Podcast Episode #060
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If you were attending a church worship service in 1955 and then returned to the same church in 1975, the changes would be noticeable but not dramatic. Churches were slow to change over that 20-year period. If you, however, attended a church worship service in 2000 and then returned to that same church in 2010, there is a high likelihood you would see dramatic changes in just ten years.
So today, Jonathan and I discuss some of those changes that are happening in worship services. The related post for this topic was one that caused a lot of discussion and at least a little controversy. In this week’s episode, we share some of the reaction to the original post, dive deeper into some of the changes more, and I explain why I hate neckties.
- Choirs are disappearing. From 1998 to 2007, the percentage of churches with choirs decreased from 54% to 44%. If that pace holds to this year, the percentage of churches with choirs is only 37%.
- Dress is more casual. In many churches, a man wearing a tie in a worship service is now among the few rather than the majority. While the degree of casual dress is contextual, the trend is crossing all geographic and demographic lines.
- Screens are pervasive. Some of you remember the days when putting a projection screen in a worship center was considered a sacrilege. Now most churches have screens. And if they have hymnals, the hymnals are largely ignored and the congregants follow along on the screens.
- Preaching is longer. I will soon be in the process of gathering this data to make certain the objective research confirms the anecdotal information.
- “Multi” is normative. Most congregants twenty years ago attended a Sunday morning worship service where no other Sunday morning alternatives were available. Today, most congregants attend a service that is part of numerous alternatives: multi-services; multi-campuses; multi-sites; and multi-venues.
- Attendees are more diverse. The Duke study noted the trend of the decrease in the number of all-white congregations.
- Conflict is not increasing. In a recent post, I noted the decreasing frequency of worship wars. The Duke study noted that overall church conflict has not increased over a 20-year period.
- More worship attendees are attending larger churches. Churches with an attendance of 400 and up now account for 90% of all worship attendees. Inversely, those churches with an attendance of under 400 only account for 10% of worship attendees.
- Sunday evening services are disappearing. This issue has stirred quite a bit of discussion the past few years.
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Love the info. Would like to see these ideas and stats looking through a rural lens. I’m certain it would be quite different.
Picked up a copy of “Autopsy” today. Read it in 90 minutes. Going to get more copies for staff and Deacons. We, like a lot of churches I’m sure, covet prayers for renewal and God honoring growth based on the mandate of the Great Commission. Thom, you were as nice as you could have been with the facts. It is a serious diagnosis that You made palatable. Thank You for articulating what I believe many Pastors as shepherds see but sometimes only the critics of the pastors care to notice; decline. Pray it will open eyes and change hearts for the Gospel’s sake. God Bless You Sir.
Thank you so much!
These changes are not only happening in Christian churches. They are also happening in synagogues.
I’m the Director of Missions in an association in Missouri. Today we signed the paperwork to transfer the deed of a church that died to a Nazarene congregation that has begun an active ministry in that community.
I read Autopsy in 2 hours, and then bought a case to give to pastors in my association. I gave one to a pastor whose Sunday morning attendance has dwindled to 15. A week later he came and asked for 10 copies for his people to read.
Thanks Thom for a concise tool that is helping pastors bring up the unthinkable… the death of “our” church.
Thank you Phillip. And thanks for your ministry.
As a pastor for over 45 years both as a bi vocational and full support in churches that have rarely seen an average attendance of 100, I have seen and participated in many of these changes. Perhaps one of the hardest was to go away from a Sunday evening service, yet our Wednesday family night and bible study has been a great replacement. The key is to make change work for you. Unfortunately the rise in large churches has caused some small church pastors and their members to believe that they are in competition with the large churches. They believe that they are out resourced by the larger churches. Yet it is clear in scripture that each God directed church has all the resources they need to do his work within that body. The prime directive of the church is to pierce the world with the gospel. We are not in competition with each other, we are in competition with the world for the souls of men. The most valuable thing to hold on to in this society is Biblical Doctrine. Ministry will and must change. However the needs of the lost will remain the same. The biblical truth of Jesus Christ is their only hope and it must be preached and taught. Do this and the growth and the changes will take care of themselves.
Rev. Mullins, that was direct at to the point. Having been a member of and/or pastored churches from a few dozen up to 4,000, I know that what you wrote is on target. In fact, I turned it into a little poster that I put on our church’s FB page. The link to the page is here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/wumcoffairview/
Direct to the image is here:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/t1.0-9/p180x540/10443503_10153148608169057_8668157457272937133_n.jpg
On thing you failed to observe is the dwindling of baby boomers in successful churches. It has been my observation that baby boomers have experienced a great amount of privilege beyond any generation before or after them. This over privilege has caused them to rise from humble beginnings to arrogant pride based solely on the accomplishments of their fathers. They are the first generation to refuse to pass the torch. Their selfishness and arrogance has caused them to become the gatekeepers of traditional Christian museums. The generation that follows has been forced to blaze their own trail because they have never been trusted with adulthood in the church. As a result, they are now coming of age with strong Christian character free from the religious mores of the past. This next generation is going to change the world. This is the subject of a book that needs to be written. I am an author too. I would love to work with you on this project. I have a lot of insight into this. Please contact me.
