Attending Church Is About Him, Not Us

[Thousand Hills]

I realize there are those within the SBC who view its slow growth as predicting a "dire future" for the denomination. That fact is, out of all the denominations in the country, it is the only one actually growing. Slowly, yes, but it is growing in membership, though over the last few years, average attendance is down somewhat. Still, it is the only denomination that is gaining in affiliated churches -- i.e., there are more SBC churches. A great deal of the declining attendance is found in the definition of what constitutes "regular attendance." Gallup gives a narrow range that requires "regular" to be defined as "weekly." While that's ideal, it isn't the nature of today's churchgoer and that nature doesn't represent the apathy many -- and I'm thinking you are included in this grouup -- seem to believe it is.

Again, from 2012 Lifeway information I posted in another thread.

Although the number of SBC-affiliated congregations grew, reported membership of those churches declined more than one hundred thousand, down 0.7 percent to 15.9 million members. Primary worship attendance declined 3.1 percent to 5.97 million Sunday worshippers.

Although baptisms were a bright spot in last year's report, increasing 0.7 percent, this year's report shows a decline of 5.5 percent to 314,956 people. Reported baptisms have declined six of the last eight years with 2012 the lowest since 1948. The ratio of baptisms to total members increased to one baptism for every fifty members.

"While we celebrate every new baptized believer represented by these numbers, fewer reported baptisms is heartbreaking," said Thom S. Rainer, president and CEO of LifeWay.

"Southern Baptists cannot rest on what God accomplished through us in prior years. The message of the gospel is alive, relevant, and powerful today, and the Great Commission task of sharing it should excite and embolden us as Christians."

By my math less than 38% of membership (those who have professed Christ, been baptized, say they are born again) actually attend on average for primary worship, its less than 38% because some of the actual attenders may not be members. In your opinion what level should it drop to before you get concerned 20%, 10%, 5%?

 

[Thousand Hills]

By my math less than 38% of membership (those who have professed Christ, been baptized, say they are born again) actually attend on average for primary worship, its less than 38% because some of the actual attenders may not be members. In your opinion what level should it drop to before you get concerned 20%, 10%, 5%?

Bumping this, still waiting for a response from TND about at what point he will start to get concerned.

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

Again, from 2012 Lifeway information I posted in another thread.

You keep posting this LifeWay study, and you continue to ignore the caveat included in the study:

• All the data is self-reported by the church.
• Most of the churches’ data is current.
• In some of the churches, the most recent data came from previous years.
• If a church "should be" on the list but it is not, the most likely explanation is that the church failed to report or chose not to report data.

It's hard to gather information from a denomination that is 100% locally autonomous. If the SBC is actually "shrinking" then why does NAMB consistently plant 150 churches a year? Are they renting or building buildings that they then padlock?

Here are the facts. Ten thousand SBC churches close every ten years. NAMB plants 15,000 churches in the same time frame. So where are the people coming from? And how is it that SBC-affiliated churches make up 25% of the fast-growing Top 100 churches in the U.S.?

 

[Thousand Hills]

You keep posting this LifeWay study, and you continue to ignore the caveat included in the study

You continue to fail to answer my direct question. And instead cast doubt on the data from the horse's mouth. I acknowledge that it likely does not include ALL SBC affiliated churches, but really, it was large enough to show total membership of nearly 16 million and your implying that's an insufficient sample size and the data can't be trusted. :tongue3:

If the SBC is actually "shrinking" then why does NAMB consistently plant 150 churches a year? Are they renting or building buildings that they then padlock?

Here are the facts. Ten thousand SBC churches close every ten years. NAMB plants 15,000 churches in the same time frame. So where are the people coming from? And how is it that SBC-affiliated churches make up 25% of the fast-growing Top 100 churches in the U.S.?

Again, praise God that new churches are being planted, and I'm thankful that men and women are out there laboring for this cause. My hope is that the new ones will be much more healthier and Christ centered then the ones they were replacing.

