David Ewart

Welcome

Welcome to my personal blog. Right now most of my writing will be for my weekly reflections on the lectionary, Holy Textures. But you can expect erratic postings on leadership, the state of the United Church of Canada, brain-mind research, and anything else that catches my fancy.

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The World Changed in 1957 … Or Maybe It Was 1958

In hindsight, it often looks as though the world changed for the United Church of Canada in 1965. That was the year membership reached what turned out to be its peak of 1,064,000.

But signs of the cultural tsunami that would change Canada's religious landscape actually began to be evident in 1957 and 1958. These are the years when the first-born of the Baby Boom Generation graduated from Grade 6. And these are the years when lasting trends in membership first began to appear – again.

The United Church tracks 2 ways of adding to its membership and 2 ways of removing from its membership:

Adding by:

1. Profession of Faith – Persons who have never been a member of any other church. Typically these are teens who have been raised within the United Church.
2. Received by Certificate or Otherwise – Typically these are adults who are transferring their membership from another church.

Removing by:

1. Death
2. Removing by Certificate or Otherwise – Typically these are adults who are moving to another church, or persons that the Session has lost contact with or has otherwise decided that they have ceased to be a member.

Apart from death, the other 3 are all reflective of demographic and cultural changes that take place in Canada. And all of these seemed to have significant changes in 1945, and then began to correct themselves in 1957 or 1958.

Being received – or removed – by certificate reflects life choices and circumstances of adults. And from 1945 both of these increased to peaks 54,700 received, and 63,000 removed in 1957.

However, the net loss of members in this way was more than made up by new members being added by Profession of Faith. New members joining the church grew from 25,500 in 1945 to what turned out to be the peak of 41,700 in 1958.

It is important to remember that this data is not about the Baby Boomers – it is about their mothers and fathers. After a decade of poverty of the Dirty Thirties and six years of World War, Canadians entered two decades of marrying, moving, and having babies – and a significant part of their new life was bringing their young families to church. Sunday School enrollment rose from 474,000 in 1945 to 731,000 in 1958.

But in 1957 and 1958, just as the first-born of the Baby Boom Generation began to graduate from Grade 6, their parents began to "graduate" from church.

Whereas these parents had driven the rise in church membership in the decade following World War II, instead of continuing to go to church and being joined by their children as they completed the first years of Sunday School, the phenomenon that we still see today happened then:

Parents attend church in support of their children's religious education. But once the basic years are completed and the children graduate from Grade 6, often the children and their parents stop attending church.

The response to the hardships of the Thirties and the war resulted in a boom that many of us in the church mistook as a trend.

If in fact there was a 15 year window of opportunity to truly entrench the value of life-long attending and belonging to a church in the lives of young adults and their children – that opportunity was lost.

And instead, at the first opportunity, the longer-standing utilitarian value of attending and belonging to church when needed and useful re-asserted itself.

I actually do not disparage in any way this utilitarian approach. This is after all what it means to be of service to others.

However, the boom from 1945 to 1957 or 1958 blinded those of us in the church to properly understand and respond to the wider culture.

Because we had been so busy all those years with the hordes of new people thronging through the front door without even being asked, we hadn't noticed the steady stream of people leaving through the back door.

When the boom ended and people continued to leave as they had always done – we mistakenly thought the problem was us.

And we've spent – no wasted – 50 years trying every new program or gimmick to renew and revitalize our churches. But it wasn't us; it was just people doing what they had always done – being who they had always been – coming to church when and if it was needed.

The problems this has created for those of us who do cherish life-long attending and belonging to a church are:

1. We haven't a clear idea or plan for encouraging others to also cherish life-long attending and belonging to a church. We just take it for granted and assume others will too.
2. Cherishing life-long attending and belonging to a church is not the reason for attending and belonging to a church. We too often and too easily forget this. We get busy with the many pleasant and necessary activities that keep our churches good places to attend and belong to – and forget that the single purpose of the church is to love the world.
3. We have inherited and continue to maintain buildings and budgets that were created for the boom. They will kill us if we don't soon figure out points 1 and 2 above.

David Ewart,
www.davidewart.ca

Permission is granted for non-profit use of these materials provided credit is acknowledged as, "David Ewart, www.davidewart.ca."

