We live in a time of deep spiritual hunger, which can only be truly met by the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am convinced that God intends for the Presbyterian Church to be a growing church, and I believe strongly that we are being called as a church to a fresh commitment to be “Christ’s faithful evangelist” (Book of Order, G-3.0300). To aid us in responding to that commitment, I would like to make six suggestions that grow out of the 2003 statistics, which will hopefully help Presbyterian churches become growing churches.
First, a word about the figures themselves. At the end of 2003, there are 2,405,311 active, confirmed members in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a net loss of 46,658 from 2002. The total membership of the PC(USA) is 3,241,267. This includes 343,378 baptized, but not confirmed, members (mostly children) and 492,620 inactive members. The 2004 edition of the Yearbook of American Churches indicates that we are the ninth largest church body in the United States.
These members are found in 11,064 congregations, which are related to 173 presbyteries and 16 synods. There are 21,248 ministers (including 346 who were ordained in 2003), 101,324 elders, and 68,132 deacons. Total contributions and income for these churches totaled $2,923,384,580, an increase of 2.5 percent over 2002. Two thirds of this revenue was spent on the local program of our churches; 15 percent on capital expenditures for churches, 12 percent on mission, 1.5 percent on presbytery, synod and General Assembly per capita.
These figures hold deeper implications for the faithful ministry of Presbyterian congregations. The deepest and most profound implication is that we as a church are being called by God to prayer for repentance and renewal. We know that coming to faith is only possible through the power of the Holy Spirit. We as Presbyterians will only become a growing church if we begin on our knees, praying for forgiveness for our timidity in evangelism and seeking God’s renewal, so that we and our churches lose our image as “God’s frozen chosen” and become joyful evangelists, actively sharing the Good News and inviting others into the fellowship of our churches.
Empowered by prayer and the Holy Spirit, there are six specific calls to action that I believe arise from these statistics:
1. We need to realize that our most important evangelistic outreach begins at home.
In 2003, as in other recent years, we have gained more new members through profession of faith and transfer of certificate of membership than we lost by those who transferred from the PC(USA) to other churches or who died. Our gain in these categories was 114,910 and our losses were 67,557 — a net gain of 47,353. Our problem is that we had “other losses” of 112,624 — mainly through people who were moved to the inactive list and, usually a few years later, out the “back door to nowhere.” Statistically, we are not losing people to other churches. Our problem is that we are losing our people to the secular world — to no active church affiliation. All of us — pastors, elders and deacons — need to give special attention to nurturing our members, supporting them in meaningful ministry, and reaching out to them when they begin to fall away from active membership.
2. We need to follow the wisdom of the Book of Order concerning inactive members.
Three thousand of the “other losses” in 2003 came from just three congregations. These were large churches who “cleaned the rolls” after years of neglect of the Book of Order’s guidance in G-10.0302 for sessions to regularly review the rolls and to move members to the inactive roll only after they have “made diligent effort to discover the cause of members’ nonparticipation and to restore the member to activity in the church’s work and worship.” Not giving regular attention to the active involvement of members and seeking to restore their active participation at an early stage means it is often too late to re-engage active members when several years have passed. This failure to give regular attention and pastoral visitation to those who have been active but are now slipping away is a major cause of our overall membership losses, not just in those three churches. Every session needs to actively review its rolls at least annually and make a plan for pastoral visitation for those moving toward inactivity in the church’s life.
3. We are called to make disciples — by baptizing. Jesus was quite clear in the Great Commission that we as followers of Christ are called to make disciples of all nations by baptizing them (Matthew 28:19).
Presbyterians are not doing a very good job of bringing new disciples into the church through baptism. In 2003, we recorded a total of 10,174 adult baptisms in our churches. While this is a gain of 518 over 2002, it still represents less than one adult baptism per church. We had a higher number of child baptisms (35,237) than adult, but on the average, still about three per church. These figures are in marked contrast to those of Presbyterians 20 and 40 years ago — and from Presbyterian churches in many other nations. In 1984, the total number of baptisms for adults was 16,535; for children, 50,507. For 1964, those figures were 34,545 and 90,909. It has often been said that Presbyterians are better at nurturing the faithful than at inviting those who have never believed into a life-giving relationship with Jesus Christ, and these figures seem to bear that out. We need to develop the gift of sharing the gospel with those who have never heard the Good News and welcoming them into our churches through baptism.
4. We need to learn from our growing churches — and imitate them!
While we are losing members as a denomination, we do have many growing churches (32 percent [3,623] posted gains in 2003), and all of our congregations need to learn from them. We are aided in this task by two excellent new publications by Deborah Bruce and Cynthia Woolever, Beyond the Ordinary: 10 Strengths in U.S. Congregations and Fastest-Growing Presbyterian Congregations. In the latter publication, they sought data from 400 of our fastest-growing congregations (42 percent average growth over the last five years) and compared them with a sample of all of our congregations. Some of the strengths of these growing churches are:
• Vital programs for children and youth
• Widespread use of prayer groups and other small-group ministries
• New forms and times for worship with an emphasis on spontaneity, inspiration and joy
• Strong connections electronically
• A cultural norm of inviting friends to worship and sharing faith stories
• Excitement about the future of the church
5. If we are going to be a growing church, we must be a multicultural church.
By the middle of this century, the majority of people in the U.S. will be non-Caucasian. Many of the new immigrants who are coming to our country are from parts of the world where the Reformed tradition is strong. If the PC(USA) is to be a growing church, it must be a truly multicultural church! A few years ago, we set goals to increase our racial ethnic membership to 10 percent of our total by 2005 and to 20 percent by 2010. We need to take dramatic action now to meet these goals. While our racial-ethnic membership increased slightly in 2003, the statistics show that the percentage of Presbyterians who are racial-ethnic is still below the 10 percent figure. Some exciting new efforts are underway to help us to reach this goal — a growing number of new immigrant fellowships, increasing numbers of multicultural congregations and fresh strategies for racial-ethnic church growth — but a far greater commitment is required if we are to be transformed into a Christian community that looks like the multicultural world in which we are living in the U.S. today.
6. The PC(USA) grows when we start new churches, and we need to start more new churches.
Historically, the PC(USA) has shown overall growth in the years when it was most active in new-church development. While we can rejoice that there is new energy and resources for building new churches and chartering new immigrant fellowships, we are still dissolving more churches each year (47 in 2003) than we are beginning new ones (31 in 2003). We need a commitment in every presbytery to begin more new churches than we dissolve old ones and a commitment in the entire denomination to generously support the Mission Initiative to help the whole church to respond to the unique opportunity in our time to develop new churches, especially among racial ethnic and new immigrant groups.
No “magic bullet” is available to move from being a church that is losing members to being a growing church. It is only through the power of the Holy Spirit that people come to saving faith in Jesus Christ and churches grow. However, I do believe that these six steps, if taken seriously by Presbyterians, will position us for the Holy Spirit to work in fresh and creative ways in our life, so that we might become the church that God intends us to be — a church that is growing in grace, growing in numbers and growing in faithful discipleship to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Clifton Kirkpatrick is Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, PC(USA).
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