The Question and Answer 1999 Archive of the
RRA Discussion Board

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Index of Topics Discussed:

Denominational Clergy Beliefs
Maintaining a Denomination’s market share
Changes in Rates of Church Attendance
Do demographics do any good?
Converts from other Denominations

 

Question about Denominational Clergy Beliefs [from a denominational researcher]

I wondered if you might be able to steer me to some information. I am trying to finish a chapter in a book based on a survey of ministers in Churches of Christ. Tom Winter and I had twelve questions at the beginning of the survey that I understood and which we billed as questions used in a number of surveys of ministers in other religious bodies. We wanted to do some comparisons with our ministers' answers and those from other churches.

1. Adam and Eve were real historical persons. (96.9% agree/ 1.5 % disagree)

2. The Scriptures are the inerrant word of God not only in matters of faith but also in historic, geographic and other secular matters. (94.1 % agree/ 3.9 % disagree)

3. I believe that the virgin birth of Jesus was a biological miracle. (98.1 % agree/ 1.4 % disagree)

4. I accept Jesus' physical resurrection as an objective historic fact in the same sense that Lincoln's physical death was a historical fact. (98.2 % agree/ 1.5 % disagree)

5. When the Bible says the earth will be destroyed by fire, it probably means nuclear war. (1.3% agree/ 72.3 % disagree)

6. I believe the Devil really exists. (99.5 % agree/ 0.5 % disagree)

7. I believe in a dispensational interpretation of Scripture. (39.8 % agree/ 42.1 % disagree)

8. An understanding of the language of myth and symbol is important for interpreting the Bible. (61.8 % agree/ 29.2% disagree)

9. Scripture does not support the idea that women should seek to be ordained ministers. (84.4% agree/ 10.8 % disagree)

10. The Bible clearly teaches a premillennial view of history and the future. (2.3 % agree/ 90.7 % disagree

11. All churches of Christ should adhere to a common doctrinal statement. (37.7 % agree/ 55.9 % disagree)

12. When doctrinal disputes arise in a church, the minister should be the final authority. (2.5 % agree/ 95.8 % disagree)

I have data from a survey done in 1988 that allows me to compare our answers with those of Assemblies of God, SBC, Reformed, UMC, PCUSA, and Disciples on the questions concerning Adam and Eve, Biblical Inerrancy, Virgin Birth, the Devil, Dispensational interpretation of scripture, and premillennialism. (1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 10)

Do you know where I might find data on the other questions to do comparisons with them as well?

Answer 1 – [from an academic researcher]

Soon the Faith Communities Today/ Cooperative Congregations Study Project will be out. This will have excellent comparative information. Unfortunately there are almost no belief questions asked. http://fact.hartsem.edu

 

Question – Maintaining a Denomination’s market share [by a denominational researcher]

Does anyone know of any literature/studies information on how "tough" it is for a denomination to maintain its market share?

Rationale: I realizing I am biasing your responses with my question--"tough." As our denomination prepares for its national meeting, I have been asked to put together predictions/projections of what its membership would like like if it kept its current percentage of the US population in 1999 in the future, say the year 2020.

With straight line projects, the numbers, for this denomination, are somewhat staggering since The denomination would need to show a net increase each year rather than its current net loss.

I would like some annotation to go with my numbers--how tough is it for a denomination to maintain its growth? What is the best way to maintain market share (aggressive membership drives and new member campaigns or new church starts)? What does it cost, financially, to be successful? In the end, can the growth be maintained? Or, is this all part of the lifecyles of denominations?

Answer 1 – [by another denominational researcher]

The question seems to presume that through goal-directed effort a denomination can "succeed" by growing enough to keep up with the population. I thought the denomination would have rejected that line of thinking years ago after they set a goal to double in size and then continued to decline. To quote Ezra Earl Jones, a system is designed to produce the results it is getting. So, the denomination (and others) are designed to decline. If we were to work harder at it we might decline even faster. To get different results you have to redesign the system, not work harder or do a better job at what you are already doing.

Answer 2 – [by a church consultant]

I would like to suggest to you that for a major denomination to maintain its market share it must be successful over a long period of time with extremely aggressive strategies. It is almost statistically impossible.