Click here for an easy to email or print Adobe PDF version of this post.

It's the Environment, Not the Mission

The last thing American faith communities need is another round of programmatic efforts to reverse declines. These haven't worked because they haven't addressed the fundamental changes that are taking place in the broader culture.

In the April 18, 2012 issue of The Christian Century, William McKinney recently reviewed 5 different books or reports with data on the state of the church in the USA. ("Crunching the numbers," pages 26-29)

I found McKinney's closing comments particularly helpful:

The crisis that emerges from these snapshots of religious life is twofold. The first is the growing inability of many mainline institutions to maintain themselves. The second crisis may be more important in the long run: the absence of resources for building new institutions to meet current and future needs.

Across the denominational spectrum, religions have fought to maintain the institutional forms and practices that were put in place in the 19th century to meet the needs of an expanding population. Religious groups knew who "their" people were, and the institutions they built were shaped to meet their community's needs. For example, Lutherans built schools and colleges to prepare immigrant Germans, Swedes and Norwegians for careers on the frontier; Presbyterians started seminaries to prepare learned clergy for their congregations; Catholics and Jews founded hospitals to provide health care for their people.

Over time each group developed remarkably similar patterns of connecting their local, regional and national constituencies in order to carry out their particular mission. Formal and informal clusters of denominational groups came into being to express similar theological, ethnic and mission commitments. Most of those institutions still exist in some form, albeit in slimmed-down versions.

In 1976, when I started my first full-time position as a researcher in one of the national agencies of the United Church of Christ, my boss told me that my job was "to figure out what is going on in the United States and what it means for the church's mission." I didn't realize at the time how important it would be to link these two questions. The most effective leaders I have known are those who can connect their descriptions of reality with practical agendas for action.

Social research such as the studies summarized here does not spell out an agenda, but it can inform one. The sustainability of the mainline Protestant traditions in particular depends on their ability to answer some huge questions. Can these traditions speak to the religious yearnings of younger Americans? Will they invest in reaching out to the new populations, especially to immigrants? Can they articulate a compelling message to population groups whose principal exposure to Jesus Christ and to Christianity has flowed through mostly conservative channels? Will they be able to identify, prepare and support a new generation of leaders who can help shape new forms of congregating that will be sustainable?

The challenges call for more than technical fixes. They are what Ron Heifetz has called "adaptive challenges." The last thing American faith communities need is another round of programmatic efforts to reverse declines. These haven't worked because they haven't addressed the fundamental changes that are taking place in the broader culture.

"Changes that are taking place in the broader culture" are absolutely crucial to forming any strategies for organizational changes within denominations.

Organisms that thrive change their form in response to external changes so that they are able to draw sustenance from the environment (and respond to toxins as well).

Denominations have adopted their current forms in part as a means to best express their faith, values, and mission. But a crucial error is to identify the form with the faith. As the environment changes, so must the form. Can denominations find new forms that adopt in ways to draw sustenance from the new culture while maintaining their faith, values, and mission?

Too often churches spend inordinate amounts of time and energy developing new mission statements, when in fact, the problem is not their mission. The problem is their organizational methods and structures which are not working in the new environment.

Paradoxically, liberal denominations are faring the worst in the changing environment precisely because the new environment has become more liberal.

They don't stand out; don't appear to offer anything distinctive from the wider culture. So why bother investing personal time, money and energy to be part of something that doesn't offer anything new, any "added value?" 

And.

The new environment is highly individualistic and highly virtual.

But even old-line, liberal denominations are still highly community, highly real-time.

I'm not sure we need to be so heavily invested in a large number of large properties to make community real.

But we do need to find a real way to sell the value of face-to-face spirituality. And actually have something of "added value" to offer.

David Ewart,
www.davidewart.ca

Permission is granted for non-profit use of these materials provided credit is acknowledged as, "David Ewart, www.davidewart.ca." 

Fun Facts For Church Geeks – 2010 (The United Church of Canada)

Here's some fun facts about the United Church of Canada that you can use to amaze and amuse your friends (Click here to download and Adobe PDF version of this post):

Of those who particiapte in a program or activity, the majority:

• Attend a congregation with worship attendance of 85 or more.
• Attend a Sunday School with a membership of 37 or more.
• Attend a CE program with a membership of 105 or more.
• Attend a women's group program with a membership of 26 or more.
• Attend a congregation with a resident membership of 204 or more.
• Attend a congregation with local givers of 118 or more.
• Attend a congregation with M&S givers of 60 or more.

