shifts, medical clinics, law firms, metropolitan newspapers, network television stations, and the Internet, the majority of Protestant congregations in America report their worship attendance on the typical weekend averages fewer than 75.

Why?

One explanation is tradition. A second is the real estate and the absence of adequate off-street parking. A third is bad matches between pastor and congregation. A powerful reason is as size goes up, anonymity increases. Another factor is the increase in individualism. During the past half century, Americans have experienced a sharp increase in the proportion of adults who (a) live alone, (b) commute to work alone, (c) eat alone, (d) work alone, often at home, (e) go shopping alone, (f) purchase a house alone, (g) attend recreational events alone, (h) are single parents and the only adult in that household, (i) go to retirement centers alone, and (j) go to church alone.

How have the congregations in American Protestantism responded to the impact of anonymity? Up through the 1930s, this was a comparatively minor problem. One reason was most Americans lived where they slept.

Most of the children walked to school. Most adults lived within walking distance of their place of employment. Many could walk to the general store, the high school, the bank, the barbershop, the doctor's office, the hardware store, and to church. Most built their personal friendship circle out of kinfolks and friends, often of the same nationality, who lived nearby. A substantial proportion chose a spouse who had been reared in that community. Marriage often increased the size of the friendship circle for both spouses.

Choices for the Churches
For the first several decades of the t20th century, Roman Catholics in America belonged to either geographically defined parishes or to nationality parishes that enabled most of them to walk to church.

American Protestant congregations often chose one or two of six strategies to combat anonymity. The most popular by far has been and is to average fewer than 40 at worship. This assures every member that (1) "I know they'll miss me if I am absent," and (2) "I know no one will be sitting in my place if I'm late."

A second, but rarely utilized, strategy called for a different focus. Instead of creating a congregation of families plus a few other individuals, this called for building a congregation of organizations, each consisting of several carefully structured subgroups.

For nearly a century, the most effective was the Sunday school composed of several departments, each of which included classes defined by age, gender, and/or marital status. A parallel and remarkably effective reliance on the value of organization for assimilating women born before 1950 was the women's missionary organization. The central purposes were to emphasize the importance of missions, to raise money to support missionaries, and to challenge young people to accept God's call to become missionaries. Thus, promoting a cause was the rallying point to attract women and to reinforce their loyalty to that congregation and to that denomination.

This sense of belonging usually was reinforced by the creation of circles each consisting of about 7 to 20 women who met monthly for Bible study, prayer, designing and implementing their strategy for missions, and refreshments. The big fringe benefit was the opportunity to meet and make new friends and to reinforce existing friendly ties. Another was to reinforce the feeling of "I know I belong because I know I'm needed."

One explanation for the strength, vitality, and influence of denominational systems as recently as the 1950s was their ability to resource the organizational life of affiliated congregations.

A parallel organization for men often existed, but it usually was much smaller and weaker than either the Sunday school or the women's missionary society. One explanation is that, as a group, adult males are less gifted than women in building and nurturing relationships with other adults.

A second explanation is many men are more comfortable on that road to belonging that is organized on the principle of "I know I belong when I know I am needed." One way to make that road even more attractive was to reserve to adult males assignments such as elder, deacon, usher, trustee, and finances.

A third strategy for building a congregation averaging more than 175 at weekend worship, and thus rank among the largest 20 percent in American Protestantism, continues to focus on ministerial leadership. The central organizing principle is to seek a minister who combines an energetic, extroverted, and gregarious personality with an above-average level of competence as a preacher and a far-above-average ability to address hundreds of people of all ages correctly by name, plus a tenure of more than two decades.

One happy male parishioner explained the rapid growth of that congregation in these words: "Including my wife, I have five close personal friends. Today at least a thousand of our people view our pastor as one of their closest personal friends—and I am one of that thousand."
The implementation of this strategy is facilitated by everyone, including all paid staff members, wearing a name tag.

A fourth strategy that was highly effective with Americans born before 1950 paralleled the patriotic spirit in the American culture in the 1917-1948 era. Children born and reared in the United States during those three decades were taught to place a high value on patriotism and a loyalty to other institutions. The 1960s changed the national context! Inherited institutional loyalties are not what they were in 1945.

