Blame it on the Lucky Few—the Silent Generation—as they are called. Those who were born between 1925 and 1942 are the parents of most of the Baby Boomers—my generation. And the last of my generation did not get baptized at the same rate as those born in the 1940s and early ’50s.
The result? Deceptively, all those Boomer children and their parents filled churches in the late 1950s and ’60s to overflowing. The result was that mainline denominations in Canada thought they were on top of the world. Cinderblock churches were being thrown up across the country as fast as the mortar could dry.
Given the general state of euphoria, it’s hardly surprising no one looked at the crucial numbers: how many baptisms were performed each year. In 1958, 11,380 adults and babies were baptized in the Presbyterian Church. In 1959? Only 10,726. The problem? The year 1959 had the highest number of births in Canadian history.
In other words, not only did the number of baptisms fall, they fell against a rising population. It was the beginning of the decline that we are all pondering today.
Membership in the PCC (post-Church Union) peaked at 202,566 in 1964. By 1975, it had fallen to about the same level as 1945, just over 170,000. Today it stands between 90 and 95,000, a decline of almost 50 per cent in 40 years.
The PCC is not unique in this regard. Mainline Christianity across North America and Europe is going through a similar, sometimes worse, shift. It’s been fodder for both church growth consultants and critics.
Critics don’t like facts getting in the way of a story, so they too have ignored the demographics and blamed so-called liberal theology for the churches’ decline. Among other things, this conveniently ignores the decline now being felt among Evangelicals.
It also plays into the numbers game (as opposed to whether people are actually growing in their relationship with God) and the fact that most of that growth is deeply linked to a backlash among people who have been upset by the fast pace of change and the decline of institutions as a whole in society.
For church consultants it’s been a boon. They have addressed a host of issues, helping churches engage people more effectively, from the development of small-group ministry to more relaxed worship styles to church planting.
Actually, all those cinderblock buildings were church plants. We just didn’t call them that then.
But once they were built, we lost our enthusiasm for continuing to spread the church into communities. And instead of looking at those cheap little churches (let’s face it, some of them are pretty uninspiring) as temporary homes, we fell in love with them and treated them with the same affection as the grand architectural edifices that dominate our cities and towns.
It’s hard to argue with the growth success of church plants. In short, they work. And perhaps they are the way to go, at least for the foreseeable future. If nothing else, they inject enthusiasm into the local faith community.
Enthusiasm literally means “inspired by a god.” In our case, an enthusiastic church community is one that is “God-breathed.” As Andrew Faiz notes in our cover story, that’s something we could use a little more of.
