On New Church Starts

The United Methodist church in America continues to grow. Now, statistical reports tell us otherwise. In fact, common sense tells us otherwise. We are programmed to believe that the organization and structure around us is crumbling - and we are wrong.

It is true, the numbers look bad. The numbers look downright dismal. Take, for example, my church from the time I spent in college. Toccoa First United Methodist church has around 900 members. We worship 500-600 on Easter, so right away we must build on the understanding that our statistical data are, at the very least, incomplete. During the 4 years I worshipped there, we had no fewer than 8 clergy coming or going in various offices. It was a time of difficult transition and some internal conflict. All of these things work against a church - these circumstances make it more likely that a church will lose members. And lose members we did! We lost (gross loss, not net loss) around 20 members each year. 12-15 of these were death related losses. 5-8 were lost for other reasons - people move, people shuffle to other churches, etc.

These statistics look bad. But, during these years we gained around 15 members a year. We gained 5-7 new members by profession of faith. 5 or more people decided every year that they needed Jesus Christ as their personal savior and that they wanted to live out that journey with our congregation. 8-10 were added for other reasons - people move, people shuffle to other churches, etc.

So, my church registered a net loss of 5 people. A dismal year for United Methodists in Toccoa, GA? I don't think so. These statistics only prove that this church grew at a slower rate than it did 50 or 60 years ago.

I'm sure this doesn't seem like an earth shattering point, but it is. One of the Associate pastors at Toccoa First (and we went through 4 of them in the 4 years I was there) showed me an article about "one of the fastest growing" churches in North Georgia. Then he took out the statistical table from Annual Conference and showed me the raw data. That church and Toccoa First had identical new member information. Each church had received 15 new members in the previous year.

That church didn't have a rich history and tradition. It was only 10 years old. So, while it was growing at a SIGNIFICANTLY slower rate than the previous 5-10 years; it didn't have to combat with the statistical fallout of death associated with growing during the 40s, 50s, and 60s. This made it worthy of newspaper write-ups.

While we lost 5 net members they gained 15 net members. But, both churches were equally successful in ministry.

Now, I'm not trying to deride this church in any way. It is illustrative of my greater point. Most United Methodists feel that their individual churches need greater leadership to grow numerically, and this is true. Most United Methodists feel that if the music program at their church was better, or the youth pastor played more games/did more serious Bible studies, or if the lyrics were up on the screen, (etc) that their church would grow. And, all of those things might be true. And local congregations should continue doing these things.

There are 35,275 Local churches. Considering the number of net members lost each year, each local congregation just needs to do a little better for the denomination to break even.

But it isn't enough.

We need to change our strategy. We need to plant more new churches. We need to plant new churches in new places, with a different look/feel/demographic/etc. This, while holding the appearance of a numbers strategy, isn't just a numbers strategy. It's about taking the church where the people are. We must move and grow with the population. If 10% of our population is hispanic (I made that number up), then 10% of our churches need to be hispanic. If the average age in America is 52 (again, pulled out of thin air) then the average age in a church needs to be 52.

In a vacuum, a penny and a bowling ball fall at the exact same rate. In a vacuum, the ministry efforts of both churches listed above are equal. In reality, one church has history of past growth overshadowing the new growth.

If our goal is mere numerical survival, we can just push every church to do a little better. But how long can we continue this growing cycle. To grow numerically we must grow faster than we did 60 years ago. (I use 60 because many new members are gleaned through confirmation around the ages of 12-15 and the average life expectancey is 72-75.) Even with population growth it is unrealistic to expect conitnued growth forever; we will at some point have to show numerical decline because we simply can't grow any faster than we did in our past. This is the reality of our present situation.

The deeper theological context falls into place as we examine our thoughts on numbers. When a good and faithful United Methodist passes on from this earth and enters his or her rest we shouldn't count that as a "loss" but as an "eternal gain." We need to publicise our gross gain as well as our net gain adjusted for "eternal gain." (Ex: Toccoa First UMC Gross Gain:15 Net Gain adjusted for "eternal gain" [Gross gain of 15- 8 removed for reasons other than death]:7.)

This number gives us a better understanding of the reality of the impact of our ministries.