Jon Carlson, moderator for Mennonite Church USA, reflects on trends in church attendance and what they mean for how we do church together.
Jon Carlson serves as the lead pastor of Forest Hills Mennonite Church, in Leola, Pennsylvania, and moderator of Mennonite Church USA. He holds a Master of Divinity from Eastern Mennonite Seminary. As a somewhat reluctant Millennial, Jon is fascinated by the intersections of faith, culture, technology and tradition. He and his wife, Lyn, are raising three children in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. When he’s not chauffeuring the kids around, Jon enjoys a good cup of espresso, a dense book or a long-distance run.
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I’ve developed something of a new tradition on Easter Sunday. After everything that goes into planning for one of the most significant days of the Christian year — the pastoral hustle and bustle throughout Holy Week, the Sunday morning family photo, the earlier than usual arrival time, the momentary panic, because something isn’t ready — I sit down in a pew and pull out my phone.
Looking across the packed sanctuary, I text a colleague of mine from another congregation with a rhetorical question: “Where are all these people the rest of the year?”
If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance that you’re highly involved in the life of a local congregation. Maybe you serve on staff or in a lay leadership role or you’ve experienced the church as a significant part of your own identity. If so, you know that the surge in attendance on Easter and around Christmas is nothing new.
What is new, though, is what church attendance looks like the other 50 Sundays of the year. Attendance patterns have been shifting for some time, but the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the trends and introduced new wrinkles.
By one definition, someone who attends worship services an average of three out of every eight weekends is considered a regular church attender.
I’m a pastor, so math isn’t my strong suit, but even I can recognize that 37.5% is less than half.
And it’s not just church. Ryan Burge, a sociologist and ordained American Baptist pastor, points to data that suggests that, “There’s a growing number of people … looking at all the institutions that once consumed a huge part of American social life and saying, ‘I don’t need any of this.’” Burge builds on the seminal work of Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone,” which points to the rise of cable TV as a dominant factor in Americans disengaging from things like fraternal organizations, recreational sports leagues, civics groups and, yes, church.
Like Putnam, I could point my finger at all kinds of factors driving disengagement from church: youth sports, the lifestyle creep of affluence, the stresses of being a dual-career household, the precariousness people acutely feel in late-stage capitalism, living far from family … the list could go on and on.
But my framing isn’t exactly right. The 37.5 percenters aren’t disengaging from church; they’re engaging church differently. The question I text my friend each Easter Sunday is precisely the wrong question to be asking. The better question is: “What might God have for the people who are here, and how can this church play a role in that this morning?”
37.5% might be less than half, but it’s a lot more than zero. Each and every time someone chooses to go to church, there’s cause for celebration. In the midst of our often chaotic and fragmented life, many of us still look for opportunities to worship God, connect with other believers, grow in faith and serve the world in the name of Jesus. Three out of every eight might just be cause for great rejoicing in heaven.
At the same time, shifting attendance patterns require congregations to rethink some things. Most congregations track attendance as a basic metric of the church, but that metric might not tell us today what it told us a decade ago.
As Karl Vaters writes, “Decline isn’t what it used to be, and ‘stuck’ may not be stuck at all.” He notes that “If your [congregational] attendance has dipped by less than 20 percent in the last decade (Covid aside), you probably haven’t declined in the total number of congregants.”
Shifting attendance also means rethinking some of our assumptions about the relationship between church size and staffing needs. Paradoxically, staffing needs may increase, even as attendance holds steady or drops. Investing in staff can help mobilize a congregation for mission, as staff members manage more of the logistics and allow the entire church to work and serve together.
These changes also afford us an opportunity to consider what we measure and how it matters.
Attendance and giving are two of the easiest things to track, and both matter in their own right. Neither, though, is a proxy for the health of a community or the depth of discipleship and transformation we are experiencing within it. Perhaps, there are new ways for pastors and leadership teams to talk about health and growth.
As Mennonites, we have a rich history of sustained reflection on the warp and woof of community. The Anabaptist impulse is essentially communal. At times, some of us have chaffed against the strictures imposed on us in the name of healthy community. Even so, this legacy may prove invaluable, as the Christian faith experiences these profound changes.
Our essentially communal understanding of faith is challenged by changing cultural patterns, but it also might position us toward articulating a shared vision of a flourishing community gathered together under the authority of Jesus. Sometimes, that gathering happens on a Sunday morning, and people’s presence or absence matters a great deal. But that gathering also happens when we drop off a meal for someone or show up to serve somewhere together or drop a ridiculous comment in the group chat. We can find ways to be the church together that begin on Sundays but extend through the rest of each week.
Where are all these people the rest of the year? As a pastor, I don’t always know. But I know that, wherever they are, they are deeply loved by God, and that’s reason to celebrate every time they take a step toward the community of faith.
The views and opinions expressed in this blog belong to the author and are not intended to represent the views of the MC USA Executive Board or staff.
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