Note: Only 136 congregations meet all of these criteria. 880 meet at least one.

The largest 10% of United Church congregations have:
(320 congregations with worship attendance of 133 or more)

• 27% of our total worship attendance.
• 28% of our total Sunday School membership.
• 33% of our total CE membership.
• 23% of our total women's groups membership.
• 27% of our total resident membership.
• 25% of our total local givers.
• 28% of our total M&S givers.

Of the 10 congregations with the largest worship attendance:

• 2 are in Vancouver-Burrard Presbytery (St. Andrew's-Wesley and West Vancouver)
  (And they are in Canada's least religious, most secular region.)
• 1 is in Victoria Presbytery (First-Metropolitan)
• Timothy Eaton Memorial in Toronto has the largest attendance, 540.

Of our total 3,196 congregations:

• Slightly less than 50% are in One-Point Pastoral Charges, and
• Slightly more than 50% are in Multi-point Pastoral Charges.
• Multiple-Point Pastoral Charges make up slightly more than 50% of all Congregations but only about 25% members, worship attendance, Sunday School members, etc.

For Single-Point Pastoral Charges, sorted from largest to smallest for each of the categories below, here's what a congregation is like.

Single-Point PC's	Worship Attendance	Sunday School Membership	CE Program Membership	Women's Membership	Resident Membership	Number of Local Givers	Number of M&S Givers
First 10%	175 to 540	73 to 437	170 to 1,315	60 to 273	394 to 1,391	250 to 1,118	128 to 530
Second 10%	126 to 175	48 to 73	104 to 168	40 to 60	289 to 394	188 to 250	88 to 128
Third 10%	104 to 126	37 to 48	70 to 103	30 to 40	229 to 289	148 to 187	65 to 88
Fourth 10%	81 to 103	28 to 37	50 to 70	24 to 30	176 to 228	119 to 147	51 to 65
Fifth 10%	66 to 81	22 to 28	35 to 70	19 to 24	133 to 175	95 to 118	39 to 50
Sixth 10%	53 to 66	17 to 22	24 to 35	14 to 19	100 to 133	76 to 95	29 to 39
Seventh 10%	40 to 52	12 to 17	15 to 24	10 to 14	75 to 100	56 to 76	20 to 29
Eight 10%	29 to 40	7 to 12	8 to 15	6 to 10	51 to 75	41 to 56	13 to 20
Ninth 10%	18 to 29	0 to 7	0 to 8	0 to 6	29 to 51	24 to 40	6 to 13
Tenth 10%	0 to 18	0	0	0	0 to 29	0 to 24	0 to 6

 

You can see where your congregation fits by going down each column and circling the square that has your range.

Visit www.davidewart.ca to see this and other reports on the United Church of Canada.

United Church of Canada People Trends - 2010

Click here to download the latest version of my, "United Church of Canada People Trends."

Updated with the latest Year Book statistics for the calendar year 2010.

Below is a JPG of the first page which summarizes the past 3 years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, the actual results for 2010 were lower for all areas, and in most cases were also lower than what had been forecast.

The result is that compared to when I first started doing this using the data for 2008, the forecasts for 2025 have gotten even worse.

I have been asked, "Why are you reporting this bad news?"

The answer is NOT that I have some sort of perverse delight in the diminishing of my church. These trends are very distressing for me.

However, there is one thing that this data makes very clear - the widespread societal changes that have been taking place for over 5 decades are firmly entrenched and are TOO BIG FOR EACH CONGREGATION TO SUCCESSFULLY SOLVE ON ITS OWN.

And. THE "PROBLEM" IS NOT OUR FAULT.

This is not happening because of something that each congregation has done wrong. There is not a problem with our minister, or our music, or our Sunday School that changing any of them will turn things around.

The problem is external. It is because of changes in the society.

But it is a problem that the United Church as a whole can respond to - not solve, but respond to.

But we cannot do it congregation by congregation because the simple fact is PEOPLE ARE NOT GOING TO CHURCH LIKE THEY USED TO.

