Why are traditional Protestant churches, which three dacades ago claimed two-thirds of the U.S. religious population, losing millions of members while newcomer faiths blossom?
Rev. Dean Kelley, whose United Methodist Church has dropped some 2 million members since its glory days in the 1950s and 1960s, thinks he knows one big reason.
Kelley, counselor on religious liberty and researcher with the National Council of Churches, has developed a theory of Group A versus Group B priorities:
”Into Group A, I`d put such priorities as winning souls for Christ, providing worship and religious instruction for congregants and ministering to members` needs for services, counseling, weddings and sacraments.
”Into Group B, I`d put priorities such as helping the needy, social conscience, supporting minorities and influencing legislation.
”I conclude that members are not dropping out of churches because they object to clergy doing Group B ministry, but because they object to clergy doing Group B ministry to the neglect of Group A.
”Simply put, conservative churches meet the priorities A before B better than liberal mainline churches.”
If mainline Protestants can`t beat the competition, they should join in the successful growth strategies of those Catholic, evangelical Protestant, Muslim and Mormon faiths, experts say: Bring people into church, excite them about its gospel, involve them in its mission. Otherwise, members will simply keep dribbling away.
Though it is easy to chart Protestantism`s loss of membership and political influence since its 1950s heydays, researchers have a harder time tracking the whereabouts of the fallen-away in America`s fast-shifting religious landscape.
For example, there are no detailed surveys on the religious affiliations of African-Americans.
Even an extensive, yearlong study of Americans` faith, released in March by the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, simply lists
”Baptists” as the religion of 34 million American adults. That lumps the predominantly white Southern Baptist Convention with the predominantly black National Baptist Convention Inc., although they are are two sizable, separate and distinct denominations.
And says researcher C. Eric Lincoln of Duke University, such a com-mingling of Baptists ignores an important trend: Blacks have left mainline and white churches they joined for status reasons three decades ago ”and are finding satisfaction in being in black churches.” That has meant growth for a range of faiths, from the black Church of God in Christ to black Muslims.
But, whereas much of church growth is transferred from other faiths, millions of members who have left mainline churches simply quit attending anywhere.
”In my 15 years as a pastor in Iowa, I probably conducted half my funerals for non-churched people,” said Rev. Mearle Griffith, now a United Methodist researcher. ”I`d never seen them in church, and they weren`t listed as members. But when they died, their obituaries said they were Methodists.” ”The biggest myth is that mainline Protestant churches are losing members to conservative Protestant churches,” said Rev. John Mulder, president of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
Exposure of that myth was a key finding of an extensive research project chaired by Mulder and funded by the Lilly Endowment, examining the problems of mainline Protestantism and focusing on the Presbyterian Church.
Thus, ”there is no argument to justify ecumenical, liberal churches seeking to emulate” the theological doctines of evangelical, conservative churches, he said.
Tracing confirmation classes of the 1950s and early 1960s, the study found that 40 percent of those people no longer belonged to or regularly attended church, but still called themselves religious.
Encouraged, Mulder viewed them as ”our alumni. . . . They could potentially be brought back into church, and doing so would reverse our declining numbers.”
He believes, however, that there are areas where mainline churches would do well to follow the conservatives` lead.
”The membrane of mainline churches is very permeable,” Mulder said.
”That is, you can move in and move out very easily. Conservative churches expect more of a commitment.”
Also, he said, conservative churches are more attuned to evangelization, recruiting new members.
”There is a subtle anti-growth mentality in mainline churches,” Mulder said. ”They are embarrassed about inviting friends to their church. And there are no resources to help churches evangelize and develop.”
For years, some of the nation`s largest and most traditional religious denominations, such as Roman Catholics, Episcopalians and Lutherans have been working toward alliances, even to the point of interchanging ministers.
Though the goal is to break down barriers among religious people and present a unified worship attack to the problems of secular society, the result is a blurring of denominational identities. That, in turn, has hurt individual memberships.
