What’s Happening to My Denomination?
The Southern Baptist Convention has recently released its Annual Church Profile report, which spells out that the denomination is in decline. Last week, the Baptist Missionary Association of America welcomed three new churches into its fold. While we have a hard time tracking statistics of churches that have died, I’m going on an assumption that we lost more than three. Mainline Protestant denominations have been declining for a decade or more. What’s happening to my denomination?
I’m not an expert on denominational history or organizational tactics, but I am an observer of culture, so I want to throw out some possibilities of what could be happening, and why it may not be such a bad thing after all.
Shifting Leadership Styles
It could be that we’re watching Christianity move away from a rank-and-file, militaristic style of leadership to more of a shepherding model. There are obvious strengths with leadership done military-style, but the biblical model seems to favor shepherding a flock, which doesn’t always fall into neatly categorized units. So instead of seeking out those with power roles, we’re seeking those with stronger teaching and spiritual mentoring roles. I could be wrong, for sure.
Shifting Organizational Approaches
As we move away from responding to ranking officials over others, we may also be moving away from the tightly centralized organizational structures that built the denominations of our day. What then would we be moving toward? I would see it as more loosely organized networks of leaders and churches. In the past, local church leaders drew their support from organizations and departments. It could be that now, we draw our ideas and resources from the cloud that exists around us. This is partly due to the nature of the internet and the cultural changes it has brought about. But I could be wrong though.
Shifting Ideas About Our Image In Culture
In past decades, we’ve been hopeful about the power of organizing in large groups to increase our influence in politics and culture. It could be that we’re becoming more sensitive to the image which is cast upon Christianity by that approach, and that instead, we’re seeking to actually be less “powerful” for the purpose of becoming more influential. I’m not arguing that this is good or bad. I simply observe this mindset in younger leaders, and yes, I could certainly be wrong.
A Movement Toward the Return of Christ
I’m waxing theological for a minute. It could simply be that as we move toward a time of terrible tribulation for believers, that the tribulation which precedes Jesus’ second coming is casting a shadow before itself, which is bringing us back in line with the way the church has often operated under times of persecution. That is… maybe we’re losing our legal and cultural status in exchange for more of an underground, informally organized system. It could be that I’m wrong though.
The fact is, I don’t have the answers and I’m wary of those who claim that they do. There are a few people whom I would consider experts on the current state of culture, but none of them are truly able to predict the future.
What Truly Matters
The reality is that denominations are man made. Our structures and governmental practices have all been invented over time. What really matters in the long run are those things that are revealed clearly in Scripture. For me that includes the bedrock doctrinal truths that never change, the local church with Christ as her only head, and the evangelizing of the world around us. In other words, truth matters, Christ matters, and the local church matters no matter what happens to our denomination.
In the meantime, let’s pray for revival, for young leaders to be raised up, for a commitment to integrity and godly living, and for the lost around the world to be reached through our various missions agencies and efforts. And may God’s kingdom ultimately come on earth, as it is in heaven.
Any thoughts? I’d love to hear them. After all, I could definitely be wrong.
Brandon is first and foremost a follower of Jesus Christ. He's a husband to 
Lot of great thoughts here Brandon. I don't know all the answers, but I do know I'm "less" Southern Baptist than I've ever been in my life. If that makes sense…
It makes sense to me, Ron. I find myself focusing more and more on the health of my own local church, and helping church planters across denominational lines any way I can. It's one of the reasons I'm so thankful for your ministry – you're on the front lines. Keep it up!
There are ebbs and flows in the world and society in general. After Clinton left office there was a swinging of the ideological pendulum back to old values and once again it was mainstream and cool to have belief and religion.
The pendulum has shifted once again, and it seems we are back in the late 80's early 90's again. Religion isn't cool, and morality is suddenly relative. Hopefully it won't last too long, I don't much like it.
Yeah I with you there. I think truth is concrete and that when we live in a relativistic vacuum, people will again search for something solid. Thankfully God's truth is just that!
There are ebbs and flows in the world and society in general. After Clinton left office there was a swinging of the ideological pendulum back to old values and once again it was mainstream and cool to have belief and religion.
Interesting comments. Our church (Baptist but not part of the SBC) has started to looking into using the term 'shepherd' instead of 'leader' when it comes to various leadership positions within our church (for example Life Group Shepherd instead of Life Group Leader). Your paragraph about leading styles is spot on.
Thanks Jay, shepherding definitely fits with the biblical models of Moses, David, and Jesus. Nice thought!
A few thoughts from my own perspective, which you need to take into account. I am a British Baptist.
From our perspective here there seems to be a growing non-denominationalism amongst Christian believers. People have less denominational loyalty, and choose churches by what suits them. So there is greater fluidity between denominations.
We have seen the growth of churches which don't belong to a denomination, and these seem to be the fastest growing churches.
(One of my concerns, when looking at the American church scene, is the growth of the megachurch. We seem to have moved away from churches serving a particular community to large churches drawing Christians in from a huge radius. I remember Pastor Mark from Mars Hill talking in a blog earlier on in the year about folk who travel two or three hours into church each Sunday. Whilst that is good for these huge churches, it has a negative impact on smaller churches, and I wonder, too, whether it has a negative impact on the witness of smaller churches in particular communities when many of the Christians who live in that community go to church many miles away).
