Missiology – Page 6 – Andy Rowell

See the post I coauthored with the editors of Leadership Journal at the Out of Ur blog:

Missional vs. Attractional: Debating the Research
What do the numbers say? It depends who you ask.

by Url Scaramanga & Andy Rowell

Summary:

In the comments of a recent post, Scot McKnight, David Fitch, Dan Kimball and Alan Hirsch argued about what the church stats say. They called for evidence. So in this post, I lay out some quantitative data that is relevant to the discussion. (See my Following Dan Kimball's Missional vs. Megachurch conversation to get caught up on the chronology of the discussion). The evidence I present is not decisive for "either side" but it sheds light on what we know and don't know. My point is merely that we need to be careful about making broad claims about where the church is growing and declining. I agree that we need to be reasonably informed about sociology but that our direction comes from theology.

Here are the footnotes that they edited out:

Scott Thumma and Dave Travis, Beyond Megachurch Myths: What We Can Learn from America's Largest Churches (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007), 124-125.

Stanley Presser and Mark Chaves, "Is Religious Service Attendance Declining?" Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 46 (2007): 417.

Rodney Stark, What Americans Really Believe (Waco: Baylor, 2008), 14.

Scott Thumma and Dave Travis, Beyond Megachurch Myths: What We Can Learn from America's Largest Churches (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007), 8-9.

Notes about interpreting David Olson's The American Church in Crisis statistics:

As I have noted before, David Olson's research is principally based on statistics from 20 or so denominations. It tells us something but not necessarily about all churches in the U.S.

The quote in the article from Olson was not suggested by me but by the Leadership Journal editors. It is from the following piece:

Rebecca Barnes and Lindy Lowry, "The American Church in Crisis", Outreach magazine, May/June 2006.

The claims by Olson are also made in his book:

David T. Olson, The American Church in Crisis: Groundbreaking Research Based on a National Database of over 200,000 Churches (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008).

Olson tallies together headcounts from denominations and based on that argues that the attendance number is fairly stable but the American population is growing. First, I do not think his numbers adequately represent independent churches and smaller denominations. Second, I know of no other researcher who depends on headcounts as Olson does with so little clarification about establishing a comprehensive methodology.

D. Michael Lindsay, assistant professor of sociology at Rice University, notes in response to Olson's research:

"Counting heads to estimate weekly worship service attendance is far less reliable than estimates based on survey responses . . . For researchers to generalize head counts to the entire adult population, they must be conducted as an exhaustive consensus or a representative sample."

D. Michael Lindsay, "Gallup's Research Remains More Reliable Than Counting Heads," Rev. Magazine (Mar/Apr 2008): 59.

It should be said that I appreciate Olson's research for what it does tell us and I used it in my previous post "Megachurch Misinformation" at Out of Ur. For example, one can look at the church planting statistics from 10 denominations. These stats do not tell us about church planting in America comprehensively but give a nice snapshot.

Additional notes about young adults:

I do not mean in the Out of Ur post to paint a rosy picture of American Christianity. As Andy Crouch notes in the comments, there is no room for complacency.

Robert Wuthnow points out that frequent church attendance among young adults is down from 31 percent in the 1970s to 25 percent more recently.

Wuthnow writes,

Specifically, 6 percent of younger adults [age 21-45] in the recent period [1998, 2000, 2002 GSS] claim that they attend religious services more than once a week, compared with 7 percent in the earlier period [1972-1976], and 14 percent in the in the recent period claim they attend every week down from 19 percent previously. At the other extreme, 20 percent say they never attend, compared with only 14 percent earlier. How should we think about these changes? On the one hand, it is important not to exaggerate their significance. In many ways, younger adults at the start of the twenty-first century are like younger adults in the early 1970s. If we count as 'regular' attenders, those who participate nearly every week or more often, only a quarter (25 percent) of younger adults can be considered regular attenders now, and fewer than a third (31 percent) were in the early 1970s. The majority of younger adults either attend religious service rarely, or if they attend more than that, are hardly regular enough to be the core of any congregation. On the other hand, the fact that regular attenders now characterize only 25 percent of younger adults, whereas this proportion was 31 percent in the 1970s represents a decline that cannot easily be dismissed.

Robert Wuthnow, After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings Are Shaping the Future of American Religion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 52-53.

Conclusion:

I love all kinds of churches. All need to be continually evaluated by good theology.

As I said in my earlier post Megachurch Misinformation,

All of us want "more and better disciples of Jesus" (a phrase I first
heard from Brian McLaren). In the Church of England, they are talking
about a "mixed economy" of "fresh expressions" of church being a good
thing–in other words different churches will reach different people. I
am hopeful about both missional and megachurch expressions of church.