In fact, they are not volunteering for anything like they used to. All traditional volunteer organizations are facing these same issues.

We have too many buildings and too few people for the number of people attending church these days.

So the only way to address the issues raised by this data is for congregations to have a clear-eyed look at their situation and decide what to do next.

Our church was founded by folks willing to leave the beloved familiar for the desired unknown.

Where that spirit can still be found there is hope for life in new forms.

David Ewart,
www.davidewart.ca

What Does God Do With A Dead Terrorist?

"What will God do with Osama bin Laden? There is no hate in heaven. There is only love. And in heaven, love is also just, is also always the right relationship that God desires for all of creation. There are no terrorists in heaven. Only God's beloved children."

This was originally written in response to 9-11. But seems even more relevant now upon hearing of the death of Osama bin Laden, May 1, 2011.

Click here for an easy to print or email Adobe PDF copy of this post.

-----

Since I believe that God is present in every moment of existence, and is the God of all creation, the question must be asked:

What is God going to do with the terrorists who died on September 11?

I also believe that God is both wholly just and wholly merciful, and that nothing can thwart God’s purposes. So the question cannot be avoided:

What does God do with a dead terrorist?

I do not know the mind of God of course, but offer the following act of imagination as a personal response.

My Pre-Obituary

You know that you've reached a certain stage in life when you get an email from the archivist saying, "Please tell us (briefly) about your life and ministry."

It took me most of an afternoon to write, and in the end I appreciated the opportunity.

So. Just to help those who will have the task of one day writing the actual obituary ... here's what I wrote:

Your name
• in the form you most commonly use, David Ewart
• your full name (including middle name), and degrees, David Roy Thompson Ewart, B.Sc. (Hon.), M.A., M.Div.

Date of your ordination: 1978

Name of the Conference in which you were ordained: Manitoba and Northwest Ontario

Chronological list of pastoral charges in which you served (please give inclusive dates):
1978-1980 – Kincaid-Aneroid-Ponteix, Saskatchewan
1980-1983 – Voluntary DSL (Discontinued Service List)
1983-1984 – Hartney-Lauder-Dand, MNWO
1984-1988 – General Council Office (Half-time staff for national study on Sexual Orientations, Lifestyles and Ministry, and other things.)
1988-1994 – Chalmers United, Vancouver, BC
1994-1995 – Haida Gwaii PC, Skidegate & Queen Charlotte City, BC
1995-2004 – Queens Avenue United, New Westminster, BC
2004            -- (4 month interim) Bethany-Newton, Surrey, BC
2005            -- Chalmers Institute, VST, Vancouver, BC
2005-2006 – (10 month interim) Wilson Heights United, Vancouver, BC
2006-2010 – Capilano United, North Vancouver, BC

Birthplace: Minnedosa, Manitoba

Where you spent your formative years - where you grew up: Winnipeg, Manitoba from the age of 3 to 33.

What was your involvement in the church before you were called to ordered ministry?
I was the white sheep in my family, so church involvement was sporadic as a child – I can remember going to SS for a while, but not regularly. In high school I was part of a Hi-C group – for some reason – likely because many of my friends also belonged.

I came into the church through 6 years of active involvement in the YMCA, and so have always had a non-churched, not-very-religious understanding of faith and discipleship. The Y’s Spirit-Mind-Body and YMCA Camp Stephen’s motto: “I am third,” (i.e. God / Christ is first; the other person is second; and I am third) have had a life-long influence for me. The Camp devotionals tended to stress the parables and deeds of Jesus. This is also the place where I received my foundational leadership training and experience.

In university I joined the (very small) SCM. The Secretary / Chaplain, Mac Watts, influenced my decision to study theology after graduating. This was not a call to ministry, but more of a curiosity about Jesus. Basically my thinking was: There had to be a lot more to this guy than I currently understood or his reputation would not have lasted for 2,000 years.

I was also at that time dating a woman whose family were staunch United Church participants, and I tagged along and got involved.

Can you describe how you were called to ordered ministry?
To be honest, I have never felt called to ordered ministry. (In the first place, it wasn’t called that back in my day.) But also, I really had no idea what “theology” was, but in the mid-60’s it was easy to go to university, and I was definitely not interesting in pursuing a career out of my B.Sc. in honours math and physics. So off I went to study theology at United College, Winnipeg. This was 1967.

