{"id":158,"date":"2010-05-19T08:50:56","date_gmt":"2010-05-19T13:50:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/?p=158"},"modified":"2010-05-19T17:36:41","modified_gmt":"2010-05-19T22:36:41","slug":"the-demographic-crisis-in-church-and-how-to-fix-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/the-demographic-crisis-in-church-and-how-to-fix-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The Demographic Crisis in Church and How to Fix It"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mark

Mark Hamilton, PhD - Associate Dean, Associate Professor of Old Testament, ACU Graduate School of Theology<\/p><\/div>\n

An important feature of life in most established churches in America today is the graying of the flock.\u00a0 Increasingly, the average age of participants in church is rising, with the age of leadership rising faster still.\u00a0 No friend of the church can regard such a trend as anything less than concerning.\u00a0 In places, the gap between the old and the young is alarming and growing.\u00a0 What can be done about it?<\/p>\n

To answer that question, we must begin by asking what is causing it.\u00a0 In part, the answer is that American society as a whole is getting older.\u00a0 Life expectancies continue to rise for many parts of the population.\u00a0 Centenarians mark the fasting growing segment of the country.\u00a0 Birth rates continue to fall for the majority Caucasian population.\u00a0 Birth rates for married people, whom churches are more likely to serve than others, are falling faster than for unmarried persons.\u00a0 Hence the demographic trend will to some extent move against us no matter what we do.<\/p>\n

However, there are additional challenges that churches face.\u00a0 First, the improvement of health care has meant that the retired now enjoy long periods of health, both physical and mental.\u00a0 They may be able to lead at a more advanced age than in the past.\u00a0 They may hold onto power longer and with fewer checks and balances.\u00a0 Second, neighborhoods are increasingly segregated, not only by income, but by age.\u00a0 The retirement community has become a major force in the shaping of life in this country.\u00a0 Many of us encounter persons of a generation other than our own only in the context of family or work, rarely in social settings, and increasingly rarely in church.\u00a0 Third, the major technological gaps between generations (which are increasing) means that persons of different ages speak different languages and have very different understandings of what is \u201cnormal.\u201d\u00a0 Fourth, the information explosion that has accompanied technological changes and the increased interconnectedness of the younger generations have meant that their understandings of what is \u201cproper,\u201d \u201cappropriate,\u201d or even \u201cmoral\u201d may be a significant variance from what their parents or grandparents think.\u00a0 Far more ideas, beliefs, and practices are in play today than was true even 25 years ago.\u00a0 Without deliberate structures and practices for overcoming these tensions, the continuing separation of the generations in church will be inevitable.<\/p>\n

How do we fix this problem?\u00a0 Let me make a few suggestions.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. We need to name the problem and to recognize that good intentions are not enough<\/strong>.\u00a0 All of us want a loving cross-generational community.\u00a0 We want to honor our parents and love our children.\u00a0 But we seem unable to bridge some gaps strictly through good will.<\/li>\n
  2. We need concrete practices that put people of different ages together in periods of mutual learning and service<\/strong>.\u00a0 People learn by doing.\u00a0 Practice may not make perfect, but it does make better.<\/li>\n
  3. We need to read the Bible together<\/strong>.\u00a0 Careful, prayerful, thoughtful, and open learning together about God’s will for the human race will make a difference in how we do things.\u00a0 The odd silence of the Bible in the church needs to be broken.<\/li>\n
  4. We need to address some specific issues about theology and practice openly and lovingly<\/strong>.\u00a0 For example, we need to ask about the roles of men and women in the church.\u00a0 We need to address issues of justice in our community.\u00a0 The culture of silence, cultivated to avoid division, actually exacerbates division.\u00a0 We do not have the luxury of imagining that by doing nothing we can avoid offending someone.\u00a0 Many young people leave because there are too many taboo subjects.<\/li>\n
  5. We need to understand what makes each other tick better<\/strong>.\u00a0 Younger people of my acquaintance are deeply interested in following the risen Christ.\u00a0 They are not interested in maintaining church structures that they did not build.\u00a0 Surely these impulses are valuable and right.\u00a0 They are deeply rooted in the Stone-Campbell tradition, as well.\u00a0 Conversely, many of our older brothers and sisters are keenly sensitive to the need for continuity so as to practice care for the elderly (who are often poor) and for children.\u00a0 They have learned the value of long-term commitments to important things.\u00a0 We need both perspectives to avoid one-sided lives.<\/li>\n
  6. We need to encourage, train, empower, and support younger leaders<\/strong>, whether they hold church \u201coffices\u201d or not.\u00a0 We cannot keep people in a state of extended adolescence until they are 50 and then expect them magically to lead.<\/li>\n
  7. Long-term Christians must cease being easily offended<\/strong>.\u00a0 We need to call each other to better and more generous approaches to disagreement.\u00a0 No one who has been a Christian for more than twenty years gets to be the \u201cweaker brother.\u201d<\/li>\n
  8. Younger Christians do need to learn and recognize that they do not know all there is to know about the Christian life<\/strong>.\u00a0 If we believe in lifelong learning, then we must believe that it is possible to learn new things quite late in life \u2013 we should value such learnings.<\/li>\n
  9. We need to address issues of race and class<\/strong>.\u00a0 We have grown very comfortable with a situation that is, in fact, deeply immoral.\u00a0 The church of all places should be the setting in which we work hard to bridge the walls that divide us.\u00a0 Lily-white churches drive off younger people who believe that the gospel is for all.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Some of these suggestions involve long-range changes that will require sound leadership and a lot of hard work.\u00a0\u00a0 But there are some things we can do now that would benefit us.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Plan cross-generational activities a few times a year<\/strong>.\u00a0 Identify champions, planners, and participants for such events.\u00a0 One could be about worship, one about service, and one about story-sharing, for example.<\/li>\n
    2. Initiate a congregational appreciative inquiry<\/strong>.\u00a0 Let me explain.\u00a0 Appreciative inquiry is a method of study in which a researcher asks a few simple questions of persons so as to elicit their stories.\u00a0 Questions might be things such as \u201ctell me how you became a Christian,\u201d or \u201cwhere do you see God working in your congregation,\u201d or \u201cif you could say one thing to the people younger (or older) than you, what would it be?\u201d\u00a0 The results can be shared.\u00a0 Churches that have done this sort of thing have found it transformative.<\/li>\n
    3. Name the challenges facing the congregation and explain why they are challenges<\/strong>.\u00a0 Bring the members on board as problem solvers rather than passive observers or obstructionists.\u00a0 An open church is a successful church.<\/li>\n
    4. Cultivate prayer<\/strong>.\u00a0 Move prayer out of the side rooms and odd times of the congregation\u2019s life into its center.\u00a0 Teach people how to pray.\u00a0 Model contemplative and intercessory prayer for them.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      My earnest prayer is that we can begin to move in these directions for the sake of the future.\u00a0 It is not reasonable to believe that we can fix this problem through technical changes (hiring different staff members, singing different songs, or other such cosmetic changes).\u00a0 We need systemic change, and we need to make such change in the most Christian ways possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      An important feature of life in most established churches in America today is the graying of the flock.\u00a0 Increasingly, the average age of participants in church is rising, with the age of leadership rising faster still.\u00a0 No friend of the church can regard such a trend as anything less than concerning.\u00a0 In places, the gap […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3538,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Demographic Crisis in Church and How to Fix It - ACU Graduate School of Theology<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/the-demographic-crisis-in-church-and-how-to-fix-it\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Demographic Crisis in Church and How to Fix It - 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