The American Church in Crisis

Groundbreaking Research Based on a National Database of over 200,000 Churches

David T. Olson

• Publisher: Zondervan
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN:
  9780310314011
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Groundbreaking research based on a national database of over 200,000 churches shows that the overall United States population is growing faster than the church. The director of the American Church Research Project, Dave Olson, has worked to analyze church attendance, showing that it is virtually unchanged from fifteen years ago while our population has grown by fifty-two million people.What does this mean for you, your church, and the future of Christianity in North America? The American Church in Crisis offers unprecedented access to data that helps you understand the state of the church today. "We live in a world that is post-Christian, postmodern, and multiethnic, whether we realize it or not," says the author. This book not only gives a realistic picture that confirms hunches and explodes myths, but it provides insight into how the church must change to reach a new and changed world with the hope of the gospel.Readers will find a richly textured mosaic with optimistic and challenging stories. Charts, diagrams, and worksheets provide church leaders and motivated church members with a stimulating read that will provoke much discussion. Questions for discussion accompany the chapters.

Part 1: OBSERVATION

If you want to know whether a man is religious, don’t ask him, observe him.

Ludwig Wittgenstein1

The story of Joshua and Caleb’s reconnaissance of the Promised Land provides a model for facing change in the church and culture today. This narrative is an early chapter in the grand overarching story of salvation, a saga inaugurated by the patriarchs, culminating in the coming of the Messiah. Before the people of Israel entered the Promised Land, they scouted the territory. God spoke to Moses, saying, “Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites” (Num. 13:2). So Moses chose twelve for the scouting party.

Understanding any situation requires accurate onsite observation. All effective observation begins with perceptive questions. Before the Israelites marched into Canaan or even developed a strategy, Moses asked his scouting party to find the answers to a series of questions:

“See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What kind of towns do they live in? Are they unwalled or fortified? How is the soil? Is it fertile or poor? Are there trees in it or not? Do your best to bring back some of the fruit of the land.” (Num. 13:18-20)

These questions required detailed research. This would not be a daylong cursory survey. The mission of the scouts would involve extensive travel and take forty days to complete.

Before determining a strategy for change, church leaders must first understand the shifts occurring within church and culture. The church needs explorers to delve into the demographic and spiritual topography of our country. This book will ask a series of explorative questions similar in nature to Moses’ questions above. This scrutiny is necessary, because little academic research has examined the attendance trajectory of the church in America. No single source paints an entirely clear picture.

Fig. I.1. The four-stage assessment process.

The book of Numbers suggests a four-stage process for assessing America’s spiritual terrain. Observation, the first stage, involves asking questions and collecting data. The American church is a complex image in need of greater clarity. Its picture is richly hued, with unique regional themes and religious histories and practices. In the first six chapters, these observations paint a portrait of the American church. The first chapter asks the foundational question, “How many people really attend a Christian church on any given weekend?”

Chapter 1: HOW MANY PEOPLE REALLY ATTEND CHURCH?

“Where is she? She was right here! How will we find her?”

Our family flew overnight to England, drove directly to downtown London, and caught a taxi to Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. When we finished our sightseeing, the family began to walk eastward toward our car. At the incredibly busy intersection of Parliament and Bridge streets, we all agreed that we desperately needed food, as we had eaten our last meal somewhere over the Atlantic.

Our youngest daughter, Katie, believed that we were all following her as she headed into the crowd in search of a restaurant. Two minutes later, she looked back and noticed that no one was following her. Her heart began to beat rapidly, and tears welled up.

At the same moment, the rest of the family noticed that Katie had disappeared. Our daughter was lost in a city of 15 million people. Our London excursion had become every parent’s nightmare. We divided up to search for our lost Katie. In the meantime, realizing her plight, Katie had reversed direction and began retracing her steps. Not long afterward, her older brother, John, became the hero by finding Katie and bringing her back to the appointed rendezvous site.