”It is not as important for people to be affiliated with a denomination as it used to be,” said Robert Wuthnow, director of Princeton University`s Center for the Study of American Religion.
And some of Protestantism`s decline is simply attrition.
Members are getting older, and ”families among mainline Protestant congregations are smaller than they used to be,” explained Peggy Shriver, staff associate with the National Council of Churches. ”So we are not replicating ourselves.”
Larger families, including the newest immigrants from Latin America and the Middle East, have helped to boost memberships of conservative Protestant, Catholic, Mormon and Muslim religions.
What would Protestant churches have to do to reverse their long slides?
Mulder says they must first change their attitude about wanting to reach others. ”Evangelization is not a bad word,” he said.
Then, they must ”focus on the human needs as their own people actually experience it. In other words, deal with your members` crises first.
”Then show your members how their service can make a difference in the world. There is an enormous reservoir of commitment out there in the Baby Boom generation that is not being adequately tapped by the churches,” Mulder said. One church that has been tapping that potential for 16 years, and finding a responsive public, is the independent evangelical Protestant Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington.
From attendance of 14,000-plus at three weekend services and an additional 6,000 at two weeknight services, the burgeoning non-denominational Christian church now involves 4,500 of its worshipers in church operations. They act as teachers and counselors of small ministry groups; musicians, actors and stage crews adding dramatic flourishes to services; and mechanics in a ”car ministry” that repairs autos or rehabilitates donated cars for members with financial hardships.
There are now 90 different ministries at Willow Creek.
A 200,000 square-foot addition to be completed by Christmas will more than double the church`s size. It will add three basketball courts, auditorium space, meeting rooms and a cafeteria-lounge.
”Right now, there`s no place for people to go and talk after services,” said Rev. Lee Strobel, teaching pastor at Willow Creek.
He is one of four assistant pastors to Rev. Bill Hybels, the dynamic leader who once did all the weekend and weeknight services.
”Now we have a team-teaching approach,” Strobel said. ”It`s like a pitching staff. You need relief. Preaching can be emotionally draining.”
The church is considering adding a second Saturday service to go with two Sunday services to accommodate its congregation, which is still growing. Attendance is up 13 percent at weekend services and 20 percent at weeknight services compared with last year.
As church researchers are quick to point out, one church`s growth is often at another`s expense, leaving a vast, unchurched pool of Americans untouched. Still, says researcher George Barna, ”bringing in non-believers is what churches are trying to do.”
So in the spirit of cooperative evangelization to get non-attenders into any church, Willow Creek holds leadership conferences three times a year to share its growth principles with other churches.
The conferences draw 1,300 to 1,500 pastors and teachers from across the country and overseas, representing Christian churches from Protestant to Catholic and from mainstream to evangelical.
Hybels urges growth strategies such as ”a well-defined statement of purpose,” experimenting with ”creative programming” such as music and slides, encouraging laypeople to contribute their ”spiritual giftedness” and breaking down ministry into ”small group discipleship.”
Just as Hybels` proposal sounds similar to Mulder`s call for change, another mainline Protestant minister has a similar message:
”Break the rules you`ve inherited. Appropriate music and issues of faith. Try new things. Be aware of being in the mission field, needing to go out and bring people in. No sales pressure, but ask newcomers to sign books and tell them you`ll be contacting them.”
Those strategies are voiced by Rev. William McKinney. He is a prominent researcher of religion as well as dean of Hartford Theological Seminary.
And he is a minister in the mainline Protestant United Church of Christ, which has suffered a 26 percent membership loss since 1958, dropping to 1.6 million members from 2.2 million.
McKinney doesn`t yet see the end of ”a continuing trend of mainline Protestantism declining by 1 to 2 percent a year, while the unchurched continues steadily growing.” But he concluded: ”Mainline churches have been wallowing in their decline long enough.
”I`m not looking at the Protestant decline any more. I`m looking more at the restructuring of churches, building something new off the base we now have. The attitude needed for churches to survive, if not thrive, is to see the glass as half-full rather than half-empty.
”The church of the future is being reinvented now.”