That national context also provided a supportive environment for congregations, and especially for denominational agencies, to prepare and offer resources and experiences designed to transmit loyalty to that denominational heritage to younger generations. Examples included Sunday school lessons, a role for the women's missionary organization, visiting speakers, missionaries on furlough, a week at church camp in the summer, weekend youth rallies for teenagers from the churches in that region, the creation of a paid staff position for a youth pastor or a director of youth ministries, a monthly periodical directed at teenagers, visits by high school seniors to denominationally affiliated colleges, theological seminaries, opportunities for older teenagers to serve as volunteers in denominational ministries plus a relationship with chaplains in denominationally affiliated colleges and universities.

While some readers will object to calling it a strategy, a widely followed response to anonymity in American Protestantism among congregations averaging more than 100 at worship has been to minimize anonymity by growing older together and fewer in numbers. The personal social network of the 75-year-old usually is much smaller than the network of the typical 40-year-old.

A fifth "strategy" has been to reduce the size of the congregation.

A sixth strategy usually has been initiated, not as a creative response to anonymity, but rather as a response to more choices. The old schedule of Sunday school being followed by one Sunday morning worship service has been to offer two or three or four or five worship services every weekend. The Saturday evening schedule calls for worship followed by a meal followed by another worship service. The Sunday morning schedule may include three worship services at 8:30, 9:45, and 11:00. The old design of one worship service with an average attendance of 150 has been replaced by five worshiping communities, each averaging somewhere between 35 and 150 in attendance with a combined average of 400 to 500. "I go to the first service," explains one member, while another says, "I'm a regular at the 11:00 service."

While it cannot be described as an intentional strategy, an interesting response can be seen in the emergence of hundreds of nondenominational megachurches. At least a dozen factors can be offered to explain this trend. Four stand out as relevant to this discussion. One is that growing number of residents of the United States who, when asked to identify their ancestry, do not reply with words such as German or Italian or Swedish or a combination of two nationalities, but respond simply with the word "American." Membership in a megachurch can help fill what otherwise would be a void in their self-identity.

Far more common is for many generations residents of the United States relied on the state where they were born and have lived all of their lives for at least a part of their self-identity. Today, a record number of residents of this nation do not live in the state or province of their birth. How does one fill that gap in their self-identity? That gap nurtures a feeling of anonymity.
A third is the erosion of inherited institutional loyalties. A fourth that overlaps the third is that record number of American churchgoers who were born into one religious tradition and have married into a different tradition.

One consequence is those congregations in which the number of people who come to that meeting place on Monday through Friday greatly exceeds the number who come on Sunday morning has taken a giant step in minimizing the impact of anonymity.

What Are the Consequences?
A statistical review of the past half century on the distribution of congregations in American Protestantism using average attendance at weekend worship reveals three relevant patterns. First, the number of congregations averaging more than 800 at weekend worship has at least tripled, while the number reporting an average worship attendance of fewer than 150 also has increased. The number averaging between 150 and 800 has decreased.

One explanation is the combination of (a) an increase in anonymity, (b) the erosion of institutional loyalties, (c) the demand for relevance, quality, and choices, and (d) the rise of individualism has increased the number of American Christians who find it easy not only to "switch" from one congregation to another, but also to leave one religious tradition for a different denomination or to join an independent or nondenominational church. Anonymity makes it easier for Americans to become members of a religious congregation than to become assimilated into that fellowship.

An operational interpretation suggests the number of congregations able to respond effectively to anonymity has increased, as has the number unable to design, adopt, and implement a strategy to combat anonymity. Obviously, other factors also have undergirded that trend.

Overlapping that pattern is the tens of thousands of Christian congregations in America who report their average worship attendance is down at least one-third from their peak.

Thus, one consequence is the growing demand for help in designing, adopting, and implementing a strategy to combat anonymity. That is the focus of Part II in this discussion and will be the subject of next month's essay.

Lyle Schaller is the son of a Bohemian mother and a German ancestry father, both of whom were born in America to immigrant parents. All six of his children, however, identify themselves as Americans.

Copyright 2008 Lyle E. Schaller