Who doesn't love a survey? When I see Pew Foundation or Barna or Christian Smith, I get a major statistics chub. I'm always (never) surprised what the survey reveals. America is less committed to religion. Teens have sex and smoke weed, even Christian teens. Baptists get divorced or fat or both (Krispy Kreme, anyone?). Most opposition to gay marriage is from incredibly old people, most of whom will die off in ten years or less. Sally Kern is bad for business in Oklahoma. Nothing to see here, folks. This is shit people who pay attention happen to know, because...well...because they're paying attention.
The latest church report is out, a collaboration between Scott Thumma and Warren Bird, compiled in a book called The Other 80 Percent. The report emphasizes some findings that I think I've mentioned before, and that was in 2005. The important point to highlight is that they discovered that roughly 80 percent of the congregation functioned as spectators when they bothered to show up at all. (Folks, the 80/20 principle has been well-known in churches since before I started in ministry in 1992. This is not new news.) What the two do offer though are numbers meant to tell a tale. To wit:
A National Congregation Survey shows the Southern Baptist Convention had a membership of 16,160,088 people in 2008, but a yearly attendance rate of 38 percent. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America had a membership of 4,542,868 in 2009, but the yearly attendance rated rested at 28 percent.
The numbers are pretty generous, actually. I mentioned the numbers recently, but let's pretend I didn't. They are generous because they fail to take into account attendance numbers that reflect children too young to be actual, voluntary members, and they use once a year attendance as a standard. Um, yes, you read that right. Once a year now equals membership. The SBC has continued to trumpet these bullshit numbers for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that Mohler and Land love the idea of a massive voting bloc of conservative Crackers who have never actually read the Bible but believe they understand it anyway. Part of the hocus pocus is also due to pastors who feel pressured to cook numbers, keep dead folks on the roll, and rebaptize Methodists so their annual reports look good.
SBC issues aside, the numbers point to a de-churchified America. Not deChristianized, as I'm pretty sure many of those ex-Baptists are actually in megachurches with hip music, video screens, and multiple campuses. Those who aren't are probably still nominally Christian; they're just weary of the bullshit. Far more troubling is this trend:
Spiritual engagement, however, becomes more important the longer a congregant remains in the church, Thumma stresses. The top reason given for decreased participation in the last two years is faith has gotten weaker, according to a cited Parish Inventory Survey. Yet very few churches have programs for long-standing members, he says.
I'm going to ignore the advice the book offers—form a listening team—because it's as wrong-headed as band-aids for chancres. What the churches are missing are mentors, not listening teams. Christianity has always been built on the idea of discipleship, and that requires someone to model the faith for you. The reason people who have been members for 40 or 50 years can't find a program that works for them is that they are supposed to be the program. Unfortunately, the American obsession with youth and beauty has reached the church as well, so they end up with pastoral staffs all under 40, except some senior citizen who is given the responsibility of dealing with the irascible seniors. They're irascible because they were never discipled either, and I'm not talking about a men's group or a Bible study. Those "programs" are ridiculously ineffective inasmuch as they're typically based on some form of self-help or buddy-help spirituality. My buddy who might be the same age as me lacks the wisdom I need to move forward. I need an older person to model the faith. This is true at every stage of life. There is a reason that congregations are typically composed of members who are within ten years of the senior pastor's age. It's because we have been conditioned to believe we need people to share our journey, and while that's true, we need people older and wiser to direct the journey.
Alas, that wisdom was lost generations ago, so we end up with cranky old men who insist Christianity is tied to patriotism and old women who believe Sarah Palin is a good Christian woman. The "Greatest Generation" is the greatest purveyor of civil religion of the 20th century. I'm sick to fucking death of hearing how great they are. They corrupted the faith to an unbelievable extent, and have failed to model a Christian faith that looks anything like Christianity. Form all the listening teams you want. What will they ask? What will they discover? Blind guides is no stretch here. Who will lead the Church now? Men who want to see their faces on 20-foot video screens and lack the wisdom to let someone older preach? Pastors who read books to figure out what to do next because they lack pastor/mentors? Denominational leaders who crunch numbers and count fake baptisms? The 80 percent who are watching NASCAR, taking kids to soccer, or hanging out at Starbucks on Sunday morning? The 20 percent who are utterly exhausted? I would like to revel in schadenfreude here, but I have friends in the ministry, and for them I am sad, but I do want to say get out, get the fuck out.
