harvest-field cat

~Perspective, George Barna, April 26, 2004

Here’s the bottom line: our generation’s time on the throne is quickly coming to an end. In 2011 the first Boomer will reach age 65. By 2015, 15 million of us will be 65-plus; by 2020, 31 million; by 2025, the U.S. will harbor a mid-sized nation within its borders of 65-plus Boomers (an estimated 48 million).

If all went according to plan, we’d be hard at work implementing the world’s most sophisticated and superbly executed transition plan to install the new strata of leaders. We are brilliant strategists and tacticians – just ask us. No generation has ever risen to the heights of excellence that we have, when we put our minds to it. The Builders were a can-do, get-it-done generation. But the Boomers are the ultimate take-no-prisoners generation when it comes to shaping society – and, in some cases, the world.

But where is that transition plan? Who is working it to perfection? When are we planning to hand over the keys to the kingdoms we have built these last several decades? Who are the successors we are preparing to stand on our shoulders and build on the foundations we have laid – as our fathers did with us?

You’d think that since we are the richest generation in world history, and we have acquired more toys, amenities, comforts, security mechanism and pleasure options than we can even quantify, we’d be excited about helping our children to follow in our footsteps.

It makes sense. But it’s not happening.

December 9, 2007 | Posted by michaelp · Filed Under Ministry

According to Shiloh Place Ministries (shilohplace.org), which drew its information from Focus on the Family, Ministries Today, Charisma Magazine, TNT Ministries, and other respected groups: (HT: Historicity)

• 1,500 pastors leave the ministry permanently each month in America.
• 4,000 new churches start each year in America.
• 7,000 churches close each year in America.
• 50% of pastors’ marriages end in divorce.
• 70% of pastors continually battle depression.
• 80% of pastors and 85% of their spouses feel discouraged in their roles.
• 95% of pastors do not regularly pray with their spouses.
• 70% of pastors do not have a close friend, confidant, or mentor.
• 50% of pastors are so discouraged they would leave the ministry if they could, but have no other way to make a living.
• 80% of pastors spend under 15 minutes a day in prayer.
• 70% of pastors only study God’s Word when preparing a message.
• Nearly 40% of pastors have had an extra-marital sexual affair since entering ministry.
• 80% of seminary graduates who enter ministry will leave the ministry within the first five years.
• 80% of pastors’ wives feel their husbands are overworked.
• 80% of the adult children of pastors sought professional help for depression.
• 90% of pastors said their training was inadequate for ministry.
• 85% of pastors report that their biggest problem is dealing with abstinent elders, deacons, worship leaders, worship teams, board members, and associate pastors.
• 90% of pastors said the hardest thing about ministry is uncooperative people.
• 70% of pastors are grossly underpaid.
• 80% of pastors’ wives feel unappreciated by the congregation.
• 90% of pastors said ministry was completely different from what they thought it would be.
• Only 70% of pastors felt called of God into ministry when they began.
• Only 50% of pastors felt called of God into ministry three years later.
• 80% of pastors’ wives feel pressured to be someone they are not and do things they are not called to do in the church.
• Over 50% of pastors’ wives feel that their husbands entering ministry was the most destructive thing to ever happen to their families.

The Status of the Church Today?

The following statistics and comments were gathered by David Bryant in his book, “Christ is All - A Joyful Manifesto on The Supremacy of God’s Son.”

In a recent study only 35% of Evangelical youth were committed to the exclusivity of Jesus Christ.
As a percentage of those who express faith in Christ in North America, only 3-6% are under the age of 30. This is the smallest number of any time in American history.
Every month 1,400 clergy leave the ministry.
Every week more than 50,000 people leave the Church, never to return.
Over 80% of churches in the U.S. are either stagnate or in decline.
With every passing year there are approximately 3,000 fewer churches in America than the year before.
In proportion to the population there are fewer than half as many churches today as there were a century ago.
According to the book “Lost in America,” the U.S. is so extensively unchurched that if non-Christians in our land were to form a nation by themselves, it would become the largest mission field in the english speaking world.
All of the above is happening despite the fact that U.S. churches have spent over $500 billion on itself in the past ten years, primarily to shore up the internal commitment of parish members.

