Some fifteen or so years ago I attended a conference the central theme of which was church health. One of the things I remember from the input to that gathering was a reminder that the health of a church is not necessarily reflected in its attendance statistics. That is, a growing church may not actually be healthy and to measure church health based on attendance statistics alone is far too simplistic.
In this time of catastrophic and ongoing decline in Christianity in Australia, and the western world generally, simplistic assessments of church vitality will only compound our missional failure. What is actually needed is a forensic critical analysis of churches and the reasons for their long-term failure to make Disciples of Jesus in anything like the numbers required if there is to be any hope of reversing chronic trends of decline.
To illustrate this point, we might pay a visit to St Gertrudes. St Gerts is a church which is reflective of many that are generally considered to be ‘successful’. This ‘success’ largely being argued from growth in attendance numbers, its services being full, with many young families, and good numbers of children and youth. There is a good music ministry, biblical preaching and a generally positive atmosphere in the Sunday gatherings.
It is also true that the staff and leaders are godly, faithful, hardworking people committed to the task of running the ministries and activities of church.
However, we should dig deeper and probe with that very rare animal in churches, namely some critical analysis.
The Transferee Mirage
St. Gerts is a classic example of what I have previously described as the ‘Transferee Mirage’. While Sunday services are full and showing growth, analysis of attendees reveals that well over 95% are either long term members or transferees from other churches, rather than what the five yearly ‘National Church Life Survey’ defines as ‘Newcomers’. Newcomers are either the Unchurched or the long-term De-churched, i.e. have not attended a church for a long time
It should be noted that Classic Church Plants generally have a higher Newcomer statistic, especially in the early years. However, that rare thing called Critical Analysis will show that even this is at far too a low level to be a model that would be able to reverse the steep decline.
The Transferee Mirage refers to attendance growth or stability that is mainly due to transferees from other churches and denominations. Further, in major population centres, any apparent attendance growth or stability over recent decades has been largely due to immigration (although paused by COVID-19 border closures). Such ‘growth’ isn’t the result of missional endeavour, and it is most certainly not Kingdom growth.
Kingdom Growth or Church Growth?
The Transferee Mirage phenomenon highlights the difference between Church Growth and Kingdom Growth. The reality is that growth at St Gerts is virtually all Church Growth not Kingdom Growth. That is, it is not the fruit of missional activity which makes Disciples of Jesus and so does little to stem the ‘big picture’ tide of decline.
The Activity Illusion
St Gerts is a very busy place That is, there is an impressive list published in the newsletter each week of organized activities outside of services, which can be claimed as marks of church health. The list includes quite a number of bible study groups, a Playgroup, weekly youth and kids’ groups, to which can be added a number of courses periodically run for members (men, women, parents etc.) However, while some of these are open to and attract non-church members, the missional dimension, particularly in terms of their disciple-making effectiveness, is miniscule, for very few unchurched or de-churched people are added to the congregation.
The Attendance Index
A useful metric of a church’s health that can be used is its Attendance Index. This the average weekly service attendance record of the membership. For St Gerts it is around 60%, that is on average each member attends 6 weeks in every 10, a figure which is pretty much the average across churches, although often much less. Such a low level of commitment is not a sign of spiritual maturity or church health, and is not likely to generate missional passion.
The Great Show or the Sunday Service Illusion
As already said, Sunday services at St Gerts are well run and are generally a positive experience. That is certainly the opinion of most of the regular members. However, it is important to ask the question, apparently little asked by church leaders – ‘What does God think of them, is he as happy as the members?
A journey back in history and a reflection on God’s words through the prophet Amos, on the ‘church’ services of his time may give us pause for thought.
“Hear this Word, this lament I have concerning you.
I hate! I despise your religious gatherings.
your church services are a stench to me.
Even though you give money in the offering plate, or on-line,
I will not accept it.
Though you give offerings for special causes and occasions,
I will have no regard for them.
Away with the noise of your praise songs!
I will not listen to the music of your keyboards, drums and guitars.
But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!”
Those of course are the words of God through the prophet Amos (with some modernising 21st century tweaks from the author), delivered to the Jews of the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8th century BC (Amos 5:21-24). See HERE for a full unpacking of this.[1]
Amos makes it quite clear that what God considers to be a healthy ‘church’ can be very different to how congregational members and church leaders might think. In fact, God is not necessarily at all impressed with ‘Quite a crowd of people here today’ thinking, or great music, slick services, many activities, special religious festivals, or even their monetary offerings (may be food for thought for church treasures here!).
Amos reminds us with the (perhaps shocking) reality that God looks much deeper than the ‘good Sunday show’ a church puts on, even if it is growing.
