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getting-out

December 12, 2013

Church Realignment and the Search for ‘Greener Grass’

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By Alan F.H. Wisdom

Oldline Protestant denominations are hemorrhaging members ever more rapidly as they move away from traditional Christian teachings. So the prescription for an evangelical congregation desiring membership growth would be to ditch its oldline affiliation and join a more conservative denomination. Right?

Not so fast, says Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) official Mike Cole. In a recent article widely discussed among fellow Presbyterians, Cole contends that “[t]he statistical grass is not greener on the other side.” He examines membership trends in 85 congregations that moved from the PCUSA to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) between 2008 and 2011, comparing numbers before and after the switch.

Cole’s results will interest many non-Presbyterians too. Between 2002 and 2008, while all 85 churches were in the PCUSA, they experienced a mild 2 percent drop in membership. But “[i]n the four years between 2008 and 2012, during and following their departures to the EPC, their membership losses skyrocketed to 16 percent.”

Cole concludes that “membership trends for a congregation continue regardless of the denominational affiliation.” Switching denominations does not alter the direction of the trend. “In fact,” he asserts, “the process of departure appears to accelerate membership losses.”

Now it must be acknowledged that Cole has a dog in this fight. He is the executive of New Covenant Presbytery in Houston. It is his job to plead on a regular basis for conservative churches to stick with the PCUSA. Two of the largest PCUSA congregations in Houston—First with 3,600 members and Grace with 2,600 members—appear to be heading out the door. This imminent defection must be painful for someone in Cole’s position. He would be glad to find any arguments that might dissuade churches from making the break. And his statistics on the 85 congregations supply one such argument.

Denominational affiliation is no guarantee

So what should we make of those statistics? Cole does have a valid point. Denominational affiliation is no guarantee of membership trends in a local congregation. Liberal-led denominations like the PCUSA are following a steepening downward path overall; however, there are still some vital and growing congregations in those denominations.

Some more conservative denominations (e.g., Southern Baptists) have entered into a modest decline in recent years, while others (e.g., Assemblies of God) are still adding members. But the trend line for an individual congregation is determined mostly by the characteristics of that congregation. And that line often continues in the same direction even when the congregation moves to a new denomination.

Nevertheless, Cole’s statistics have their limitations. They cover only a short period. Some of the 85 congregations had been barely a year out of the PCUSA. That’s not long enough to draw any firm conclusions. A statistically valid survey would cover a much longer time frame—a decade at least—and it would compare churches that left the PCUSA to similarly situated churches (theologically conservative) that chose to remain.

A traumatic process

There is nothing surprising about Cole’s finding that, in the short term, switching denominations had a negative effect on church membership. Everyone who has experienced churches changing affiliation knows that it’s a traumatic process and there are almost always some losses.

Even in conservative congregations, there are often significant groups that oppose a rightward denominational realignment. Individuals may turn out to be more liberal than anyone had imagined—willing to tolerate an evangelical pastor, but not to join an evangelical denomination. Or they may have previously unexpressed loyalties to the old denomination—perhaps a family connection going back several generations. Or they may harbor hitherto hidden resentments against the pastor or lay leadership that surface during the debate over realignment. Or they may just be resistant to change of any sort. There are also many people of no particular theological persuasion who have an aversion to conflict, and they are going to steer clear of a church that is split over its future course. Congregations are rarely as monolithically conservative (or liberal) as people perceive them to be.

Of course, the calculation of those who decide to depart the PCUSA is probably that in the long run, after the initial losses, the congregation will be freed up to reach out more effectively into its community. They expect to attract new members who previously wouldn’t have considered a PCUSA-identified church. And they also may calculate that if they had stayed in the PCUSA, there would have been even greater membership losses—particularly among the most active and theologically committed members of the congregation who are most aware of the PCUSA’s problems. So it’s not as if the church would have cruised happily along if it had stayed PCUSA.