Those were also the days, when an interest in studying theology must mean an interest in being a minister. As I remember it, I was received as a candidate after a 20 minute interview with the chair of the E&S Committee, just before being introduced to the Presbytery meeting. I can’t remember how I answered any questions about “call” or “vocation” as my role models were not ministers but YMCA and SCM leaders. I had no “call” as such – all I had was “curiosity.”

I studied theology for 2 years and then quit when I realized what “being a minister” meant after a summer being a student minister and a winter internship.

But I remained an active lay leader in my congregation and Presbytery. And at one point – while using some of my vacation days to attend Conference, thought, “If I’m this interested in the church, why don’t I switch and get paid to go to Conference so I can take my vacation and go to the beach instead?”

A short while later, I took a job for Winnipeg Presbytery – as a lay person. This eventually led to me doing my MA in leadership in Spokane, where I met Ivan Cumming, and that led to Naramata and re-applying to become a Candidate and finishing my theology studies. But again, my calling was not to “ordered ministry,” so much as it was to “active, paid, leadership.”

So much so, that after 2 years in my settlement pastoral charge, I tried to resign my ordination. Turns out the United Church has a very inarticulate understanding of ordination, but the long and short of it is, one cannot “resign” ordination; one can only “voluntarily DSL.” Which is what I did.

But 2 years later, I changed my mind about resigning, not because I changed my mind about ordination and call to ministry, but because I was still drawn – called if you will – to active, paid, leadership – and that meant doing it on the Church’s terms, not mine. So here I am.

Please list any post-secondary education and work experience (including degrees or diplomas):
1967 – B.Sc. (Hon.), U. of Manitoba, Mathematics and Physics
1967-1969, M.Div. incomplete, United College, Winnipeg.
1976 – M.A., Whitworth College, Spokane, WA, leadership.
1978 – M.Div., Vancouver School of Theology
Other studies:
1994 – Conflict Resolution Certificate, Justice Institute of BC
1996 – MBTI Certificate
2002 – Natural Church Development Coach’s Certificate
2004 – Family Systems Theory in Ministry, North Shore Counseling Centre
2005 – Powers of Leadership, Whidbey Institute, WA
Work Experiences (Other than UCCan listed above)
1969-1973 – Computer systems analyst & project leader, Manitoba Government.
1980-1982 – Computer Science instructor, Columbia College, Vancouver, BC

Where did you receive your theological education?
United College and VST (see above)

What was a high point in your ministry?
I approach life through ideas – I think about my feelings. So for me, healing, release, new life and energy come through learnings and understandings that correct mis-understandings and open up possibilities never before considered.

So high points for me are those moments of personal connection where new light – new understandings – break dysfunctional bonds of habitual thinking / acting / feeling and bring healing, reconciliation, release, and new possibilities. These have been too numerous – and too personal – to name.

Publically, I’ve been privileged to be involved in some pivotal moments of the United Church over the past 40 years:

• Various discussions and reports about “the meaning of ministry” and paid, accountable, lay ministry in particular.
• Reconciliation with native peoples, and the Land Claims Fund here in BC
• Changing roles of women and men, i.e., sexism, and developing use “inclusive language.” (1980-1984)
• Changing understanding of homosexuality and support for openly accepting lesbian and gay members and clergy. (1984-1988)

What was a low point, or the most difficult part of your ministry?
Apart from being close to clinical depression on my settlement charge, the personal low point for me was realizing how difficult and troubling the move to Haida Gwaii was on our young children- and the subsequent conflict and stress it was causing within our family. It wasn’t given as advice, but meeting with a retired UC missionary on the island and his reflections on the effect his time in Africa had had on his children, helped me to make the tough decision to leave after one year.

In ministry, the most difficult situation was the amalgamation of the three New Westminster United Churches that exploded over a recommendation to sell all sites. The congregation I was at, Queens Avenue, rejected the motion (which was supported by the other two). This led to a split in Queens Avenue and a most difficult and stressful situation for me. I had already given notice months before the meeting, but Presbytery placed me on “stress leave” for the remaining time.

What has been your main passion, or the common thread in your ministry?
Initially I thought my “job” was to be a good minister / manager to healthy, well-functioning congregations and otherwise help them engage in the mission and issues of the day.