1. You would have to start every year a number of new congregations equal to four percent of the number of current existing congregations. Per 100 churches started this would cost the denomination $2,500,000 per year thefirst year, and by the fifth year would be costing $12,500,000 and then hold steady at that level.

2. You would have to have at least forty percent of the congregations that are at least 25 years old to be growing.

3. The denomination would have to be positioned as a growth-minded denomination.

This is extremely difficult. My denomination has fallen significantly short of this even with a major emphasis on church planting and church growth.

Answer 3 – [by an academic researcher]

I don't have a useful reply to your direct query, but it seems to me that one of the things affecting any particular denomination is immigration. If, for example, it appeared that the US would acquiesce in a Communist takeover of Taiwan, then we might anticipate a massive denominational immigration. In fact, the denomination might promote Taiwanese immigration as a market share/renewal strategy in any case.

Answer 4 – [by another denominational researcher]

I think that is an interesting issue for church growth--the reliance on immigration and, in some cases, migration for church growth. I wonder, though, how legitimate/ realistic is it to rely on immigration/ migration for church growth?

At SSSR/RRA in Boston, Peter Kaldor, in presenting findings from the NCLS in Australia, showed that transfers in/out of churches was pretty much a revolving door that, in the end, pretty much equaled themselves out.

In 1997, The UMC in the US received 83,419 of its "new" members by transfer from other denominations and "lost" 46,087 by transfer to other denominations. Here is a weird statistics kept by The UMC: 124,479 were received as transfers from other UM churches, while 96,776 were "transferred out" to other UM churches. This is weird because it should always total out to zero (according to our Department of Statistics, GCFA). It is keeping track of internal movement, but it never does equal zero. Anyway, the transfer in/out is pretty much a revolving door.

Rick Warren in his The Purpose Driven Church, and others as well, have called this growth reshuffling the deck."

The UMC's "growing" annual conferences are in the Southeast and South Central Jurisdictions and while adding new members received on confession of faith. These conferences are gaining most of their growth through UM transfer or other denomination transfer. Nothing new here, as "elderly" people and others migrate to South and Southeast they take their church membership with them--causing these conferences to "grow." (I have dubbed these conferences "old growth" conferences.) Yet, despite this "growth" the denomination continues to show a decline.

So, what's my point? No, point, just another question: How realistic/legitimate is it for a denomination/church to base its growth on transfer?

Answer 5 – [by an academic researcher]

Re: immigration and growth. If you check out two recent papers by Ronald Lawson (SOR 1998, RRR 1999) I have written about the growth of Adventism as a result of immigration from the Developing World--both the immigration of those who are already Adventists and the growth among their compatriots as a result of their evangelism. These are the source of Adventist growth the last couple fo decades in the US--the rest pretty much cancels out.

Answer 6 – [by a church consultant]

While I would acknowledge that there are all kinds of problems with the terminology, I use the term kingdom growth rather than church growth to distinguish between simply shuffling members around--transfer growth--and true growth in the number of people who are on a Christian faith journey.

This also throws out the idea of merging denominations with the motive to achieve growth. It isn't kingdom growth, it is survival. Its like merging two congregations to achieve growth. I do not know if the same principle works for denominations, but one church plus one church merged out of weakness equals one church the size of the larger of the two within five years.

When you talk about the South Central and Southeast areas you also have to ask the question is it really growth if it does not at least keep up with the population growth. Of course, then you are back to your question about market share.

Your only real hope is to start a new denomination that is aggressive in church planting. It will keep up and improve its market share for about a generation of time. Then it too may lose market share from then on.

Question – Changes in Rates of Church Attendance [by a denominational researcher]

It was reported in the church newsletter for the church that I attend [an independent Church of Christ (musical)] that for the fifth straight year--the total Sunday worship attendance at the first Sunday after school started was the highest attendance for the year (they are projecting out for 1999) than any other Sunday, excluding the big holidays--Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day, etc. If the pattern holds, the attendance will drop below this record high, but stay above last year's average as this church continues to grow.

Any comments? Have others seen similar patterns in churches they have studied? Is there something about going back to school in the fall that leads families to try to attend church as part of the fall activities?

No Answers but a good question…

Question – Do demographics do any good?

