We want information…”
That was the theme behind a short-lived British TV spy series in the mid-60s. Today, the church needs information as badly as any intelligence agency ever has and it is as vital to the denomination’s survival as anything found by spies.
The kind of information I’m talking about is not exactly secret, but it does take some work to uncover it.
What we need are sophisticated demographics that give a picture of the catchment area for a congregation. This wouldn’t be needed for every congregation in the church—no offence, but small rural churches are rarely more than that—however, urban and suburban churches frequently find themselves in a swirl of change.
What were once WASP enclaves have transformed into any number of ethnic landing pads for a latest wave of immigrants, usually not of Presbyterian persuasion.
A Presbyterian congregation that finds itself in the middle of a large Hindu or Sikh community is going to be challenged to survive.
Not surprisingly, the denomination is looking for success stories to boost morale and give people ideas. Several such stories were highlighted at this year’s General Assembly. They were all fascinating good news stories.
Unfortunately, a detailed description of each congregation was missing. Without far more data than was presented, it was impossible to determine what were the most important factors in each congregation’s revival and whether their success would be replicable.
If a church is surviving primarily because a developer gave them a million dollars for land or air rights, there is little that can be repeated in churches that are not in that kind of situation. What the congregation does with the money will be interesting and important, but that’s it.
The real question is why more denominations are not investing in this kind of research. To be sure, it won’t be cheap, but neither is the impact of declining financial resources and poorly deployed ministry leaders.
Consider the retail world we participate in daily. From grocery stores to gas stations to the battle of the big box stores, retailers either pay close attention to the demographics of their outlets or they lose business and fold.
Growing congregations are doing so by paying attention (sometimes by luck) to their demographics—or they have an attractional leader.
There is a reluctance in the church to acknowledge this phenomenon, preferring to see preaching skills or a theological perspective to explain a sudden revival.
Often, however, the answer is mostly due to a young, usually male (when will this change, O Lord?) minister. If said minister has a young family, all the better: there’s the makings of a Sunday school reboot with guaranteed attendance.
It may seem unfairly mundane that parking lots are among the most important features of congregational success. And that’s just a fraction of the data the denomination needs to gather and take note of as churches are closed, rebuilt or planted.
Denominational decline is not written in stone. But revival may well be written in data.
