Conservative churches need to grow by more than just with transfers

[Pergamum]

The Drastic Decline in Mainline Churches: A Warning for Other Churches

I have just read where the Presbyterian Church, USA (PCUSA) lost 102,791members for the year ending December 31, 2012. This is a more than 5% decrease from the previous year, and the biggest decline since the Presbyterian Church US (PCUS) and the United Presbyterian Church USA (UPC, USA) merged thirty years ago in 1983. The membership of this denomination, which stood at 3,131,228 at the time of the merger, now stands at 1,849,496, or a 41% drop in its thirty years of existence. The antecedent denominations to today’s PCUSA peaked in 1965 with 4,254,597 making the losses suffered since then a whopping 56% drop. This is not a decline; words like “disaster,” “exodus,” and “nosedive” come to mind.

For conservatives, however, the big elephant in the room is that they are not doing much better. I am a missionary to Africa about to complete a one-year home assignment. As I travel from one Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) or Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) church to another, I find congregations that look like retirement homes. In some of them, there will be one couple with children that have to be taken to the Baptist church for youth activities.

and the verdict:

The PCA boasted for years that it was the fastest growing denomination in the country, but it was all transfer growth; when the transfers from the PCUSA stopped, so did growth for the PCA.

 

[Gforce9]

If true, this is interesting. However, God will grow his church according to his plan.

 

[Wayne]

Mr. Brown, the author of that article, has previously posted such things about the EPC and PCA churches he visits. However,while you could certainly find churches like that, I cannot believe they are typical. All of the PCA churches that I've visited have been full of children.

The easiest way to check that contention is to look at the statistical summaries for Presbyteries at the back of the PCA Yearbook. There are maybe a handful of Presbyteries where the non-communicate (i.e, mostly children) membership is about 10% of the number of communicant members. But in most PCA Presbyteries, the non-communicant members range from 20% to 30% of the communicant number. On the other end of the spectrum, in a handful of Presbyteries, the number is closer to 40%. Nashville Presbytery, for example, in 2005 reported 6,882 communicant members and 2596 non-communicant members.

 

[PuritanCovenanter]

That doesn't signify what I have seen around here.

 

[Pergamum]

God's sovereignty is never a good reason for apathy or inaction.

I take comfort in the fact that it is the Lord who builds the Church..but I also think articles like this one are useful in pinpointing trends.

Thanks, Wayne, for the statistics.

 

[kvanlaan]

We have about ~550 members, about 235 communicant. You do the math. Baptisms at least once a month on average.

Now, that is not to say that all is well. "Dutch Evangelism" means that the church is growing, but does it mean that the Word is being spread? With our church, we are making a concerted effort. But we could do more. I could likely fit all the non-Dutch members of our church in my own 15-passenger van. So, the plus side: we are retaining our young people, and they are having families. The negative: we have very little in the way of outside converts, and we are rather insular because we're Dutch and Reformed and therefore not terribly outgoing. But we're working on it!

 

[kvanlaan]

Josh, I'm not insinuating that our numbers could be growing faster and thereby making us a 'better' church in the broadly evangelical vein. I am more concerned with making sure that we are witnessing when we have the opportunity instead of just hanging back because we don't want to be offensive or different, that's all. In the end, numerical statistics don't show the health of the church, but they are interesting and it is good to see that we are not Shady Acres Retirement Community Church.

(That's if the can 'o' worms was directed at my comment).

 

[kvanlaan]

Well OK then.

 

[BarryR]

I wonder if reflection on these statistics has lead these men to examine their obedience to His precepts, especially with regards to the RPW and the fourth commandment. I find people are quick to call out the PCUSA and their abandoning of the Lord's commands for declining numbers, but unwilling to consider this for their own churches.

All we can be sure of is our obedience to His commands and to leave the outcome up to Him. I believe this to be Josh's point. Stats like these should remind us to look at our obedience and nothing else.

 

[Jake]

I would sincerely hope this is not the case. After all, according to the WCF, one reason "Marriage was ordained for the mutual help of husband and wife; for the increase of mankind with a legitimate issue, and of the Church with an holy seed."

Of course, the author of the page an I are both dealing with only our own sitings, making it rather hard to judge without good statistics. However, I would still like to share my own experience. As someone who has recently been awakened to the reformed faith and and has begun in the past couple of years to visit churches (visiting several in Chattanooga and here at the south of Atlanta, as well as some while on vacation), I have come to associate lots of young children running around with Presbyterian churches.

I can only think of one Presbyterian church I visited (that was perhaps the youngest of them all and that was meeting in a house) that did not have many kids. Even in small congregations, I have been blessed to see many families with many kids each. This is such a blessing coming from a large Baptist church where even the young couples would never have more than two children (I come from a two children family).

 

[irresistible_grace]

*I find congregations that look like retirement homes. In some of them, there will be one couple with children that have to be taken to the Baptist church for youth activities

"Youth" activities?
As for me and my covenant children, I would much rather them be around godly "old" people than participating in "youth activities" (whatever that is). If you want children to be godly adults when they grow up they need to be around godly adults when they are "youth."
What happened to the WORD preached & sacraments rightly administered?

"Conservative" church?
What happened to the "true" church?
Not all conservative churches are "true" but all "true" churches might be considered conservative.

We need more "true" churches, less transferring & more planting.

 

[Edward]

Mr. Brown, the author of that article, has previously posted such things about the EPC and PCA churches he visits.

I remember the negative letters he penned to the Layman when he was in the PCUSA - probably going back to the 1980s. And thinking back to the various things I have seen him write over the years, I don't know that I've ever seen anything from him that I'd describe as positive.

