New Worship Styles Are Not Enough

Only 50 percent of Americans claim membership in a church, according to a new study released by Gallup. This stat is down from 69% in 1999. So what are we going to do about it?

 Typically, the response has been to try to draw people`s interest back to attending and joining congergations, using three basic strategies:

 1) Changes in worship style to reach the folks that no longer attend

 2) New evangelism efforts to attract people back to worship and membership

 3) Doubling down on what is already being done, simply trying to do it better.

None of these strategies is working, and none of them will work. The problem is not what we are doing to get people to come to us. The problem is that church membership and participation of any sort is no longer valued by the majority of folks in our culture. At best, we are drawing members away from other churches, not doing anything to reverse these statistics of overall decline. At worst, we are falling into a survival mentality that stifles new ideas and approaches.

In short, we don't just need new wine. We need new wineskins. We need an entirely different approach to the structures and forms we use to try to spread the Gospel.

Which means that first, we need let go of some things that are difficult to let go of, such as:

 1) Membership as a concept

 2) Worship attendance as the main measure of success

 3) Worship in general as the main way we attract and welcome new people

Over the new few weeks, I am going to write blogs and do Facebook videos that focus on this changing reality of our congregations. If we continue to use the same practices and the same measures of success, and merely make relatively minor changes to what we we are already doing, we will continue to be frustrated and concerned about the future. But if we create entirely new wineskins, and new structure and forms for everything we do, we will find the Holy Spirit bringing new life all around us.

And we`ll see stats such as this one as challenging opportunities for change instead of occasions for anxiety and sadness.