Question

How many religious congregations are there in the United States?

Answer
There is no official directory for all the congregations in the county, so sociologists of religion have to rely on statistical estimates extrapolated from surveys. These are often disputed, and to complicate matters, thousands of new churches open each year, while thousands of others close. Hartford Institute estimates there are roughly 335,000 religious congregations in the United States. Of those, about 300,000 are Protestant and other Christian churches, and 22,000 are Catholic and Orthodox churches. Non-Christian religious congregations are estimated at about 12,000.
~Want to know more? An excellent discussion of where these figures come from and how they were arrived at can be found in Kirk Hadaway’s and Penny Marler’s excellent article in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Volume 44, Number 3, September 2005, pp. 307-322.

Question
What’s the size of U.S. churches?

Answer
The median church in the U.S. has 75 regular participants in worship on Sunday mornings, according to the National Congregations Study http://www.soc.duke.edu/natcong/ . Notice that researchers measured the median church size — the point at which half the churches are smaller and half the churches are larger — rather than the average (186 attenders reported by the USCLS survey http://www.uscongregations.org/charact-cong.htm ), which is larger due to the influence of very large churches. But while the United States has a large number of very small churches, most people attend larger churches. The National Congregations Study estimated that the smaller churches draw only 11 percent of those who attend worship. Meanwhile, 50 percent of churchgoers attended the largest 10% of congregations (350 regular participants and up).
~Want to know more? Check the websites for the National Congregations Study at http://www.soc.duke.edu/natcong/ The US Congregational Life Survey (USCLS) website has statistics about congregations by religious traditions at http://www.uscongregations.org/charact-cong.htm

Question
Are U.S. churches multiracial?

Answer
Sadly, no. Eleven o’clock Sunday morning continues to be the most segregated hour in America. A study by sociologist Michael Emerson showed that churches where 20 percent of members were of a racial minority comprised only 7 percent of U.S. congregations. Overall, 5 percent of Protestant churches and 15 percent of Roman Catholic churches were multi-racial. But Sociologist Scott Thumma found that megachurches, in the 2005 “Megachurches Today” study, may be changing that balance. In his study, 35 percent of megachurches claimed to have 20 percent or more minorities. What’s more, 56 percent of megachurches said they were making an intentional effort to become multi-racial.
~Want to know more? Read People of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States by Michael Emerson, (Princeton University Press, 2006) Also, read the Megachurches Today report at http://hirr.hartsem.edu//megachurch/megachurches_research.html

Question
How many seminaries are there in the United States?

Answer
The Association of Theological Schools reported 251 member schools in the United States and Canada in 2005. (In the U.S., there were 215.) The vast majority of those schools are accredited. Others are working toward accreditation. Of those schools, 141 were Protestant, 53 were non-denominational or inter-denominational, 54 were Roman Catholic, and three were Orthodox Christian. Enrollment in all 251 member schools was 81,302 in 2005.
~Want to know more? Go to the website for the Association of Theological Schools, http://www.ats.edu and click on the 2005/06 Annual Data Tables. You can also find a page with links to all these seminaries at http://www.ats.edu/member_schools/alpha.asp

Question
How many clergymen and women are there in the United States?

Answer
The Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches http://www.electronicchurch.org/ recently reported that there were 600,000 clergy serving in various denominations in the United States. But that figure included retired clergy, chaplains in hospitals, prisons and the military, denominational executives, and ordained faculty at divinity schools and seminaries. The 600,000 figure did not include independent churches, not tied to a denomination. “There’s no way to know how many there are,” said Jackson Carroll, professor emeritus of religion and society at Duke Divinity School. In addition, the figures provided by the denominations to the Yearbook may not be that accurate, Carroll said. Nevertheless, at present it is the best figure to use.
~Want to know more? Read chapter 3 in Jackson Carroll’s God’s Potters: Pastoral Leadership and the Shaping of Congregations, (W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2006) or see the brief article about the book at http://hirr.hartsem.edu/louisville/newsletter3-2.htm#featured. The Pulpit and Pew website http://www.pulpitandpew.duke.edu/ has additional information about the characteristics and state of American clergy.