Alas, while I have mostly enjoyed meeting all the people I have met in my ministry, I’ve not had the good fortune to meet them in “healthy, well-functioning” congregations. They have all been struggling congregations.

So then I thought my “job” was to help them “fix” what was ailing them.

But alas, despite my best efforts, that too has not worked out as hoped. There are lots of “fixes” being bandied about, but I now believe the “problem” is systemic and we are way beyond the opportunity to fix it. Our ship of faith hit an iceberg of social change 50 years ago, and we still haven’t really noticed that the back half has fully disappeared below the water.

But through it all, my main passion, my common thread has been curiosity and Jesus.

I continue to learn and become more amazed at Jesus’ courage, wisdom, and bonding with/trusting in God.

I continue to hope that my own living will somehow be a small reflection of his.

And I continue to be curious about what new form the experience of God will take in this digital era.

Can you offer a word of wisdom to future generations of ministers? And lay members?
No one really knows what ways of being the church will work in the future. And what is working one place may not work in your place. So. Don’t be envious (or proud).

Experiment like crazy where you are.

Life dies when circumstance change and it doesn’t adapt its form to draw nourishment in new ways from the new environment – so LET GO OF YOUR FORM, and find a new way for the life that is in you to be fed and to give.

Unfortunately, death is part of life. And by and large, the form of the United Church as we have known it will not continue. I’m thinking we will not make it to our 100th anniversary in 2025.

Don’t confuse your calling with your expectations and circumstances. God IS calling you, has desires for you: your purpose and well-being, but never make the mistake of thinking that means happy circumstances.

Stay connected with colleagues – perhaps especially the ones who are like Samaritans to you (i.e., the despised but nonetheless related). They may very well be the ones who come to your rescue because they don’t cherish what you do and will cross boundaries you will not.

Remember. Our church was founded by those who were willing to let go of the beloved familiar for the desired unknown. Where that heart still beats, there is still life.

David Ewart,
www.davidewart.ca

Letter to a Colleague

I recently received an email from a colleague who wrote:

We certainly are in challenging times. Do you have opinions about the future? I know that I find ministry very challenging. Caught between the faithful members for whom church has been lifelong and they like traditional ways, a few people angry and frustrated that society no longer supports the church, and I get a sense from them, if I only was better, music was better, I was more creative, then we would just turn this all around. There are others who want a progressive liberal theology. I find it very hard and it takes too much energy to keep it all together and satisfied.  

You document the demise, do you point people to any signs of hope?

Below is my response (I've changed the name):

Hi Kirk,

My nick name is “Hero of Doom” so be forewarned when you ask me for my thoughts about the future.

The good news in the bad news is: It’s not your fault.

The bad news in the bad news is: It’s not fix-able.

The bad news is this: People are not going to church like they used to, and for the foreseeable future the numbers will continue to decline, and the reasons they are not going to church have nothing to do with anything the church can do anything about. The reasons are all based in the wider culture. I’m going to write a more coherent piece about this one day, but in the meanwhile here’s my first rant on this topic: Imperatives for Change.

I believe the number of people going to church will not reach zero. So there will still be congregations. The problem is that there are too many congregations to economically sustain the number of congregations we have. In cities, this means we are headed for a decade of closures / amalgamations. Same thing is likely for your area of towns and smaller cities, but the options for amalgamations with other United Churches is far more limited. A more likely scenario would be amalgamations of Presbyterian-Lutheran-United-Anglican in each town. But the chances of that are pretty slim given people’s commitment to their particular building and practices. Amalgamations take an enormous amount of volunteer time and energy precisely from groups that have little of either – and take energy away from what is actually needed – getting on with connecting with the few folks still interested church. Sadly, many congregations would rather close than attempt changes that would give future generations a chance to worship.

But the changes I am talking about are not sprucing things up: new music, a better minister, new paint. All of these things are changes that the people in the pews do NOT have to make. And I am talking about changes that the people in the pews must make.

The iron-clad rule of evolution is: When the environment changes, the organism must change its form or die.

And in our case, the “organism” is the people in the pews.

The kind of changes you have suggested are being asked for are all based on the false assumption that the environment has not fundamentally changed – that we can fix our problems with a new coat of paint, a new musical instrument, a new minister.