My anecdotal experience with churches whose departures are further in the past is that sometimes these calculations turn out to be correct, and sometimes not. It all depends upon how the congregation handles the situation. If it sees the new denominational affiliation as an opportunity to do the community outreach and evangelism that it should have been doing/wanted to do all along, then long-term membership growth may result. But if it sees departure from the PCUSA as an escape hatch from problems and debates that it doesn’t want to engage—an opportunity to cocoon in a safe evangelical subculture and pretend that nothing has changed—then that congregation may well see continued and even accelerated membership decline. It wasn’t a vital congregation in the first place, and switching denominations did nothing to solve the problem.

More than green pastures

These considerations illuminate a broader point: In U.S. society today, denominational affiliation is not the factor that drives most church membership decisions. What matters most isn’t whether a church is labeled PCUSA or EPC or ECO. Most visitors won’t know or care about the difference. What matters is whether the church knows the Savior who has claimed it, knows the Gospel he has commissioned it to show forth, and is committed to taking that Gospel out into the world.

I would contend that, ultimately, decisions about denominational affiliation shouldn’t be determined by utilitarian calculations about future membership growth or decline. They should be guided instead by faithfulness to one’s calling in the Gospel. Our calling isn’t to be always running toward imagined greener pastures; it is to be ready for the harvest in the place where God sent us.

Church leaders who were ordained in the PCUSA (or any other denomination) affirmed at one time that that denomination was the place where God had sent them. They were called by the people of God to exercise their ministry within the faith, the discipline, and the fellowship of that denomination. Do they still believe that calling to be valid? Has anything happened to nullify that calling? Have they received a new calling from the only One who has the power to call? These are questions that cannot be answered by membership statistics.

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  • Didaskalos

    If a denomination has, by its abandonment of foundational Christian tenets, become an agent of unrighteousness, a believer is enjoined to leave. “What fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness?”

  • AdamS

    This whole article is about increasing membership, as if that is supposed to be a primary reason for making a decision to leave a denomination. The primary reason to leave should be whether or not a denomination is focused on the right things, like spreading the gospel, adhering to Biblical teaching, etc.

    If a congregation is able to do those things effectively, even then there is no promise that numbers will increase. On the contrary, many will reject it. But doing the right thing often means others will not follow.

  • Bob Moore

    The period for this data is too small. I pastored a small church that left a mainline denomination and moved to a more evangelical denomination in 1988. Over our first two years, we lost about 25% of the congregation as the vision of the church became clear and as some members reconsidered their ties to the old denomination. By 1998, our average attendance was three and half times our original 1988 number. I am no longer the pastor, but this church is now five times the original 1988 numbers. This is only one example, but there is a shakeout in the first few years of a denominational change that does not represent the ultimate long-term trend.

  • amanda

    Our church is one of those 85 churches that moved from PCUSA to EPC. I have to say that it was a tough time for our church, but we did not lose any members. While we have not gained any new members yet, we have one new family and several new singles now attending services. I think PCUSA is just trying to spin the data to make themselves feel better (well, it doesn’t matter if these 85 churches left since these members were going to leave the church anyway).

  • Ron Henzel

    While I applaud you for pointing out some obvious weaknesses in Mike Cole’s recent propaganda piece, your article is ultimately disappointing for failing to cover the elephant in the sanctuary of every church that considers leaving the PCUSA for a more conservative denomination. Mr. Wisdom barely alludes to the fact (and then, only to deliver an unnecessary admonition) that for the vast majority of them (perhaps all of them!) the question of how to spur growth is not the primary motivation for departure, but rather that of faithfulness to the Bible.

    In this context, Mike Cole’s assumption that those who say, “We will be better off in another denomination” (see his article) are assuming that growth will be the main benefit of realignment (though he himself admits that he did not bother to ask, and therefore has always wondered “what is meant by ‘better off’”) is exposed as the theological and pastoral deafness that it really is. And it seems to me that the deafness is deliberate—i.e., an intentional stopping of his ears.