 

[jogri17]

This generally seems true in my experience. Usually any numerical growth occurs with large families and God blessing their children with saving Faith in Christ. Nothing bad about that eh! But a couple of years ago I visited a few OPC Church plants in the North-East and most of them were simply presbytery decisions to start a new church so members didn't need to drive as long to Church. But a common theme still was in my observation was lack of outreach. There is an expectation that non-christians have to take the effort if they are curious to visit the Church, as oppose to going to them and making them curious. Iain H. Murray made the comment that Reformed Churches are marked not by hypercalvinism in our days (Thank God!), but a rather lack of evangelistic preaching- preaching to convert and persuade. Our churches are good at expository, doctrinal, and experiential preaching but it is too our shame we do not hold evangelistic events featuring preaching in our days when it is so desperately needed.

 

[py3ak]

God's sovereignty is never a good reason for apathy.

I agree. Who said / implied it was?

Who said or implied that anyone said or implied that it was?

 

[py3ak]

Are you implying that I asked the same question you did?

 

[Mushroom]

Bats and rat brains...

 

[Grimmson]

The PCA boasted for years that it was the fastest growing denomination in the country, but it was all transfer growth; when the transfers from the PCUSA stopped, so did growth for the PCA.

I do not think this is a fair conclusion to make. The reason is because from what I can tell the PCA has been active in the establishment of church plants. Now many of these churches however would probably be a church that many on this board would not approve of in regards to theology and church practice. I know of couple PCA plants here in Arizona. Now with that being said, I think it is fair to say that there has been quite a bit of transfer growth and a PCA church planter I meet from Chicago has in a sense admitted to this issue with Baptist becoming reformed wanting to attend a church that was Presbyterian or Baptists who have become Presbyterian. Even though this is taking place that still does not mean real growth (which I am not counting biological growth, but instead growth by conversations) is taking place.

God's sovereignty is never a good reason for apathy or inaction.

Amen Pergamum, reformed people use God’s sovereignty in building his church many times as an excuse not to do the work God has called us through the means that he has employed.
“For ‘whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved." How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!" But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "LORD, who has believed our report?" So then faith [comes] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

Evangelism is more then just a Lord’s Day activity, but for the one proclaiming the word of God it is a daily activity and I see that given to us in God’s Word. Unless one wants to make the case for example of when Paul was up on Mars Hill that it was the Lord’s Day, but I do not see any indication of that. And Evangelism needs to be promoted by the entire church. If a reformed pastor or any pastor just spends his week preparing the Sunday sermon and is not engaged with the gospel in his community and engaged with individuals in his congregation through out the week then I would suggest having his calling evaluated. Therefore if a denomination is shrinking I do think it is a fair question to ask why and evaluate what is going on.

There is an expectation that non-christians have to take the effort if they are curious to visit the Church, as oppose to going to them and making them curious.

And that is something Joseph that the Reformed must overcome, because quoting from Romans again we see that nobody actually seeks God:

“There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God.”

Therefore we must go to them instead of expecting them to come to us, because they will not normally. The refusal to do such would a practical form of a hyper-Calvinistic position (or so I think commenting on Iain H. Murray) and last time I checked we all would be in agreement that hyper-Calvinism is heretical.

 

[whirlingmerc]

One of the things I am dissapointed by in the PCA description of the teaching elder is that he must be a music advocate but being an evangelist is couched in more optional terms
as if the 21st century American church doesn't need pastors who can equip the saints with evangelism skills

 

[Pergamum]

One of the things I am dissapointed by in the PCA description of the teaching elder is that he must be a music advocate but being an evangelist is couched in more optional terms
as if the 21st century American church doesn't need pastors who can equip the saints with evangelism skills

Can you explain this further?

 

[jogri17]

As a member of a Confessionally Reformed Church where any sort of protestant is a tiny minority (less than one half of one percent), we have sort of developed practices over the decades of missionary work in Québec that while are not rules, serve as cultural expectations in our Churches.

1. All elders have not just to be able to teach, but must have teaching responsibilities regularly (with room for breaks of course as needed relative to life events). So ruling elders maybe allowed to preach, though it would be the exception rather than the rule.
2. We have a higher age for first time pastors and seminarians. Real life work experience in Québec is ideal especially getting used to being marginalized.
3. Working within existing cultural institutions as opposed to starting a brand new work. A great example is when the Reformed Seminary Farel in Montreal was looking into accreditation, they worked out an arrangement to be accreditation from the Roman Catholic Seminary (one of the oldest institutions in the area), while keeping their confessional convictions. Small compromises of course were made in that a certain GPA had to be maintained, and approval of students (judged on academic merit) had to be had by two places, but the advantages were much more. Pentecostal groups on the other hand, rejected such an approach and while they have several institutions, it leans a lot of young bivocational pastors in a bad situation of not having a recognized degree, not even in theology or religious studies.

These are just some random thoughts.

 

[SinnerSavedByChrist]

And that is something Joseph that the Reformed must overcome, because quoting from Romans again we see that nobody actually seeks God:

“There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God.”

Therefore we must go to them instead of expecting them to come to us, because they will not normally. The refusal to do such would a practical form of a hyper-Calvinistic position (or so I think commenting on Iain H. Murray) and last time I checked we all would be in agreement that hyper-Calvinism is heretical.

Amen David!!! The reformed ought to be the most evangelistic, confronting all men we meet with God's law. By revealing their sin when measured against God's perfect righteousness, we hope to make them realise that they are sick!!! they need a physician. They are unrighteous!!! They need a Saviour! We know that it is through the preaching of the gospel, along with the Holy breath of God who illuminates and regenerates their hearts that an unbeliever will be saved. "The Wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God. God is none of His thoughts".