Again though, you won't acknowledge the facts. You state that of the 100 fastest growing churches in the US that 25% are SBC affiliated. Are these numbers based upon their membership or attendance. They may be gaining a lot of members but are all those members faithfully attending?

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

You continue to fail to answer my direct question.

Your question ...

In your opinion what level should it drop to before you get concerned 20%, 10%, 5%?

... asks for my personal opinion, which is obvious, so yes, I have answered it. On the other hand, while you praise God for more churches ...

Again, praise God that new churches are being planted, and I'm thankful that men and women are out there laboring for this cause. My hope is that the new ones will be much more healthier and Christ centered then the ones they were replacing.

... you fail to respond to my question regarding the ten-year average of SBC churches that close vs. those that open. Please respond to the fact that while 1,000 SBC-affiliated churches close every year, 1,500 more open. How do you suppose that works, if attendance and membership are shrinking?

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

You continue to fail to answer my direct question. And instead cast doubt on the data from the horse's mouth. I acknowledge that it likely does not include ALL SBC affiliated churches, but really, it was large enough to show total membership of nearly 16 million and your implying that's an insufficient sample size and the data can't be trusted. :tongue3:



Again, praise God that new churches are being planted, and I'm thankful that men and women are out there laboring for this cause. My hope is that the new ones will be much more healthier and Christ centered then the ones they were replacing.

Again though, you won't acknowledge the facts. You state that of the 100 fastest growing churches in the US that 25% are SBC affiliated. Are these numbers based upon their membership or attendance. They may be gaining a lot of members but are all those members faithfully attending?

Have you asked why they are joying if they don't attend?

 

[Thousand Hills]

you fail to respond to my question regarding the ten-year average of SBC churches that close vs. those that open. Please respond to the fact that while 1,000 SBC-affiliated churches close every year, 1,500 more open. How do you suppose that works, if attendance and membership are shrinking?

No I responded, and that is great that new churches are being planted to replace the ones dying. Your failing to acknowledge that 1,000 churches closing their doors is an area of concern. I'm thankful new churches are being planted, but sad that so many are closing.

Lets look at some more facts:

http://thomrainer.com/2013/08/03/2013-update-largest-churches-in-the-southern-baptist-convention/

By the way, the SBC has 46,000 churches, and 595 made this list. So approximately 1.3% of the churches have an attendance of 1,000 or greater.

By my math the total average attendance for these large churches is 1,287,837, Which means that these churches contribute to nearly 22% of the average attendance figures for all SBC churches. These churches likely are not at risk of closure.

Now lets look at what a typical SBC church is probably like:

Sunday morning is the primary time for worship in Southern Baptist congregations—98.5 percent conduct services on Sunday morning.
•About 1 in 12 (8.1%) conducts two or more worship services on Sunday morning.
•A small group of large congregations even conduct three or more worship services (1.4%).

Most congregations only have one worship service with the typical congregation (the median) having 80 in attendance

Southern Baptist congregations are typically not large.
•The median number of participants associated in any way with the life of the congregation, is 125.
•When participation is limited to those who regularly attend, the typical congregation has 90 participants—60 adults and 30 children and teens.
•Using these figures from the sample data to infer to the entire population of Southern Baptist congregations, there should be 4.9 million regularly participating adults and another 2.5 million regularly participating children and teens (under age 18).

The source of this information is here:http://www.namb.net/namb1cb1col.aspx?id=8590001122 From what I can tell this report was done in 2000, but is the most recent available. Considering that is almost 15 years, I'm sure a current snapshot would look much worse.

So if the vast majority of SBC churches are relatively small to begin with, and typically most of those have an attendance of 80 to 90, of which 67% are adults, the remainder being youth (studies show 70% of which will drop out between the age of 18 to 22), do you think that if 1,000 churches are closing their doors per year now, how many will be closing their doors in 10-years?