But it is the form of being church that has to change.

There simply are not enough people going to church to have 10 congregations in each town. This is a reality that each congregation CANNOT solve by itself.

Yes, yes, I know there will be that evangelical church down the road that everyone holds up as an example – except that no one is actually willing to follow their example. And even they cannot avoid the realities I am talking about – they too are mostly drawing on the last remnants of Christendom and have very low ability to actually attract truly secularized, non-churched folks. They too are in for a tough decade.

50% of active United Church clergy today are 55 or older, so the wave of retirements (combined with the lower numbers, and older ages of replacements) should allow everyone to find work regardless of declining attendance – but unfortunately that work will mostly be hard and without many “successes” in the usual sense of growing numbers and easily balanced budgets.

But as I said in a previous piece of writing: Our church was founded by people in the pews who left their beloved familiar for the desired unknown. Where that spirit can still be found there is still hope for the future.

Whatever else you take from this note Kirk, please take this away: It’s not your fault. So enjoy your sabbatical and don’t spend even a nanosecond trying to fix yourself so that this problem will go away.

All the best,
David Ewart,
www.davidewart.ca

Click here, "Letter to a Colleague," for an Adobe PDF copy of this post that you can easily print or email.

United Church of Canada People Trends - 2009 - Reflections

"These are Jeremiah days. The change that is coming will be more like the experience of exile than the Reformation."

When I charted the United Church data for the first time a year ago, my jaw dropped. And when I used Excel to forecast where we'd be on our 100th Anniversary in 2025, my heart sank.

Suddenly, sadly, the past 35 years of ministry began to make sense. What I knew in my bones was actually true:

The number of people coming to church was in steep decline. And there was no sign that they were ever coming back. And they weren't particularly troubled by that.
   
AND.
   
It wasn't just us. In fact, it wasn't just churches. Churches of all kinds are having the same experience; including all kinds of other volunteer organizations.

Now, it is true that everywhere you go, there are some congregations that are doing very well - including United Church congregations. And good on them. But overall, attendance is in steep decline, and for every church that is doing well, there will be 6 or 7 that are struggling and 2 or 3 that are closing because there just are not enough people going to church for all 10 to do well.

What do I mean by steep decline? 86% over the next 15 years. That's the forecast. Because over the past 10 years, we already actually have 100,000 fewer people coming to church each week.

And it's not just worship attendance. Here's what's forecast:

• Sunday School membership declines by 69%.
• New Members by profession of faith disappear altogether.
• Identified Givers to the Mission and Service Fund decline by 74%.
• Givers to Local Expenses by 52%.

And what we are living through is not like the Reformation where the church changed but society as a whole continued to be Christian, either Re-formed or Catholic.

What we are living through is more like the Exile where the people wondered how to sing the Lord's song in such a strange land. Only problem is, unlike the Exile, the "strange" land is our home. We can't even long for a place to return to.

The forecast says that the United Church cannot, and will not, exist in its present form 15 years from now.

Problem is, our present form has demonstrated remarkable tenacity and high resistance to change.

Problem is, evolution makes clear that organisms that don't change their forms in response to changed environments die.

Problem is, not all parts of the church feel the stress, and we keep believing this is a problem that can fixed instead of an irreversible change that can only be responded to:

Even if only 1 in 10 people continue to attend church, how can we change so that we will still be there as church for them?

That is a question that each congregation CANNOT address on its own.

Do we have the courage to die to all that we have separately known and loved, in order to be the church for those yet to be born?

In spite of all the evidence to the contrary - so far - I continue to believe that the adventuresome hearts that once left the loved familiar for the desired unknown still beat, and will rise to the challenge of the days ahead.

Click here to read, download, print, or email an Adobe PDF version of the full 18 pages of charts, United Church of Canada People Trends - 2009 based on the latest national statistics.

David Ewart,
www.davidewart.ca

United Church of Canada People Trends - 2009

 Click here to download, print, or email an Adobe PDF copy of the complete 18 page report, United Church of Canada People Trends - 2009. Below is the first page of this report.

Note: After a good nights sleep and some second thoughts, I noticed and corrected a few typos. I also found an error in a formula, and went back and revised the 2008 functions so that they give a fairer comparison to the new 2009 data. All these changes have been incorporated into the document you can download as of Jan 13, 2011, 3:10PM PST.