Question
What’s the definition of a megachurch, and how many are there in the United States?

Answer
Megachurches are not all alike, but they do share some common features. Hartford Seminary Sociologist Scott Thumma who compiled the 2005 “Megachurches Today” survey defines a megachurch as a congregation with at least 2,000 people attending each Sunday. These churches tend to have a charismatic senior minister and an active array of social and outreach ministries seven days a week.

At latest count, there were 1,210 Protestant churches in the United States with a weekly attendance of 2,000 people or more. That’s nearly twice the number five years ago, suggesting people are receptive to this new way of worship. The average megachurch had a Sunday attendance of 3,585. But not all megachurches are mega. The survey found that only 16 percent of megachurches had 5,000 people in attendance on a given Sunday.
~Want to know more? Read a detailed description of megachurches at: http://www.hirr.hartsem.edu/megachurch/megachurches.html To find out more about the number of megachurches go to: http://hirr.hartsem.edu/megachurch/megastoday2005_summaryreport.html

Question
Where are megachurches located?

Answer
By 2005, megachurches had become a religious phenomenon spread across the US. All but five states have congregations with more than 2,000 people in attendance on a Sunday morning, according to the 2005 “Megachurches Today” study. The four states with the greatest concentrations of megachurches were California (14 percent), Texas (13 percent), Florida (7 percent), and Georgia (6 percent). But researchers found that megachurches are becoming more popular, not only in Sunbelt states, but across the country. The following map shows the locations of all the U.S. megachurches. Each black dot represents a church, with the large black masses indicating multiple churches within an area:
~Want to know more? Go to: http://hirr.hartsem.edu/megachurch/megastoday2005_summaryreport.html

The Congregations, the Leaders, and the Body

Largest 25 Denominations/Communions from the 2007 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches

1. The Catholic Church, 69,135,254 members, reporting an increase of 1.94 percent.

2. The Southern Baptist Convention, 16,270,315 members, reporting an increase of .02 percent.

3. The United Methodist Church, 8,075,010 members, reporting a decrease of 1.36 percent.

4. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 5,690,672 members, reporting an increase of 1.63 percent.

5. The Church of God in Christ, 5,499,875 members, no increase or decrease reported. No updated report.

6. National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., 5,000,000 members, no increase or decrease reported. No updated report.

7. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 4,850,776, reporting a decrease of 1.62 percent.

8. National Baptist Convention of America, 3,500,000, no increase or decrease reported. No updated report.

9. Presbyterian Church (USA), 3,098,842 members, reporting a decrease of 2.84 percent.

10. Assemblies of God, 2,830,861 members, reporting an increase of 1.86 percent.

11. African Methodist Episcopal Church, 2,500,000 members, no increase or decrease reported. No updated report.

12. National Missionary Baptist Convention of America, 2,500,000 members, no increase or decrease reported. No updated report.

13. Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc., 2,500,000 members, no increase or decrease reported. No updated report.

14. The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS), 2,440,864, reporting a decrease of .93 percent.

15. Episcopal Church, 2,247,819, reporting a decrease of 1.59 percent.

16. Churches of Christ, 1,639,495 members, reporting an increase of 9.30 percent. First updated report since 1999

17. Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, 1,500,000 members, no increase or decrease reported. No updated report.

18. Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Inc., 1,500,000 members, no increase or decrease reported. No updated report.

19. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, 1,432,795 members, no increase or decrease reported. No updated report.

20. American Baptist Churches in the USA, 1,396,700, reporting a decrease of 1.97 percent.

21. United Church of Christ, 1,224,297, reporting a decrease of 3.28 percent.

22. Baptist Bible Fellowship International, 1,200,000, no increase or decrease
reported. No updated report.

23. Christian Churches and Churches of Christ, 1,071,615 members, no increase or decrease reported. No updated report.

24. The Orthodox Church in America, 1,064,000 members, reporting an increase of 6.40 percent. No updated report.

25. Jehovah's Witnesses, 1,046,006 members, reporting an increase of 1.56 members.

The total number of members reported within the largest 25 communions is 149,222,807 with an averall increase of .82 percent.

~The 2007 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches costs $50 and may be ordered at www.electronicchurch.org