    How can the man who is in charge of persuading congregations to remain in the PCUSA not even mention the primary reason they are leaving? Does he not know what people are saying in exit interviews (either formal or informal)? Does he not read their published statements? I have never been in a PCUSA church, let alone one that has bolted for another denomination, but I have close friends who have gone through the ordeal that PCUSA forces such congregations endure, and have been able to follow this matter closely over the past several years. It doesn’t merely border on insulting, it is an outright insult for Mr. Cole to turn this into an issue of posteriors in the pews when it’s really about heads and hearts in harmony. So when he uses the “better off” remark to launch on his quixotic quest for “any data to support or challenge that assumption” (again: refer to his article), both his approach and his conclusion amount to a kind of cultivated patronizing ignorance.

    As an early commenter to Mr. Cole’s article, Aaron Hicks, noted: “I have tracked quite a few churches who have chosen to leave our denomination over the years, and I don’t recall many making the argument that they were leaving because they thought they would immediately grow if they left. Usually the separations are for theological reasons, and with the understanding that some membership-loss will happen in the transition, as painful as that may be.”

    And Matt Ferguson commented that “the congregation here didn’t make the move to realign as a church growth program—it was done as a matter of being faithful to God’s calling for their life together. If it leads to greater numbers or fewer
    numbers was not the main purpose or focus.”

    Mr. Wisdom toward the end of his article belatedly offers, “I would contend that, ultimately, decisions about denominational affiliation shouldn’t be determined by utilitarian calculations about future membership growth or decline. They should be guided instead by faithfulness to one’s calling in the Gospel.” But does such a contention even need to be made? Should it not instead be framed as an observation of what is actually happening, rather than an admonition that this is how it should happen? Does not the tone of this statement grant credibility to Mr. Cole’s thoroughly un-researched and erroneous premise that departing churches are motivated primarily by a desire for growth?

    And all this is even more disappointing when I take into account the fact that Mr. Wisdom has been personally involved with trying to restore a Reformed worldview and commitment to Scripture to the PCUSA.

  • Kay Glines

    Growing up in the rural South, I was familiar with an old saying about denominations – “When the Baptists split, they spread – when they Methodists split, they’re dead.” For “Methodists” you could substitute “Presbyterians” or any of the other mainlines. The point was that the Baptists tended to take their religion seriously, so when some issue got them riled up, they would leave and start a new church, while the more lackadaisical Methodists would just drop out of church and sleep in on Sundays. Although we can’t forget Christ’s prayer his disciples “may all be one,” we also can’t ignore the historical record – splits and schisms tend to be, numerically speaking, good things, especially in light of the fact that the breakaway group is usually more zealous than the stand-patters they leave behind.

  • castaway5555

    As a PCUSA minister ordained in 1970, I, too, have a dog in this fight. I have watched my denomination struggle to find itself ever since we merged with the “Southern” Presbyterians in 1984. We’ve been pulled like taffy, one way and then another, as liberals in one direction and then evangelicals in the other.

    While most evangelicals are quick to accuse the PCUSA of “abandoning” the gospel, we’re more gospel-oriented then ever, and biblical, and that’s what drives some evangelicals crazy. Let’s be honest: the American Evangelical School of Christianity has been one of “winning folks” for heaven, the world be damned (read Jim Wallis on this).

    We shouldn’t forget – Southern Presbyterians invented, after the Civil War, the strange, if not odious, doctrine of “the spirituality of the church” – a way of avoiding the tragic stories of the south, it’s slavery and the Civil War. “Let’s just talk about Jesus, salvation and the fine points of our election.”

    Furthermore, the Southern Presbyterian Church was formed as a haven for slave-holders, and sermons were preached and books written defending slavery as a god-given fact inherent in the very nature of creation and God’s purpose for humankind (read the White Race).

    For me, much of the noise from the EPC and ECO has been to provide haven for those who have “sweet Jesus” in their hearts, charity in their hands, but with no desire to tell the truth about their world, its present sufferings and the crying need for justice (that most despised of all biblical ideas).

    Presbyterian History makes clear: there is no green grass anywhere, and those who leave in search of it become all the more contentious in their effort to justify the divorce and prove to the world how right they were, and now how the “good” is their new grass.

    My thanks for your article.