I've spent my entire life in congregations affiliated with Mainline Protestant denominations. For Lent, I’m giving up something big: the church I always knew. And, unlike past Lenten disciplines that ended on Easter, this change is one I expect to be permanent. Here in the final post in this series, I'm giving up the old and white church. Old According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median age of all Americans is 38.4 years (2019). By comparison, the Pew Research Center Read More …
Mainline Protestant
Giving Up Worship in Indoor Sacred Spaces (#1920)
For Lent, I’m giving up something big: the church I always knew. And, unlike past Lenten disciplines that ended on Easter, this change is one I expect to be permanent. Indoor Sacred Spaces as Primary From birth through childhood, adolescence, young adulthood and into middle age I have participated in weekly Sunday morning worship almost every week of every year of my life. At least 98% of those worship services occurred indoors within the walls of congregations I Read More …
Giving Up Mainline Protestantism (#1917)
For Lent, I'm giving up something big: the church I always knew. And, unlike past Lenten disciples that ended on Easter, this change is one I expect to be permanent. My Christian Identity For all of my life, I've self-identified as a Mainline Protestant. Despite this unchanging identification, I've spent significant time outside my own tradition. My experiences beyond the Mainline include Worship. I've visited and worshipped in dozens of congregations affiliated with a variety Read More …
Presbyterian Decline: PCUSA -The First 35 Years (#1856)
The Presbyterian Church (USA) was created by a merger of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. and the Presbyterian Church in the United States in June 1983. The newly formed denomination started with a membership of 3,131,228. Membership Decline The denomination has experienced year-over-year membership decline every year since it began. Over the last three decades, the rate of decline has increased: 1988-1998 – 11.9%1998-2008 – 17.3%2008-2018 Read More …
UCC Decline Enters 7th Decade (#1853)
Sixteen months ago I wrote a post titled "6 Decades of Decline in the United Church of Christ," which presented a detailed analysis of the decline in number of congregations and number of members from the time the denomination was formed in 1957 through 2017. (I was surprised to learn this was my second most popular post of the 2010s since I published over 1,800 posts during the decade). In recent days, I learned that the first year of the denomination's 7th decade resulted in continued Read More …
Another Decade of Major Decline in The Episcopal Church (#1823)
Earlier this week Episcopal priest Tom Ferguson wrote a piece titled "The Collapse is Here," exploring The Episcopal Church's recently published statistics on Sunday worship attendance from 2008 to 2018. Ferguson offers several high level observations about what has happened and what the Episcopal Church looks like today: Average attendance dropped 25% (24.7%) between 2008 and 2018. Average attendance in 2018 was 562,529.There are now more parishes with an average attendance of less than 10 Read More …
Mainline: The 5 Percent? (#1819)
Over the years I've written dozens of blog posts about Mainline decline. This morning, I happened upon a tweet that highlights the significance in decline by comparing current Mainline Protestant affiliation rates for those over age 65 with those under age 35. Ryan Burge, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Eastern Illinois University, tweeted "4.5% of those under 35 are mainline Prot. vs. 20.6% of those 65+." So What? Put differently: For every 20 Americans over age Read More …
Search for a Church 2.0 – Plan C (#1781)
This time around our search for a church was supposed to be relatively easy because we decided to only consider a small geographical areavisit Mainline Protestant congregations (and those largely aligned with Mainline theology) Our relatively modest attempt has grown a few times: Plan A: 10 congregationsPlan B: 13 congregationsPlan C: 15 congregations (still far smaller than our last search that included 36 congregations!) Plan C When we set out for our original search for Read More …
Visiting 50+ Churches in Dallas – Fort Worth (#1779)
Since relocating to the Dallas - Fort Worth metropolitan area in September 2015, I've worshipped in 52 different congregations. Denomination The vast majority (88%) of my visits have been to congregations in Mainline denominations. A complete list of denominational affiliations follows: Assemblies of God - 1Baptist - 2Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) - 8Episcopal - 4Evangelical Lutheran Church in America - 3Non-denominational - 1Presbyterian Church (USA) - 9United Church of Read More …
6 Decades of Decline in the United Church of Christ (#1761)
The United Church of Christ (UCC) was formed in 1957 as the result of the union of two Protestant denominations: the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Churches. In 1957 the UCC included 8,283 congregations with 2,193,593 members. Every decade since the formation has featured a decline in both total congregations and total members (statistical data sourced from the Fall 2018 edition of United Church of Christ: A Statistical Profile) Declining Read More …