The Changing American Church

Some months ago I was at a district church meeting. We were late getting to the meeting so we sat in the back.  I didn’t notice it at first, but as I looked around it struck me that at least 80% of the heads had grey hair.  It brought on a sense of sadness – for two reasons actually, first, the realization within the next 10-15 years many of these people will have gone home to be with the Lord and second, where were the young people who should be filling their shoes?

 

Many are claiming the American church is in crisis.  The May/June 2006 issue of Outreach Magazine presented seven startling facts which indicate the church is heading into troubled waters.

 

The siren’s sound is being heeded. Discussions are taking place in denominational literature and popular books. Congregations cannot help but notice what is taking place as their rolls are slowly being pared down.  Declining attendance is particularly being felt in established and mid-sized churches. 

 

It may help to know it’s not just the church experiencing the rumble of an approaching tsunami. The fact is the education system, particularly universities and colleges have noticed a change in their incoming students.  As far back as 2000, Howe & Strauss assessed this rising generation in their book, Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation, which university administrators extensively cite in briefings to staff.

 

Business and government have also taken notice of the incoming crop of recent high school and college graduates.  Deloitte & Touche has done some great work studying the generational shift that is taking place.

 

Along with a generational shift taking place in the West, there is a culture shift taking place globally.  International travel by jet, satellite news, and the internet are all playing a part in this culture shift.  Immigration is a huge player in this shift as well.  A Pew Research Center study on U.S. Population Projections released Feb 11, 2008 states:

If current trends continue, the population of the United States will rise to 438 million in 2050, from 296 million in 2005, and 82% of the increase will be due to immigrants arriving from 2005 to 2050 and their U.S.-born descendants … Of the 117 million people added to the population during this period due to the effect of new immigration, 67 million will be the immigrants themselves and 50 million will be their U.S.-born children or grandchildren (see #6 of Outreach Magazine’s list of startling facts).

The challenge the church faces as I see it is multi-faceted. 

 

To name a few:

·           Aging congregations/ministers/pastors

·           Globalization

·           Irrelevance

·           Increase in workweek

·           Increased college enrollment

·           Losing 18-24 year olds

·           Negative view of young unchurched

·           Lost respect of traditional institutions

 

There are undoubtedly more challenges than these and I would be interested in exploring them.  My wife asked me last night what I hoped to accomplish by having a blog on the subject of the church and Christianity.  It wasn’t difficult to answer her.  I know I need to start writing more.  The older I get the less I will be white water rafting, camping, hiking, taking long trips, etc. with the young adult ministry in our church.  In other words, I’m positioning myself to still be doing something for God in the time I have left (which I hope is a very long time).

 

My wife and I have raised five children who are young adults now.  I love them dearly.  The college age and young adults we have ministered to over many years will always have a special place in my heart and have opened my eyes to a generation.  I’m passionate about the Millennial Generation.  I believe they have the potential to do exploits for the Kingdom of God far beyond what anyone dares to imagine.  But, they have to be reached, retained, trained, and empowered to make a difference

 

I can see that the America I grew up knowing is changing.  The generation that won WWII is passing away at an estimated rate of 1500 a day.  The youngest soldier/sailor/airman of enlistment age would now be 84.  It won’t be all that long before they have passed into memory.  The majority of the Baby Boomers will be retired within the next 15 years.  American society is changing…period.

 

The church can’t keep doing business as usual to stay relevant.  The writing is on the wall – America will become like Europe with respect to church attendance if nothing is done.  My fear is cultural lag is in play and when the reality of the change taking place in America and the world sets in, it will be too late.

 

I realize the best I can hope for in doing this blog is for dialog to take place.  I hope that people more talented, resourceful, entrepreneurial, wiser, or whatever God needs right now will think about some of the ideas I posit and take up the challenge and work to meet the opportunities ahead. So, for these reasons, I put pen to paper (oh, wait, computers have been invented), wow, that great literary cliché is no longer usable.  See what I mean, change has caught up to me.

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