But there is a general point here about some people nowadays tending to choose a church for what they can get out of it, rather than what they can put into it. We have moved from the church being a mission community where the 'consumer' was the community around the church, to a place where the consumer is now the individual Christian, who will just as quickly go somewhere else if their needs aren't met.
I think that there is also a tendency for folks to be much more individualistic about their faith, and being part of a church is no longer seen as a requirement for being a Christian believer. My church at the moment is advertising for a youth worker, and we've had one or two applications. One of the applicants talks about her Christian faith, but responded to the question about which church she attended by saying that she doesn't go to a church, she didn't see that as a necessary part of being a Christian.
Just a few random thoughts from my perspective.
David, thanks for weighing in from across the Atlantic. I think you've made a pretty valid point. What happens when we can't meet the demands of \”consumers\” or what happens to the megachurch when it must choose between persecution and compromise? There are a lot of good questions to be raised. Personally, I favor planting many churches over having a few large ones for that very reason – so that th essence of a community is preserved. At the same time, I also think there must be room for those gifted for communicating with larger numbers of people. It's a tough issue, but we need to be ready for whatever God does in the future.
I think we are moving away from traditional denominations and more toward associations and partnerships that are based on similar styles and strategies. Part of the reason is that as leadership ages in many of the mainline denominations, newer churches are shunned and ridiculed because of their methods and style. Our allegiance is to Christ, not to a denominational hierarchy. (and this comes from a pastor who is southern baptist in doctrine, but who is now pastoring a non-denominational church) I too hope for a revival, and I pray that younger leaders will stay true to the gospel with or without denominational structures to hold them accountable.
Thanks for weighing in, Mike. My own denomination has a landmark heritage, which simply means that being \”Baptist\” is very important. I tend to focus on the doctrinal beliefs and missional practices of each local church regardless of any denominational label. Thanks for doing what you do!
Great essay and discussion in the comments. My perspective starts with (1.) there are two billion Christians – about a third of the world's population. An amazing testament to the power of Jesus' message. Would Jesus view that fact as a wonderful success in the spread of His message, or, alternatively, would He wonder why the number is so small after 2,000 years? I think the answer might be the latter. He and we should wonder why Christianity has divided into a few thousand or few hundred denominations? He and we should wonder how and why we came to a place where Christians debate denominational differences among themselves instead of celebrating their shared faith? He gave only one message. Our penchant for debating it and dividing ourselves into ever smaller fragments is pure human ego – despite admonitions against being judgmental and intolerant, our denominational divisions prove that we would rather be right than tolerant.
Harnessing 2 billion people into a single people who celebrate their common belief would be an overwhelming force for peace and grace. Instead, we choose a fragmented path that is declining in influence. Very odd?
Mike, thanks for sharing your heart. I definitely agree that our frequent splintering is tragic, but there are three great cahllenges to real unity. On is the popular definition of \”Christian\” versus the biblical dedinition, so true Christianity is hard to identify. I'm not so sure we can even come close to an accurate number of the truly born again. The second issue is the balance between the command to get along and the command to stand against false doctrine. And the third issue is the logistical difficulty of organizing mission work on a global scale.
For me, the existance of denominationalism is tragic, yet necessary for the purpose of doctrinal identification. Thats why I tend to believe it is the local church as an institution that will impact culture most heavily.
Mainline denominations are losing parishioners because they're losing sight of their calling.
The Church is called to by ambassadors for Christ's kingdom, to go into the world and make disciples, baptizing them and teaching them. The job of the Church is to be salt, light, a sanctuary from the world by preaching the word of God into the ears of sinners, baptize them, put wine and bread into their mouths.
Increasingly, the Church has become more interested in starting PACs & programs, and finding ways to entertain the consumer so as to attract them week after week.
If they're not doing that, they're doling out the latest form of moralistic therapeutic deism.
And people are tired of it. Deep down, they know that someone else does a better job of entertaining, they know they can never live up to the law, (old, new or otherwise) and what they really need is the Gospel.
Denominations have their place. They used to be a collective of those who believed that the Bible should be understood a certain way. For instance, this is what the Southern Baptist denomination used to be about: http://www.vor.org/truth/1689/1689bc00.html.
Now, most Baptists have no idea that their denomination was founded on these beliefs, and are Baptist because, "Hey, we don't sprinkle babies."
Jesus said, "Behold I stand at the door and knock." What we ignore, is that He is saying this to the church.
Until the Church let's Christ and His Gospel back in, we'll continue to see a decline in disciples.
Paul, you make some very good points. Baptists have lost a bit of their heritage, which should be more soundly connected with a thoroughly biblical theology and not just the trends and movements we've seen. And yes, what people really need is the gospel, pure and simple. Thanks for the reminder!
By the way, I was meaning to link to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, not the Grace Reformed Church of Mebane, NC… strange redirect. Here's what I meant to do: http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/creeds/bcof.htm