I remember our London experience when pondering the challenges the church faces. My daughter, thinking we were following her, looked behind and discovered that no one was there. If Christians were to look around, they would find that far fewer Americans are following their lead and authentically connecting to a local church than they might think. In a spiritual sense, so many Americans are lost.

That sense of “lost” haunts American culture. In spite of our technological advances and scientific certainty, our prosperity and abundant possessions, many people are miserable. In the 1990s a PBS documentary labeled this condition “affluenza,” which was defined as both “the bloated, sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to keep up with the Joneses” and “an epidemic of stress, overwork, waste and indebtedness caused by dogged pursuit of the American Dream.”¹ Greg Easterbrook, a senior editor of the New Republic, called this the “progress paradox,” or “how life gets better while people feel worse.”²

Perhaps the most recent sign of this discontent in American culture is the success of The Secret, a get-rich-quick guide that debuted in December 2006. By March 2007, with 1.75 million copies already in print, the book’s publisher announced plans for an additional 2 million copies, the largest print order in the company’s history, according to Publishers Weekly. Sara Nelson, editor of Publishers Weekly, described The Secret’s success, saying, “Nobody ever went broke overestimating the desperate unhappiness of the American public.”³

However, most people know there is more to life than making money or achieving success. Christianity addresses the quest for meaningful answers to life’s deepest longings and questions such as “Is there a God?” “What is my destiny?” “Is there a place for me in this world?”

Orthodox Christianity confesses that an experience with the true God and belief in Jesus as Savior and Lord brings salvation-moving people from the category of lost to that of found. Lionel Basney described this Christian experience:

For it is finally a matter of how belief is born in the new believer. That it occurs is plain; how it occurs may be told, and the narratives can, within a given community, be formalized, but finally we will have no evidence but the narrative. I once was lost, but now am found.

“Those who are awakened to the light,” Tillich wrote, “ask passionately the question of ultimate reality. They are different from those who do not.” . . . The truth is that religious believers are always asking themselves this question . . . and that if there is a subjective answer in devotion, the objective evidence is the persistence of the community that believes.⁴

Don’t Ask; Observe

This chapter asks, “How many people belong to ‘the community that believes’?” This complex question is best answered by looking at four categories of belief expressed through behavior:

1. How many people attend an orthodox Christian church on any given weekend?

2. How many people regularly participate in the life of that community? (Not all are present every week.)

3. How many people have some level of occasional connection to a Christian community?

4. How many people report belonging to a particular church tradition, even though they have no authentic connection as shown by their actions?

A growing number of religious researchers believe that weekend church attendance is the most helpful indicator of America’s spiritual climate. Attendance gives a more accurate picture of a person’s religious commitment than membership. As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said, “If you want to know whether a man is religious, don’t ask him, observe him.”

Attendance is a real-time indicator, a weekly appraisal of commitment. Membership reflects a commitment to a church made in the past but may not be reflective of current actions. The value of membership also differs by generation. The builder generation (born 1920-45) loved to join organizations. The boomer cohort (born 1946-64) resists institutional commitment. Looking at attendance rather than membership diminishes the effect of this generational difference.

Should church attendance numbers matter to Christians? Yes, they should. When church attendance declines, fewer people hear the gospel for the first time, take the sacraments, or hear of God’s love for them. Fewer marriages are restored. Fewer teenagers find a listening ear. The question “How many people attend church?” matters deeply because people matter.

Recently, a pastor sent me an email asking about the importance of church attendance. He attended a presentation in which I pointed out that church attendance lagged behind population growth. He asked me why that mattered. I compared the dramatic growth in the number of children in his home state, Arizona, with the more modest increase in church attendance. The church in Arizona grew in attendance by 1.4 percent each year from 2000 to 2005, while the general population grew by 3 percent e...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• DEDICATION
• CONTENTS
• FOREWORD
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• LIST OF FIGURES
• LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
• INTRODUCTION: WHY EXAMINE THE AMERICAN CHURCH?
• PART 1: OBSERVATION
• PART 2: EVALUATION
• PART 3: INTROSPECTION
• PART 4: ACTION
• NOTES
• ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
• SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS