…if we are following God’s vision and commands.

We may indeed fail to meet our perceived goals in the journey to do this. We may screw up along the way.

But obedience itself is never failure. In fact, I would go so far as to say any statement that is the equivalent of “Lord, I obey; help me to obey better” could never be considered a failure.

We should never be caught saying, “I cannot obey God–I lack the skills.”

So, if you want to be a success, reduce it to a simple formula: (1) discover what God wants you to do; (2) do it; (3) teach others to do the same.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat. What would you do if you were not afraid?

The problem with “The [disciple] is always right”
Is that the disciple ISN’T always right.
Yet if you argue with them, they can leave the discipling relationship.
It’s not forced. It’s voluntary.

Solution: don’t argue.
Facilitate discovery and teach them to listen to the Spirit themselves.
The solution to a wrong answer isn’t argument, but an introduction to Truth.

Is it possible that

(1) the “more Christian” areas of the world have developed church service models which are geared toward a more demographic form of growth (particularly during a more rural time period)? Demographic growth means children born in Christian households are raised to be Christians, marry Christians, and raise Christian children, repeating the cycle. Optimizing for this means a focus on Sunday School, teaching, facilitating youth events, facilitating life-point transitions, etc.

(2) BUT: they are now struggling to urbanize and shift with cultural norms.

• Urbanization and globalization are changing the distribution and makeup of the church community
• We are more mobile than ever, so a church loses people to migration and economic depression in an area. A depression/recession could spell a downward spiral for a church as its best/brightest/youngest migrate elsewhere in search of work
• Multiple cultures are coming in
• Most of all, cultural norms about marriage and childbearing are impacting demographic growth in a significant way. Fewer women are getting married; they are marrying later in life; they are having fewer children. With the slack in childbearing, the church is losing its primary source of new converts.

(3) We need to replace demographic growth with conversion growth: re-attracting the backslidden, or those new college students who are migrating into our area but more interested in sleeping in on Sunday morning than going to church (read about this here, here and here), or those newly-marrieds who now, for a brief moment, are open to changing their habits (and one of the habits, though not mentioned in the linked article, might be church attendance).

(4) the current church service model, optimized toward demographic growth (helping believers marry believers & raise believing children) by its nature does not work well in attracting growth-by-conversion.

(4) which is why disciple-makers from high-conversion areas have the experience & thinking necessary to go into areas where demographic growth is now slacking off (e.g. America, Europe) and start high-conversion-focused ministries where locals cannot?

@jdpayne tweets, “Missiological challenge: Take these 25 cities: http://bit.ly/IQV9Hrcalculate the lostness: http://bit.ly/IRB0kG share it with us.”

The 25 cities are:

1. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, 61% AC.

2. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, 60% AC.

3. New York-Newark-Edison, 65% AC.

4. Champaign-Urbana. 69% AC.

5. Durham, NC, 69% AC.

6. Gainesville, FL, 66% AC.

7. Ithaca, NY, 71% AC.

8. Ann Arbor, MI, 66% AC.

9. Trenton-Ewing, NJ. 69% AC.

10. Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, 68% AC.

11. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, 60% AC.

12. Corvallis, OR, 60% AC.

13. New Haven-Milford, CT, 66% AC.

14. Boulder, CO, 61% AC.

15. Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Roseville, 67% AC.

16. Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, 66% AC.

17. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, 65% AC.

18. Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, 68% AC.

19. San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, 66% AC.

20. Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, 67% AC.

21. Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, 69% AC.

22. Baltimore-Towson, 67% AC.

23. Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, 67% AC

24. Denver-Aurora, 61% AC

25. Ames, IA, 71% AC

AC = Affiliated Christians, members of a church (includes Christians of all traditions). I haven’t gone through the evangelical numbers at this point, so I guess I’ve only completed half the challenge (in listing the 25 and comparing to AC).

One of the key principles that we at MUP focus on is to always facilitate the discovery process rather than to teach. I’ve been pondering other applications of this process recently.

1. Is it possible to do all of one’s social networking posts in a “purely discovery” mode – e.g. using questions, short posts, prodding discussion, etc?

2. Is it possible to do Adult Sunday School in this mode: share the “Scripture passage” (or perhaps the bigger passage around the lesson “memory verse”), ask the key questions: (1) what is God doing, (2) what should we be obeying, (3) who can we share this story with? Let the class do all the discussion? Do no teaching? Don’t answer questions? Just ask, “What do you think? What does the Scripture say? How can you obey the Scripture this week?”

3. Is it possible to teach all Perspectives lessons (even lessons like the life of William Carey, a biography for example) using a “discovery” mode? Maybe, write out a brief, succinct form of the biography. Share it around, spend the first 15 minutes of the class reading it in tables or pairs. Then, ask the questions: (1) what was God doing in the life of William Carey? (2) how did Carey respond? (3) Do we see God doing this in our life? (4) What should we be doing in response? Or similar questions? What questions would you add?

Krish Kandiah wrote this article, about Saddleback recruiting leaders to plant a church in London. The comments on this article are fascinating from so many different view points.

Take the comments and put them in bolder questions to highlight some of the ways that we think:

(1) is there a right size for a church, so that it can only be “half full”? How do you determine the “right size” for a church? [clearly, in the comments we are defining the right size of the church as being the maximum occupancy of the building it is presently in. If the building is less than full, the church is failing. When the church blows out its occupancy, it has wildly succeeded. This means you really ought to choose a new building with a maximum occupancy where your current regular attendership is about 80 to 90% of its size, so that at Easter you can blow it out.]

(2) which comes first, organizational vision or community vision? When is it ever the right time to plant a church? Would an “unreached area” ever ask for a church? [if businesses "sought the perceived needs of the community" you'd never have the iPhone or iPod or iPad]

(3) “we run it ourselves…” ?! I know it goes against those denominations, but I think this is the way churches ought to be run to begin with.

(4) we should “fill up the churches over in America before planting churches abroad” – if this is based on #1 above, we would never send missionaries anywhere. Or rarely, at any rate.

(5) If you plant a church in a place where there are other churches, it must mean you think the other churches aren’t doing it right. [London, however, is rapidly becoming a "World B" heavily evangelized majority non-Christian country with lots of World A unevangelized individuals, because of the influx of immigrants.]

(6) What about Nigeria? Hmm. Maybe Saddleback should recruit a Nigerian pastor. Africans in Europe are known to be among the best and most prolific church planters…

What do you think? What thoughts come to your mind? What questions do they reveal?

We know that there are many UPGs coming to America as diaspora groups–Saudi, Thai, Vietnamese, and Iraqi just to name four obvious groups. There’s a lot of complexities involved in identifying the groups that are here, and even more in identifying which ones are unreached (because a lot of Christians from unreached countries come to America for one reason or another) and developing strategies to reach them.

Today I learned about an effort to map the groups within the 100 largest metropolitan areas of the United States. Some 65% of America’s population live in these 100 MSAs, and if you map the peoples within those areas, you will have mapped all of the UPGs in the USA (there’s quite a lot of intellectual work in this) with the one exception of the Native American groups (which are a special case, and for which a different approach to mapping them is being taken).

Note that I’m not saying you will have mapped all the unreached individuals. Rather, the idea is that you won’t find a new, unique UPG in a city outside those 100 MSAs (at least theoretically).

The effort is being championed by the IMB and several of my friends there. You can read more about it and get involved at http://www.usapeoplegroups.org.

“Five myths about venture capital” (http://bit.ly/zYScov) is an excellent article worth reading. The five myths outlined in the article are, briefly:

1. Venture investing is a good way to make money (not unless you are in the top 10%)

2. Venture capitalists are rich (not unless you are in the top 5 to 10%; failure rate of VC firms was close to 50%)

3. You must connect to Silicon Valley to succeed (nope, most VCs are not in the Valley)

4. These days it costs less to build a large company (no, costs less to build a SMALL company)

5. Ideas matter (no, ideas are commodities; execution matters).

I see many parallels between technology startups and pioneer mission efforts. The venture capitalists in the mission world are donors and “incubators”—organizations who help get pioneer efforts started by coaching them through the startup phase. Agencies that recruit, train, and deploy startup teams are like incubators. An example is a YWAM base: people join the base as new YWAMers, but eventually they go out and start a new Base with a new ministry. So, what can we learn from this article?

1. Mission investing and development is risky and requires patience.

Missionary efforts are not “for-profit,” but even if you substitute “disciples” or “churches” for “profits” or “revenue,” they are still risky. Mission efforts take a lot of time and persistence to show results. Zwemer, Carey, Judson and other famous missionary heroes all labored for years, even decades, before seeing even one convert. David Watson, a pioneer church planter, once said on average it took two to three years to see a church planting movement start. Lots of mission efforts fail or burn out. Persistence is key.

2. Mission investors are often not rich.

I can’t tell you the number of people who have supported us (and likely support you) while living very modest lifestyles. You can’t look at a person and judge their willingness to join in partnership with your ministry on the basis of their car, clothes, etc. I theorize that the flashier the lifestyle, the more likely it is supported by debt–and therefore the less likely they have funds available to help. (Or skills, talents, relational networks, like-minded values, etc.)

