He notes that “Average attendance is reported to be about 1.2 million per Sunday and has decreased only slightly in the past decade.” In order to set the record straight, the 11,000 Presbyterian churches should “purge collectively their rolls of at least 500,000 members over the next two years.”
His analysis may be correct but his solution does not go far enough.
Smaller is not necessarily better. Twenty-five years ago, Ed Brubaker chaired the Membership Trends study for the General Assembly and concluded that smaller is not necessarily better. He said that it is tempting to focus on the remnant and rid ourselves of the inactive — in Haberlin’s proposal the 500,000 who do not attend church. But once we have done that, the die is cast and 25 years later we will probably find ourselves facing the same dilemma and may well have to rid ourselves of another 400,000 to 500,000 inactive members.
Worship is not enough. The positive part of Haberlin’s proposal is to focus on worship. Worship attendance is key to the church’s identity, but most churches do not accept this premise, contending that worship attendance does not really define the church. They say worship is not enough. When we go beyond attendance at worship as a focal point, we fall prey to dividing the church into active and inactive members. When Haberlin himself talks about congregational representatives visiting the shut-ins, he hints at doing the same thing.
The same is true when congregational representatives go to Central America or work on a Habitat for Humanity House or join a small group or take part in a Kerygma study group. They are seen to be the true remnant — the committed. Each caters to 10 percent or less of the congregation. Because some members take part in more than one, taken together they may make up about 30 percent of the congregation. The remaining 70 percent are seen as the less active, and many of them are on their way to being part of the 500,000 inactive.
Setting a goal of new members. Haberlin thinks it might be possible to make up some of the loss of members by having congregations increase church attendance “between 2 and 8 percent per year for the next decade.” This is a laudable goal, but it also sets in motion the current phenomenon of new members soon becoming inactive because of the nature of new member classes. Many churches admit that a year after joining the church, one-half of those who join are inactive. Then, too, some of the “2 to 8 percent” will be confirmands. In most congregations, confirmation is really graduation. High school students make up a goodly part of the 500,000 inactive, which sessions reluctantly will have to act on.
Closing the Back Door
Inactive members are the Achilles heel of the program church. They are waiting to go out the back door. When Kenneth Hall was elected moderator of the General Assembly in 1988, he put closing the back door center stage. We co-led a workshop at Ghost Ranch. We agreed on the need to address the problem directly and to work to solve it. Continuing to lose 20,000 to 40,000 members a year means it has not been solved.
“Closing the Back Door” was a Major Mission Fund project for Des Moines Presbytery. We had congregations of the presbytery send us names of inactive church members and asked us to meet with them to tell us why they became inactive. Much to our surprise and dismay, we could only get a few to meet with us, even with the promise of anonymity.
For the past several years, Project 21 has been encouraging congregations to try a new model that has as its goal enabling every member to be active. A bi-monthly news sheet has been sent to 900 pastors and church leaders, executive presbyters and seminary presidents with the caption, “If a church would see the life and work of each member as part of the mission of the church, then every member would be active.”
Seeing work and family as their ministry is powerful and relevant for all members. Any program that divides a congregation into active and inactive members should be examined. It might mean giving up Sunday school, or a youth group, or Presbyterian Women, or a small group ministry, or sponsoring mission trips to Central America. Changes of this magnitude cause pastors and church leaders to tune out.
What does a model that will enable every member to be active look like?
It believes worship is enough. Haberlin is right in saying that worship attendance defines the church. Let it be that. Worship is enough for children, youth and adults, and is a basic part of the covenant they make. Their primary place in the church is worship and not church school or small groups.
It poses a new question. Members need to ask: What am I as a believer in Jesus Christ, and as a member of this church, to do? This questions shifts the discussion away from the gathered church — what is the mission of this congregation? — to the scattered church and the individual believer . . . What am I to do?
It makes the new member class important. The purpose of the new member class is to provide opportunity for all participants to understand themselves in a new way as ministers of the church. It is a rite of passage. Joining the church means that I am a minister in my work and in my family. After the class, each member is commissioned for ministry in the world.
It asks each member to write a mission statement. More important than the church having a mission statement is each member’s writing a mission statement. Each person’s mission statement becomes a part of the primary mission of the congregation. The primary mission of a congregation is to build houses, teach in the public school, defend someone in court, volunteer in the community, parent a child. These acts together are ways a particular congregation helps to change the world — to build the kingdom of God on Earth.
It puts a time limit on church membership. Both the new member and the continuing member are given opportunity to rethink their mission and ministry periodically, depending upon internal passages and external circumstances. If at the end of that period, the person feels no longer called to ministry, that person can choose to be put on the inactive roll. Former General Assembly Stated Clerk and Moderator William Phelps Thompson said this is permissible within the Presbyterian understanding of the church.
It asks both active and inactive members to renew their membership. Instead of dropping 500,000 from the roll as Haberlin proposes, each congregation will work out a procedure for present members to see themselves as ministers of the church by what they do in the world. Inactive members have already opted out of the present participatory model. They just might be open to considering a new congregational model that would give meaning to their lives. The session may ask each present member to take a six-week class or to attend an evening gathering to make a covenant and to write a mission statement.
John Haberlin has opened the door in proposing a way to solve continued membership decline by focusing on attendance and not membership. His proposal needs further exploration. Alongside of it needs to be put a new model that believes it can close the back door of the church by closing the gap between attendance and membership. This proposal needs to be tested and critiqued in several congregations to determine its worthiness.
GUSTAV NELSON is director of Project 21, Des Moines, Iowa.