Related:

See also my posts:

Weekly U.S.A. Church Attendance: The Sociologists Weigh In

and

Following Dan Kimball's Missional vs. Megachurch conversation

and my posts in the Sociology category.

In 1995, Rick Warren published The Purpose Driven Church. It was perhaps the most influential book in church circles in the decade. It was the definitive "how-to" manual of how grow a megachurch. In it, he presented Donald McGavran's "Church Growth" principles from the 1970's to a new generation. Younger leaders in their 30's like Leadership Journal managing editor Skye Jethani and myself continue to feel like these ideas need further theological reflection. In his post in January 2008 entitled Sense & Sensitivity: Why It’s Time to Abandon the Seeker-Sensitive Model, Skye reflects on biblical and monastic hospitality and urges churches to embrace people first rather than focusing on which people our church is targeting. Although I largely agree with Skye, I want to affirm in the seeker sensitive approach the principle of intentionality. I think it makes sense to be intentional about how we are communicating in our worship services but I agree with Skye that a narrow target is theologically problematic.

What we need I believe is a wider target. The educational and missional and liturgical task demand that we attempt to communicate as clearly as we can with as many people in attendance as possible. For those not involved in this ideological argument between seeker-senstive vs. not seeker-sensitive, this should be quite obvious. In plain English, the pastor and worship leaders should attempt to draw in and engage as many people who may attend the church from the surrounding community as possible. This is the wide target. This involves speaking clearly, using music that has broad appeal, and using images that are accessible to a large range of people. This is why the tasks of preaching and leading worship are so difficult. However, this seemingly obvious insight does have some edge to it, some "bite," because it means that congregational worship and preaching that only appeals to the most entrenched insiders needs to be given greater accessibility. The pastor can address very complex Christian concepts and stories but they need to use vocabulary that people readily understand (or they need to define those theological words). Rituals need to explained. Music needs to be singable or otherwise accessible or it needs to be carefully taught. What Warren and other seeker-sensitive people get is that the person who visits the church for the first time needs to be given tips and help on making sense of what is going on. This, as I argue below, however does not mean that churches need to only have one target audience. They need to be intentional about communicating with the wider target of their surrounding community.

Here then is my comment on Skye's blog in response to his post.

I think this theological probing into hospitality is important work. I agree with you that the biggest problem with seeker-sensitive approaches is that they seek to capitalize on people's social prejudices by giving them an environment, communication and music that makes them feel comfortable. This can tend to reinforce social barriers. If the worship service is designed to appeal to "Saddleback Sam . . . in his late thirties or early forties . . . among the most affluent of Americans" (Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995, p. 169-170), then one wonders whether people who do not fit this profile will feel that they do not belong.

As one attempts to speak the language of the people; (I like this terminology because it makes one think of the missionary task or educational task); we must be careful to include the whole surrounding community–a wider target. Warren and others are wrong I think for championing the targeting of one demographic (Saddleback Sam), but they are right in wanting to clearly communicate the gospel of Jesus to those present in language those people understand. "Why do we got to all this trouble defining the typical person we're trying to reach? Because the more you understand someone the easier it is to communicate with him" (Warren, Purpose Driven Church, 171). Yes, that we can agree with. Warren contradicts his own emphasis on Saddleback Sam when he notes in passing that his church has not rigidly followed the single-demographic targeting! He notes, "One of the advantages of being a large church is that you have the resources to go after multiple targets . . . we've been able to add additional ministries and outreach programs to reach young adults, single adults, prisoners, the elderly, parents with ADD children, and Spanish-, Vietnamese-, and Korean-speaking people, as well as many other targets" (Warren, Purpose Driven Church, 159-160). Warren's conscience, even in 1995 before his awakening to the needs to the world, would not allow him to strictly only target one group's needs. But he is wrong that only large churches have the luxury of reaching a variety of people. No, every church needs to intentionally communicate with (and minister to) the broad range of people who live within their community.

Therefore, I do not think that it is mutually exclusive to "welcome strangers indiscriminately into our tent/monastery/church" and "determine our target audience’s desires in advance." Preparing for people to come over is precisely what hospitable people do. The monastery has clean beds and food in the cupboards so that when the stranger shows up, they can be hosted appropriately. Similarly, it is appropriate for churches to prepare well to communicate with the people who will come through the doors.

Furthermore, negligence by worship leaders and preachers in preparing well to communicate in language that guests understand will not necessarily lead to congregation members stepping up and being more hospitable. I have seen friendly and distant congregation members at both seeker megachurches and traditional small churches but my sense is that the pastor and worship leaders have a significant role in shaping congregational practice by their own example and practice.