 

[Thousand Hills]

Here are the facts. Ten thousand SBC churches close every ten years. NAMB plants 15,000 churches in the same time frame. So where are the people coming from? And how is it that SBC-affiliated churches make up 25% of the fast-growing Top 100 churches in the U.S.?

Thought this was interesting: http://www.namb.net/namb1cb2col.aspx?id=8590001104

Only 68% of church plants survive after 4 years (We need many more churches being planted to offset the high number that are closing and that will close in the future).

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

Your failing to acknowledge that 1,000 churches closing their doors is an area of concern.

Has nothing to do with people walking away from church or from the faith. Has everything to do with small rural churches, shifting populations, and changing community needs.

I'll give you an example. We just accepted the donation of church property from another Southern Baptist church about seven miles away. This was done with the encouragement of the Kansas-Nebraska Convention. The church membership will begin worshiping with us next Sunday, but next January we will reopen that facility as a satellite of our church. We have outgrown our property, they have six acres, most of it undeveloped. Now, you can look at this as there being one less SBC church in the Kansas City metro. But in reality, it is an opportunity to growth of the gospel through our church, and the net result will be increases in membership and attendance, without risking investment in expansion of church property that will not have a lasting effect, as I'll show you as we go along.

I'm thankful new churches are being planted, but sad that so many are closing.

Without knowing the reasons for the closings, your emotion is misplaced.

Lets look at some more facts:

I'd love to. Please see if you can actually find me some.

By my math the total average attendance for these large churches is 1,287,837, Which means that these churches contribute to nearly 22% of the average attendance figures for all SBC churches. These churches likely are not at risk of closure.

Not now. Wait until their pastors retire. Then we'll see.

Now lets look at what a typical SBC church is probably like:

No, let's not, because your statistics support the mistaken opinion, like so many today, that bigger is better. It isn't. That is why we haven't chosen to sell our church property and acquire more land farther out from the city center to build a "bigger, better church." Our pastor and deacons, as well as our church membership, is convinced that mega-churches are mega-trouble.

A mega-church tends to become a "personality cult" built around the pastor, and our pastor doesn't want that. The typical scenario for a mega-church is that is built up on the ministry and personality of the pastor. Eventually, that pastor retires, and when he does, the church starts a long, slow downhill slide. The satellite church, multi-site church, whatever one wants to call it, the type of scenario our growing and vibrant SBC church has chosen to adopt, isn't as prone to that kind of deterioration. The heart of the congregation is Christ, not the pastor.

The source of this information is here:http://www.namb.net/namb1cb1col.aspx?id=8590001122 From what I can tell this report was done in 2000, but is the most recent available. Considering that is almost 15 years, I'm sure a current snapshot would look much worse.

So if the vast majority of SBC churches are relatively small to begin with, and typically most of those have an attendance of 80 to 90, of which 67% are adults, the remainder being youth (studies show 70% of which will drop out between the age of 18 to 22), do you think that if 1,000 churches are closing their doors per year now, how many will be closing their doors in 10-years?

You're misreading the information NAMB has published here. The median number of 80 to 90 is for those churches which have only one Sunday worship service. That means (of course) that smaller churches have no need for more than one service. Twelve+ percent of SBC churches have two services every Sunday morning, according to your own NAMB source. It says "A small group of large congregations even conduct three or more worship services (1.4%)." I believe that is an editorial comment that doesn't really reflect accurately the vibrancy and increasing need at many smaller SBC churches for multiple morning services on Sunday.

We have three morning services. We have (with the advent of our new campus) 1,000 members. By SBC standards, we are not a large congregation. We don't have a Sunday evening service. Instead, we have multiple adult and youth Bible studies, AWANA, and children's and adult musician and choir practices. Our main alternate service is Wednesday nights, and even with that membership, our average attendance for that service is 70. Note the NAMB site said 78.7% of SBC churcheshave Sunday evening services, but gave the average attendance for them was only 40.