[from a denominational researcher]

Many congregations, like businesses, obtain demographic data on their neighborhoods. Our office even supplies such demographic profiles to congregations for a small fee, and I believe ELCA has such data

available free via the Web. What I want to know is, with all these numbers floating around out there, what good is it doing? What happens in a congregations as a result of getting the age, sex, marital status, income, etc., of the neighborhood? Can any of you describe a "success story" of congregation that looked specifically at a demographic report and was inspired to start some program or ministry that was successful--an evangelism outreach, say, or starting a day care center? I'd be happy with a negative example, too, say where a church thought about starting a ministry to single moms and then scrapped the idea after looking at the census data.

Answer – [from a demographic church consultant]

Let me share some years of observation and conversation on the use of demographic data by churches. Congregations that request demographic data use for three reasons: First, to meet denominational requirements; second, to assure themselves about what they know about their community; and third, to initiate or "tune up" their ministry and program.

The first reason is the most common. A sizable number of denominations stipulate or suggest (depending on polity) that congregations collect demographic data about their community when in the process of recruiting new ministry and as they prepare a congregational profile. Others which have loan programs, for example, that may require such data when the congregation is the process of building a new unit or purchasing new land. And in still others, various denominational grant or assistance programs also want to know about the community in order to judge the feasibility of redevelopment. Sometimes as the result of this data the congregation will in fact embark on new ministries, but usually this occurs much later on.

The second reason generally is the case when a congregation is in some type of self-study, either through a consultant or through congregational leadership. Sometimes this is the result of a denominational program, but it more generally occurs when a congregation is doing long range planning. In a few instances, it may be because the congregation is in trouble, such as having had a sudden loss of members or has become financially unable to replace a long-time pastor. While here again the demographic data may lead to specific ministries based on, as you suggested, age data, generally what happens is the congregation assures itself of its general direction in the community, or perhaps makes some generalized modification in that direction. In some cases, it may lead to drastic steps, such as relocation, merger or the entire shifting of the church's focus, but this is rare. Most churches are already acutely aware when they and their communities are out of synch and that the life of the congregation is imperiled. Demographic data only confirms it, and solidifies their decision-making.

The third reason is rarer, and is primarily confined to churches that are actively engaged in finding new ways to evangelize the community. They are searching for new ministries and programs for outreach in the community. In most cases, this is a pastor-led process, and occurs more often in newer churches than in older churches, more often in generalist megachurches than in small niche churches. On example that comes to mind is in the Southern Baptist Convention, whose Home Missions research department prepared for its congregations detailed books in the 1980s on demographic data, and what specific programs may be needed in certain situations. It is more common, however, for a congregation to have decided on a particular course, such as offering day-care, and then look at the demographic data to make sure it is really needful, i.e, they're not about to jump off a ledge.

Finally, some congregations end up getting demographic data without requesting it, usually because of a judicatory-level study. Congregations generally see this as helpful and useful in their life (but not decisive). The exception are instances where judicatories use the data to pressure congregations to pursue the judicatory's own goals, such as starting certain types of ministries or gaining so many members, which congregations are known to resent. In such irksome cases, the tail ends of high shelves in lightly trafficked church libraries or a distant storeroom is the normal repository for such studies.

Question – Converts from other Denominations [from a denominational researcher]

I received a request from a local church on the number of "converts/new members" that denominations/faith groups receive from "other denominations/faith groups" in their most recent reporting year.

Answer 1 – [from a denominational researcher]

In 1996 (our most current data), the United Methodist Church received 84,724 "new members/converts" from other denominations (denominations/faith groups not specified) out of a total of 407,897 new members that year.

Answer 2 – [from a denominational researcher]

For 1997 (latest available) the Lutheran Church-- Missouri Synod had the following membership gains from "outside":

15,054 adults received by profession of faith
8,881 adults received from other Lutheran bodies
29,508 adults confirmed (unknown how many are "converts")
total ------ 53,443

Answer 3 – [from a denominational researcher]

For the Presbyterian Church, USA - 1997 (our most recent data)
163,387 Total Gains
97,315 (59.6%) - Profession of Faith Gains
52,336 (32.0%) - Certificate Gains (transfers from other churches)
13,736 ( 8.4%) - Other Gains (all other additions- including adjustments)