USAToday carried an interesting article last week concerning the future of mega churches.

it was entitled:

As their numbers stall, mega churches seek 'seekers'
By Cathy Lynn Grossman

the main ideas of the article were these:

mega churches are experiencing:

* Growth Decline
* Church as Spectators
* Unchurch remaining untouched

the article quoted philip goff, director of the center for the study of religion and american culture at indiana university in indianapolis, "The mega church story is not really about growth, it's about shifting allegiances. People want to feel good about who they already are. If church is too challenging or not entertaining, they'll move on."

besides cutting to the very heart of discipleship -- spectator are not disciples -- the most troubling idea here is that, like most other churches, these large churches are not reaching new people either. instead, they are merely moving members from smaller churches to larger ones because their programming is slick and demand for commitment is low.

william chadwick has studied this in his book, stealing sheep. He calls it transfer growth.

if this is true, then it may be that the that the smaller churches have given all they could give for the cause of the mega churches.

of course, the deeper issue here is that, if the church-going populations remains 30% year after year, and if the churches are not, in fact, reaching new people only people moving to a new team (for a player not to be named later), then is is not true that christendom is dying?

Tags: christendom

i want to continue our discussion of the great evangelical crack-up by thinking through one of the comments i received about part one.

big spoon wrote:
"...our best witness is to tell our story, what Jesus and God have (has?) done for us, in a personal and meaningful way. And it matters how we live, because it brings us the most blessings and shows people that there is something different going on in our lives. I just don't think you can start at a better place than that."

i agree with this idea. the possibility of us individually telling our story is perhaps the only way for the gospel to be incarnate or embodied, or earthed in any meaningful way today in the west. however, will we? or will we just talk about it? and if we merely give lip service to the gospel, is it because we do not trust the gospel? or is it because we instinctively feel the intense pressure of hypermodernity and post-christianity?

said another way, are we afraid?

notice, i did not say ashamed. i said afraid. afraid that the gospel will only work in this place that explains the miraculous and the origins of the universe. [this actually goes with yesterday's post] this is the pressure crushing us, and it is powerful.

part of what we feel, i think, is the loss of the plausibility structure that christendom gave us. [for more on this from me go here] as i've said in a earlier post, christendom's death in the west is driving the contraction or marginalization of christianity toward reformation (or extinction?).

this, then actually fits closely with how you end your post:

big spoon wrote:
"Finally, if the era of denominational Christianity is coming to an end, that is a concept I could wrap my arms around and celebrate. If we could all drop our labels and separate traditions and simply focus on the basic truths of what it means to be a Christian, what a step in the right direction that would be."

i agree that denominational christianity has run it's course and that the institutions and structures (the institutional church) is dead. what will arise in the west to replace it remains to be seen, but, even though i'm "not a prophet or the son of a prophet," i predict that your grandchildren will grow up in church that is very, very different from yours and mine.

Tags: christendom

so, yesterday we talked about a newspaper commentary that pointed to the crack-up of the evangelical consensus. also yesterday, the iconoclast, bill maher, appeared on larry king's show to promote his new mocumentary: Religulous

in this segment, maher, an ethicst (read: a moral atheist), has some tough things to say about religionists in general and evangelicals in particular. however, lest we write him off because he differs from us, may i encourage you to see beyond the caustic humor and hear what is actually being said. if you're like me, each sunday morning you drive by 1000's of people who get along very well without benefit of church or christianity. perhaps he is speaking for them?

Tags: christendom

i read an interesting post in tallskinnywiki yesterday. he quoted a newspaper article entitled,

Religion: American Evangelicals, once considered monolithic, are fragmenting

This read reminded me of what i have said here a # of times:

1. we are experiencing the death of christendom
2. evangelicalism is cracking apart before our eyes
3. young evangelicals do not believe like their parents on issues like race, and poverty, and abortion, and climate change, and homosexuality...

the article sites the pew forum's study on the religious landscape (i've posted on this before when i was blogging at vox). this massive study shows, among other things, that nearly 1/2 of all evangelicals believe that people of other religions go to heaven.

probably even more troubling to evangelicals, is when the article raises the fact that they:

"almost never convert a native-born American who wasn't raised in a church. That most evangelical growth comes from stealing sheep from other denominations. And they've stolen about all they can.."

the author, Christine Wicker (who wrote a book on the subject) goes on to write what may be the most poignant and powerful words in the article:

"Conversion tactics also focus on telling people the Good News as though no one else knows it. But most everyone has heard it. Again and again. The trouble is that they aren't convinced. They aren't scared of hell. They aren't hoping for heaven. And Christians haven't been good at giving anyone better reasons than that for following Jesus."

more to come...

Tags: christendom