There are many “boomers” who are passing the torch. They may not be well known. They may not be getting all of the attention and press. They may not be up to date on all of the trends and movements, but they are passing on the truths of God Word. They are passing on to the next generation that whatever rises and falls you can count on the inerrant, infallible, perfect Word of God. They are passing on to the next generation how to rightly divide the word of truth. They are passing on to the next generation that you can hold a book in your hands and that this book is the Bible and is God’s perfect word. Every generation changes the world for good or bad. The question is will the next generation focus on the preaching and teaching of God’s Word or how to apply the latest church trends and fashions. A small group will cling to God and His word. I hope I’m wrong, but from what I see most will plunge headlong into apostasy!
A question about #10… I don’t doubt that this is true, but isn’t it also true that a vast majority of congregations are less than 100 in weekly attendance-meaning, more people may be attending program and corporate sized congregations due to urbanization, but pastoral and family sized churches still make up most of the American Church?
??? There is no #10.
I look forward to reading the book! I would be very curious about the trend in discipleship? I bet there are fewer “Sunday Schools” and a lot more “home-type” groups. I also bet churces have a larger “outreach” component. I always lke to say the previous generation of churches think the church was winning the cultural war and we were primarily a Christian nation. Therefore they just needed to exist and people would come. Younger churches realize we have primarily lost the cultural war and we are now primarily not a Christian nation. The church is a foreign object in our country. So, we have to function more like missionaries. I think this is a huge difference between younger and older churches.
I also think that older churches are looking for something built on quality, where yonger churches value authenticity. Part of that is how we speak about Christian stuff. Here’s an article that talks about not using “Christianese.” http://refuelblog.com/2014/03/26/christianese-not-suitable-for-small-group/
Disagree with #4 longer preaching is not well tolerated.
I have witnessed this in more than just our SBC churches.
You don’t go over into people’s Sunday lunch and shopping time. This is yet another result of our modern 24/7 society.
I have noticed in more Reformed church that are growing that longer preaching is more tolerated. There is a major desire for the Word now and expository preaching from stories alone. I grew up with 25 minute sermons that started at 11:25-11:50 and out by noon. Now I sit under a preacher who goes to about 50 minutes at most. It’s very normal and honestly great as it is the focus.
My husband and I have been in full-time ministry for 24 years. I teach at a Christian university. I’m tired of people talking about how the church has changed. What has REALLY happened is the commercialization of church….church looks just like the world with the coffee bars, bookstores, light shows, songs, and ridiculous “worship” that goes on today. What I see is the mass production of shallow Christians who are without spiritual growth or knowledge. The number of people who call themselves believers who are no different in their lives than the average non-believer is staggering. The students I see on a daily basis have no idea how to live out their faith. They have grown up in the church of entertainment. It is the saddest time in the history of the American church. We have become tolerant and luke warm as believers. I pray for revival, in the truest sense, an awakening of God’s people followed by repentence led by pastors who quit trying to have a mega church by making it “relevant”, “seeker friendly”, “progressive”, or “contemporary”. Just be the church, led by the Spirit…not by marketing strategies.
Only problem with the prognosis (Greek πρόγνωσις “fore-knowing, foreseeing”)) of a DEAD CHURCH is It Never had LIFE. If we are going to go as far as to foresee the future of the Church, you might want to check the book that states “the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church”.
I agree with Becky, the tolerant and luke warm as believers had settle in for something less than the triumphant Church; I do agree with all your points, but what I see in the rural ministry outreach are small, remnants of servants of God that never bought into the mass hysteria of bigger is better. I am still holding on to a greater move of God to save our communities and country, but it is looking more and more like the remnant Church that will still believing Christ is soon to come…
Don’t take my comments out of context, I like mass worship and the exhilaration of when more that two or three coming together in agreement. Yet it looks like Craig’s theory of “they (boomers) believed, but they never got it”.
In the past, churches were commonly named according to their theology, (baptist, reformed, etc), or according to their geographical context (city name, etc). It seems a growing trend is for church names to be more generic, revealing less association with their theology or geography.
Thom,
I think (HOPE) you have a small calculation problem with #8. Your statistic was startling and I want to double check it with what I found on the National Congregations Study:
(http://www.soc.duke.edu/natcong/Docs/NCSII_report_final.pdf)
“Most congregations remain small, with 90% having 350 or fewer people. Even though there are relatively few large congregations with many members, sizable budgets, and numerous staff, these congregations are large enough that they actually contain most churchgoers. Even though the average congregation has only 75 regular participants and an annual budget of $90,000, the average person is in a congregation with 400 people and a budget of $280,000.”
“To get a feel for just how concentrated people are in the largest congregations, imagine that we have lined up all congregations in the United States, from the smallest to the largest. Imagine that you are walking up this line, starting with the smallest. When you get to a congregation with 400 people, you would have walked past about half of all churchgoers, but more than 90% of all congregations! Or imagine walking down this line of congregations from the other direction, starting with the very largest. When you get to that same 400-person congregation, you would have walked past only about 10% of all congregations but half of all churchgoers.”
“In a nutshell, the largest 10% of congregations contain about half of all churchgoers.”
I have always wondered if the mega churches ,for the most part, are making Disciples or just moving Disciples?
EXCELLENT discussions here! Thanks Thom and guests for your willingness to address these topics.
Thank you!