The problem was that Amos’ audience had forgotten that they only existed because God had saved them from slavery in Egypt and that He had formed them into a nation for HIS purpose. This purpose was to draw the pagan nations to Himself and to be His influence in the world, in fact to be agents of God’s righteousness (Jesus called it being Salt- Matthew 5:13). However, they had become infected with a spiritual Amnesia as to their reason for existence, a similar affliction to that we frequently see in the western Church today. Therefore, God was not impressed, as is shown by His condemnation with words like ‘I hate and despise’ etc.
Correspondingly, this is the primary purpose of the Church and its members today, to be agents of God’s righteousness in bringing people into His Kingdom through proclaiming Christ (Matthew 28:19, 20). So, they receive the ‘righteousness’ of God, won by Jesus on the Cross, and become part of God’s eternal, blessed Kingdom community.
The Sound of the Cuckoo and the Fatal Flaw
St Gerts, along with the vast majority of the churches of the West, suffers from one other, arguably the greatest, illusion, or even delusion, that would vitiate any efforts it might eventually choose to make it more missionally effective. This might be described as the ‘Fatal Flaw’ that does and will continue to undermine future missional efforts.
Given the current and ongoing cultural ferment, the Fatal Flaw is to be deluded into believing that a church model, such as St Gerts, that was primarily developed for the pastoral maintenance of existing Christian congregations in a strongly Christianized European society centuries ago, can continue to be the main vehicle for pagan mission to today’s Western culture.
Over ten years ago I wrote this statement-
‘Unpalatable though it may be, and much as many seem to wish to ignore or deny it, the current local church paradigm in the West has not been for over twenty years, is not, nor can it be made to be, capable of achieving urgently needed trend-reversing missional goals’
At that time many of my colleagues labelled that as ‘Cuckoo’! Cuckoo or not (and I am happy to wear the label!), more than ten years later the statement is even more the case as we have witnessed another decade of-
a. Ongoing reduction in church attendance.
b. Continued decline of Christianity and Christian influence (the SALT) in society. See graph below
2021 – ABS Census – Christian Affiliation as Percentage of Population
c. An ongoing net loss of churches at a ratio of five closing to every new one opened. (Tim O’Neill , Director of Exponential Australia)
d. Church leaderships steadfastly continuing to ignore the obvious summarized in the ‘Cuckoo’ statement, except that we should amend it to ‘for over thirty years’ not twenty.
The Church generally seems to be totally blind to, or willfully chooses to ignore, the fact that Australia and most of the West is now a pagan society. This faces it with the challenge of a mission landscape that is a rotating Kaleidoscope, a shimmering mosaic, of ever morphing microcultures, one that it has not faced the western Church for 1500 years. It has been blindingly obvious for decades that ‘Something Completely Different’ for effective local church mission is required, whatever that might be. (For my expansion of this see my book Quantum Mission HERE). Tragically however, what we see is more proof of the adage – ‘There are none so blind as those who will not see!’
When Worship Isn’t
There is another old saying that ‘All that glitters is not gold’. Could it be that even in the allegedly ‘successful’ churches, though the pews are full, and the coffers are being filled, but where there is little of what Jesus described as the ‘fruit that lasts’, that saying applies.
And here is a really sobering thought. When we look through the lens of Amos, if our congregations are largely focused on themselves, are using little of the resources God has given the body of Christ for our two primary mandates, that is to make disciples and infusing the ‘Salt’ of righteousness in society, could it be that in God’s eyes, as in Amos’ time, our Sunday ‘worship’ is not Worship at all?
***
When I wrote the ‘Cuckoo’ paragraph cited above it said ‘for over twenty years’; now more than ten years later it needs to be amended to ‘for over thirty years’. In the ensuing decade little has changed, and the saying
‘if you keep on doing what you have been doing you will keep on getting what you have been getting’
is once again proven to be true.
In those ten years there has been little change in the even then failing missional strategies adopted by the vast majority of churches, where they actually even have them that is.
Contemporary churches, and church leaderships, despite more than thirty-year long, locked-in trends of generational missional failure, rarely carry out any critical analysis of the spiritual health of their congregations. Further, when somebody does carry out such analysis there is rarely any effective response.
Correspondingly, what has also not changed is the ongoing trends of decline. The number of people even signifying Christian allegiance, in Australia has fallen from 63 to 44%, and only a quarter of those have any connection with a congregation, and with at best only a fifth of that quarter attending with any regularity.
I wonder, in another ten years, will the Church have faced up to its illusions of ‘successful churches’ and the reality it has chosen to ignore for decades. Or will the call of the ‘Cuckoo’ still be echoing across the degrading, socio-spiritual Kaleidoscope.
[1] Amos and the ‘Church is Great Today’ Illusion – unbounded church
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