The following charts show the history up to 2009 of selected United Church of Canada data, and, based on the previous 10 years of data (2000-2009), projects what the data might be in 2025.

The chart below gives the actual data for 2008 and 2009, and compares the actual results for 2009 with the forecast.

 

In all cases the data declined from 2008 to 2009, and the 2009 actual results were less than the forecast with the notable exceptions of: Pastoral Charges, Baptisms; Sunday School Membership; and Through-the-Week Membership.

Note: For 2009, the ten years of data were examined using the LINEST and LOGEST functions of Microsoft Excel. If LINEST returned the highest coefficient of determination, r², then the straight line TREND function was used to project future values. If LOGEST returned the highest r² value, then the exponential GROWTH function was used. In all cases the r² values were higher than 0.96. And in all cases, the compared r2 values did not differ by more than 0.014. The r² values are noted for each chart. (For the non-statisticians among us, r² is a measure of “reliability.” It provides a measure of how well future outcomes are likely to be predicted. Generally speaking, if the r² value is greater than 95 than the result is considered valid.)

As a result of this process, the GROWTH function was chosen for Pastoral Charges, Baptisms (Children, Adults, and Total), Marriages, and Sunday School Membership. This resulted in changing the previous 2025 forecast of Zero. And to provide a fairer comparison between 2008 and 2009, the forecasts from 2008 were revised using the same functions.

New for 2009 is the inclusion of data for Adult Baptisms, and Identifiable Givers for both Local Expenses and the M&S Fund. While the forecasted declines are serious for all items, the 74% decline for M&S Givers is especially notable.

Buckle Up - Congregational Change Isn't Easy

Peter Steinke had an article, Buckle Up: Congregational Change Isn't Easy, in the November 16, 2010 issue of the Christian Century magazine. The article was adapted from his latest book, "A Door Set Open: Grounding Change in Mission and Hope."

It was good to read a respected leader such as Steinke acknowledge in print just how tough leading change is. And that there are as many "failures" as "successes."

Despite the scores of books, workshops and seminars devoted to transformational leadership, most congregations and leaders are not prepared to institute change on a systemic level. Yet we desperately need training—training that acknowledges three key factors:
1) Arduous effort is needed to move an emotional system to a new way of seeing itself.
    Fear and other emotions complicate all efforts.
2) Many pastors are not prepared to do transitional work in congregations.
3) It's absolutely critical that churches connect serious change with mission.

What I don't like about the article is that Steinke names only 3 key factors when I can think of at least 2 more:

4) Sound business planning and management.
5) Sustainable market share of the church-going audience.

I realize a short article can't cover all the bases, but no amount of re-setting the congregation's mission will overcome poor financial planning and management, or just plain lack of money. Many congregations rely on rental income but are poor property managers and are balancing their budgets by under-funding capital repairs and/or staffing.

We are solidly in an era of "spiritual but not religious," (which actually means, "individual personal preference but not personal sacrifice for the common good.") Which means over-all decline in volunteer organizations of all types - including churches of all types. Which in turn means that our market audience is in decline and fragmenting. Which means that no amount of re-setting the congregation's mission will necessarily overcome being located in an area of declining church attendance.

In other words, even Steinke's good advice about the perils of transformational leadership are, by themselves, only necessary but not sufficient, to address the total situation many congregations and their leaders must deal with.

And by failing to address to the total picture, articles and books on transformational leadership create false hopes that only further destroy the morale of leaders and congregations.

Having said this, I wish I'd seen an article like this 20 years ago. It would have gone a long way to help myself and many other colleagues recognize that congregational behaviours like:

• engage in conflict,
• suffer a malaise of spirit,
• decline in some statistical manner,
• adapt to their most immature members,
• fail to mobilize people's gifts and energy,
• surrender to apathy or complacency,
• do little planning,
• become turned in on themselves,
• blame outside forces (or perhaps one another) for their depression, and/or
• be unable to make effective, appropriate changes.

which Steinke identifies as systemic responses to mission drift were just that: systemic responses to mission drift and not to me personally or to my leadership.

I highly recommend the article, but with qualifications.

David Ewart,
www.davidewart.ca

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