Those statistics -- which you didn't manage to glean yourself, or just chose to ignore -- should tell you that even the mega-churches are not drawing well on Sunday night. That should tell you a lot about the changing demographics of church attendance. It should tell you that your efforts to paint the SBC as being in trouble regarding attendance and membership is a bogus argument.

 

[Thousand Hills]

TND, its really hard to debate someone who keeps misdirecting and refuses to answer direct questions. For clarification:

(1) You hang your hat on the fact that the number of churches is growing, despite the fact that attendance is down. You stated that for every 1,000 that close there are 1,500 that open. I showed you that only 68% of new church plants survive 4-years. Therefore, after 4-years you only really have a net change of 20 churches per year. That's not even 1 per state.

(2) You somehow have mistaken that I'm a lover of "mega churches". The whole point in that last post was that mega churches (those with over 1,000 in attendance) make up 22% of the total attendance on a typical Sunday in the SBC. However, there are not a large number of these churches (only 1% of all churches). The majority of the churches in the SBC have an average Sunday attendance of 80 to 90. As the data shows, there are probably 250 to 300 members on the roll of each church. These churches are in grave danger of eventually closing, unless they do something to make membership meaningful and do something to keeping the 70% of youth that attend from eventually dropping out.

(3) The mistake of following pastors based upon their personality is not just a mega-church thing, it happens around here in Stickville, USA when 20 or 30 people follow a pastor to a new church. But you bring up an important part of this whole discussion, are the 70% of church members who don't regularly attend (however, you want to define that), not attending because they made a "decision" prompted by a man, or were they following a man and not Christ?

(4) Not sure why your throwing in the Sunday night thing. My argument has always been about attendance of primary worship services.

I'll give you an example. We just accepted the donation of church property from another Southern Baptist church about seven miles away. This was done with the encouragement of the Kansas-Nebraska Convention. The church membership will begin worshiping with us next Sunday, but next January we will reopen that facility as a satellite of our church. We have outgrown our property, they have six acres, most of it undeveloped. Now, you can look at this as there being one less SBC church in the Kansas City metro. But in reality, it is an opportunity to growth of the gospel through our church, and the net result will be increases in membership and attendance, without risking investment in expansion of church property that will not have a lasting effect, .........

That is why we haven't chosen to sell our church property and acquire more land farther out from the city center to build a "bigger, better church." Our pastor and deacons, as well as our church membership, is convinced that mega-churches are mega-trouble.

The satellite church, multi-site church, whatever one wants to call it, the type of scenario our growing and vibrant SBC church has chosen to adopt, isn't as prone to that kind of deterioration. The heart of the congregation is Christ, not the pastor.

We have three morning services. We have (with the advent of our new campus) 1,000 members. By SBC standards, we are not a large congregation. We don't have a Sunday evening service. Instead, we have multiple adult and youth Bible studies, AWANA, and children's and adult musician and choir practices. Our main alternate service is Wednesday nights, and even with that membership, our average attendance for that service is 70. FONT]

Thank you for sharing about your vibrant church, this is encouraging to hear. But I think your story actually gives more support to the whole point I'm trying to make. Let me ask, why did the other church not make it? You seem to indicate that churches close because it has everything to do with small rural churches, shifting populations, and changing community needs and that it has nothing to do with people walking away from church or from the faith. If its all about demographics, then why would your church want to open a satellite campus where a previous one failed. Doesn't sound like a very smart move. What is your church going to do differently in that particular community that the previous church didn't do? Also, out of this you are gaining new members/attendance at your particular church, but did the SBC as a whole really grow?

It should tell you that your efforts to paint the SBC as being in trouble regarding attendance and membership is a bogus argument.

We probably agree on more than we disagree on in all honesty. However, I tend to think my argument is gnarly, not bogus. :laugh: