One might wonder what the TV shows
Friends and Seinfeld have to do with church.
The real issue however is what they do 'not'
have to do with church and how that is impacting
the future of mainline Christianity.
This newsletter occasionally reports on books of likely interest to its constituency. This issue will recommend two very recent books, both written by United Methodists and published by the Alban Institute.
Many Annual Conferences are using a survey tool developed by the Natural Church Development folks to measure the vitality of congregations.
An autopsy on a new church start, which had not taken off, included the observation that the Cabinet had not performed an assessment on pastor they appointed there. Congregational Development professionals are finding that not all pastors, regardless of how competent they may be in an established church, have the gifts and talents to start a new church.
The most recent School of Congregational development just concluded, with nearly 500 United Methodists from across the country learning more about starting new churches and revitalizing existing churches.
Central cities and the suburbs that surround them have long maintained clear dissimilarities. These are changing as suburbs are taking on many of the traditional characteristics of cities, and cities themselves are evolving.
When the mountain bike craze started a few decades ago, Schwinn, the largest US bicycle company at the time, dismissed it as a fad. Specialized Bicycle Components took a different approach, capitalizing on it and promoting it.
Usually the first demographic variable of interest to church folk is population change. Growth is desired since some of the new people may find their way into the church.
The United Methodist Church is well known for its diversity. One dimension of this diversity is the regional difference(s) between the southern jurisdictions and those in the north and west.
There are a half dozen rural churches in Indiana which have grown tremendously, while most churches of similar context do not. These churches have experienced attendance increases ranging from doubling to over tenfold in the past two decades.
The January 2003 issue of American Demographics magazine (www.demographics.com) identified 10 trends impacting our society in coming years. While the thrust of the article was how these trends effect consumer trends, they will impact the church as well.
The United Methodist Church (in the USA) has lost members every year since the merger in 1968, and has done so again in the most recent year, but attendance and Church School changes are encouraging. Membership declined by over 43,000, which is in the typical range of recent years.
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