The corollary of this is: just because you aren’t rich, doesn’t mean you should think yourself incapable of helping something get started. Even a few resources wisely invested can be the levers that change the world. You may be rich in encouragement, or personal connections, or time spent mobilizing other workers.

3. Mission investors are not in likely places.

Investors and incubators may be found less among “Bible belts” or historically mission passionate denominations and more in odd places. Especially, I theorize investors are more likely found in places that intersect non-Christian regions (particularly places with large numbers of non-Christian immigrants), because there Christians are more familiar with the need for missions. Investors might also be found among entrepreneurial startups and other business-friendly places that may not know the ‘mission lingo’ but as a result of globalization have a passion for the lost in other places. Keep your eyes open. Be flexible.

4. It doesn’t costs less to build a large missionary effort because we can use nationals.

It still costs a lot because you have to sustain things over time. The average missionary budget is going to be about $100,000 per year. Why? Remember many teams operate in high-cost unreached urban areas in the Middle East, or places like Japan, China, Indonesia–and life there is not cheap despite what our preconceptions might be. Plus, there are costs of ministry, collaboration, travel, health, children, etc. If you have a team of missionary units and they labor for 2 to 3 years you can easily be budgeting $1 million or more for an effort amongst an unengaged group. This is going to be necessary in many places because there just are not enough local efforts to reach into the unengaged peoples–that’s why they are unengaged. Of course, not all of these workers need to be Westerners—but there will still be a cost.

5. Ideas or strategies or resources or methods are the most important.

No, as in business, what really matters is execution: discipleship, life-sharing, intentionality, reproducibility, dedication, persistence, long-term being-in-the-place, incarnation. There are no “shortcuts.”

In Western and developed nations, both the marriage rate and the childbirth rates are falling. This trend, if it continues, represents an important opportunity for church growth within specific regions.

1.

In older times and in agricultural societies, the average family had many children. As they grew up, they would help work on the family’s farm or in the family business, and when they grew older they would help support the parents in their old age, and so were a form of social insurance.

When the average number of children per family was high in a society, the occasional loss of a child (or a childless family), while a tragedy in the specific, did not impact the society as a whole. The large average family size meant the population was not just maintaining its current level but growing. More young workers within the society (those aged 15 to 59) meant the economy would also grow (because these young workers would both produce and consume, and there would be more of them each generation). The “dependency ratio” (the ratio of young workers to elderly non-workers) would remain low, both because of the large pool of workers and the fact that many elderly continued to work. (You can still see this today outside the West: grandfather and grandmothers who are, for example, cooking meals in food courts.)

Today, the average number of children per family in developed nations is falling. There are many reasons for this. In some places it is because the infant mortality is low enough that families do not need to have multiple children to insure against the loss of individual children. In some places, as an economy develops and moves away from agriculture, fewer children are needed to manage the business (e.g. the farm). In those societies that today have a high cost of living, families tend to have fewer children because of the expense of raising them.

In many places, families are opting to have only two to four children at most. This puts the society right at the “replacement value” line necessary to maintain the current population size. If a man and woman have two children, the children will simply replace them when they die, and the total population size will remain the same. In such a situation, if a large minority of the population decide to have only one child (or none at all), they can “tip” the population from “replacement” or “maintenance” level into decline. The society will begin to shrink in size. This is precisely what is happening in Eastern and Southern Europe as well as in Northern Africa.

This trend toward childlessness is being “sped up” by a related trend in some parts of the West (notably America) toward singlehood. Studies by Pew Research show the percentage of people who are married in America fell from 72% in 1960 to 52% in 2008. The median age of first marriage has never been higher: 26.5 for women and 28.7 for men. If this trend continues, the percentage of adults who are married will drop below half in a few years. And while there are some unmarried singles who do have children (either through adoption or other arrangements), the vast majority do not. Similar trends can be seen in China, where the governmentally-enforced one-child policy has led to a disproportionate lack of girls who are choosy about their male prospects or who are opting out of marriage entirely, preferring careers.

2.

The decline in the number of children being born has numerous long-term ramifications for the society and for the church.

In society, fewer children means a long-term “aging”: the average age of the population will increase. Along with this trend will come a shifts in the role of the elderly, especially as medical advances bring about extensions in lifespan. People will continue to work longer, bosses will stay in their jobs longer (with less room for what young people there are to move up), more young people will be forced into entrepreneurial roles to start new businesses, and social norms regarding the elderly will change.

Because there are fewer young workers moving into the labor force, the “dependency ratio” will shift. More non-working elderly will be dependent on fewer workers. There will be less money (from tax revenues) in government coffers, and there will have to be tradeoffs between caring for the elderly and caring for the young. This can lead to generational conflict and will put increasing pressure on the elderly to continue working.

The impact of this shift on the church will be seen in different ways within different denominations. To discuss these, let’s consider the different ways that churches grow.

Demographic growth (babies born to Christian homes) are by far the largest source of new church members. The church worldwide adds about 45 million new people every year, on average. Any declines in marriage and childbearing can significantly impact this  growth pattern.

Second, immigration and emigration can play a significant role in the growth of the church. People move into regions, and move out of them. Thus right now the church in North Africa is suffering from a loss of Christians who are moving out of the region, while Europe is being “refreshed” in some ways by Christian immigrants (for example, Nigerians) who are moving in and bring a fresh zealous practice of their faith.

Third, transfers between churches can impact individual congregations. People shift between different churches for a host of reasons: differences in belief, relationship changes, or different programs offered by different churches. For example, two young people might meet in one small congregation (in which their parents served), fall in love and get married–but then, when they have children, they may opt to move into a larger congregation with what they perceive to be better Sunday School programs.

Finally, conversion and defection both play a role in churches and denominations. But this is not nearly so great as might be anticipated, especially in the West: on average, worldwide, Christianity adds 15 million converts but loses 12 million in defections, thus netting out only 3 million per year in converts. In Western nations where the birth rate is low, defections to agnosticism are unfortunately quite high.

3.

Thus, a decline in the rate of marriage and childbearing almost immediately impacts the greatest source of “fresh new” members for any individual denomination or church. However, this is where individual congregations and denominations can ‘win’ over the populations around them. Churches that succeed in fostering marriage and childbirth will see their numbers increase markedly; those that do not have atmospheres which encourage families will see demographic stagnation while others grow past them.

A demographically stagnant church will likely also lose two other battles: immigration and transfers. Rodney Stark has well documented the process of conversion and commitment to a church, which largely follows participation and social relationships. People participate before they come to believe (“The churching of America”). Participation arises through social networks and preferences.

Older people may prefer the church that they grew up in all their life, or at least have been committed to for a very long time. (Older people moving in to an area will probably choose a church based on social relationships, or long-standing doctrinal commitments.) Younger singles will prefer a church which has relational connections that will likely benefit them in the long term: potential work or social connections (e.g. money and mates). Couples who are married or married-with-children will want an atmosphere that supports a family or a potential family. Churches that do not support younger people and families will lose out on both new births and the social connections that young people have outside of church.

Thus, churches that are locked into a cycle of aging and who are not supportive of younger people will enter into a downward spiral. The higher the average age, the less likely it is that younger people will enter the church to begin with, and the more likely that younger people who are in the church will move away from it, toward churches shared by their social connections. Finally, the church will likely in the long term be losing the conversion battle as well. Most of the older people in the church will have “relational saturation”: they have their friends and intimate connections, and will have little social time for new people who might be converts. Moreover, converts made will likely be in the social connections and will be of roughly the same age. If a younger convert is made, it is probable that they will eventually migrate into a more younger-friendly atmosphere.

These are the forces at play behind “preferential attachment” (discussed by Barabasi in Linked) which lead to a “rich-get-richer” challenge for churches within a given region. These cycles can also lead, unfortunately, to rivalries, jealousies, bitterness, and competition between churches. Older churches that see themselves as failing can also see themselves as “doctrinally pure,” losing out to other churches that are more successful in offering “McChurch” to the masses.

4.

In the West, in the midst of falling marriage rates and childbirth rates, churches have a significant opportunity to increase their share of the population and their influence. Ralph Winter wrote of ‘sodalities’ and ‘modalities.’ A sodality is the typical parachurch organization which tends to be more apostolic and is usually focused on conversion growth. The ‘modality’ on the other hand is the local church.

To grow, a modality needs to do what it does best, which is: (1) support demographic growth that leads to increasing social connections (thus facilitating growth through the other streams as well) and (2) ensure that obedience-based discipleship is permeating the new membership streams (especially the young) to maintain passion and commitment and close the ‘defection’ door.

To do that, here are three steps:

Offer doctrine unapologetically and passionately. Rodney Stark has pointed out that there is a ‘lifecycle’ in most churches: they begin very conservative, and their zeal attracts new converts. As they grow in size, they begin to moderate (both to appeal to larger numbers, and as a result of the larger numbers within their ranks who hold a variety of views). Finally, they become so large and moderate there is very little difference between them and other populations around them, and so they are ranked mostly on the services they offer–at which point they begin losing members who transfer to smaller, more zealous congregations. The sweet spot is in between extreme zeal and extreme moderation, where a church understands the doctrines it holds which differentiate it from those surrounding.

Offer a pro-youth, pro-family environment. In order to grow demographically, a congregation need in the developed world need typically only have an an average per-woman fertility rate of 2 (with some greater than this and few less). A pro-young environment will also attract young singles who are socially connected to existing members and who find passionate values and community influence appealing.

Encourage everyone (especially singles) in disciple-making. This will lead to new converts, and a conversion rate of at least ~1 per 100 per year would be enough, combined with the fertility rate, to tip the congregation into high growth relative to the declining populations around them. (Here we are looking specifically for converts from the non-Christian world, but it is inevitable that there will be some transfer and immigration growth as well). Disciple-making is the primary way to “close the back door” to defections. (Remember we said earlier that on average worldwide the conversion rate of 15 million is nearly balanced out by a defection rate of 12 million. Churches that prevent this defection rate will see significant growth relative to other churches and religions.) Disciple-making is also a way to help singles from feeling second-rate in a pro-family environment: emphasize spiritual parenthood.

These three steps do not require any kind of significantly large families (e.g. families of 6+ children, statistical outliers). The reason is simple: when a population falls below replacement level, any subgroup that is at replacement level or slightly above will be growing fast relative to the declining population as a whole. In this situation, they will not only be increasing in size but also increasing as a percentage of the population–and eventually will be larger than any other group (because the rest are losing rather than gaining members).

These principles do not just apply in the West. Declining population rates and increasing immigration rates in regions like Eastern and Southern Europe, North Africa, and East Asia mean that these principles will broadly work in those regions as well. This is one reason why church planting movements can become so broadly impactful: they couple a short period of rapid conversion growth with a transition into long-term demographic growth which few other religions can match. It is also one reason why governmental restrictions on the evangelization and discipling of children are so challenging to the church–because they restrict these growth avenues–and why discipleship in the home in these situations is so critical.

Additional Readings

Trends

“Childless by choice,” Yaleglobal.yale.edu, http://bit.ly/wESSso. Trend in America of choosing childlessness especially in the context of smaller families.

“New government data finds sharp decline in teen births,” Guutmacher.org, http://www.guttmacher.org/media/inthenews/2011/12/01/index.html.

“When it comes to marriage, many more say ‘I don’t,’” NPR, http://www.npr.org/2011/12/14/143660764/when-it-comes-to-marriage-many-more-say-i-dont. Cites Pew Research studies.

“No babies,” New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/magazine/29Birth-t.html?pagewanted=all. Population decline in Europe.

Denominational Analyses

“Pockets of youthfulness in an aging denomination,” Lewis Center for Church Leadership, http://www.churchleadership.com/research/deathrates.html. Focused on United Methodists.

“United Methodist members dying faster than Americans,” Christian Post, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2286243/posts.

“A denomination in decline,” JohnVest.com, http://johnvest.com/2012/02/20/a-denomination-in-decline/. Focused on PCUSA.

“Churches aim to move from maintenance to mission,” Mennonite Weekly Review, http://www.mennoweekly.org/2012/2/20/churches-aim-move-maintenance-mission/?print=1. Focuses on Mennonite churches: “denomination aging… leaking roughly 2% of its membership annually… ‘if you depend on biology for attendance, this trajectory is a death sentence.’”

“United Methodist clergy age trends still say ‘gray,’” UMPortal.org, http://www.umportal.org/main/article.asp?id=8226. “Elders between ages 55 and 72 have reached a record high of 52% of all active elders.”

“New SBC Data,” EdStetzer.com, http://www.edstetzer.com/2009/06/new-sbc-data.html. “Southern Baptist membership will fall nearly 50% by 2050 unless the aging and predominantly white denomination reverses a 50-year trend and does more to strengthen evangelism, reach immigrants, and develop a broader ethnic base.”

“Losing Lutheran,” TheLutheran.org, http://www.thelutheran.org/article/article.cfm?article_id=4497&key=20223007. “…connotations of stuffiness, aging and fast fading connections to Northern European ancestry…”

“What, me retire? Poor economy, pension issues challenge clergy, denominations,” TheARDA.com, http://blogs.thearda.com/trend/featured/what-me-retire-poor-economy-pension-issues-challenge-clergy-denominations/.

“What America can learn from the European church (part 1),” Paul Maconochie, MikeBreen.com, 11 March 2012. Here’s an interesting post that discusses how British Christians, faced with churches which are seldom attended, have been learning to “go and make disciples” rather than wait for people to come into the building.

Related: Britain in the year 2030, looking at a projection that estimates in 2030 Britain will be less Christian than Secular. (One assumes this is Christian of all traditions.)