No New Members

Does a church with no new members have a future? That’s a question the United Church will face in 2019 if the trend for the past 10 years continues.¹

People join the church for the first time by making a public profession of their faith during worship. Typically, these are teenagers who are being confirmed after attending children and youth programs. The chart shows the baby boom spike after the Second World War, and the smaller echo in the 1980’s of the boomer’s children.²

The future will not unfold in a straight line, but we are headed toward having no one newly confessing their faith in Jesus Christ.

We live in a culture that is “spiritual but not religious” and more eager to connect online than in person. It is also one where fewer and fewer people are committing time and money to join volunteer membership organizations of any type.

Joining a face-to-face community that has accepted Jesus’ invitation to, “Pick up your cross and follow me for I am the way, the truth and the life,” is truly counter-cultural. 

Our mission then, should we choose to accept it, is pretty much to forget everything we have experienced about being the church. Our best days in the future will look nothing like our best days in the past.

With fewer people and smaller budgets, we must shift our time and energies from buildings and budgets to identity and mission: Who is Jesus for us? What are we being called to do and be? How are we loving our neighbours?

The future presents us with wonderful opportunities to find new ways to be communities of faith that are authentic, engaging, and joyful.

We have a history of giving ourselves for others in need. We don’t have much of a history of evangelizing and raising up new disciples. But if we want to have a future, it looks like we have about five years to change that past.³

Rev. David Ewart is a United Church minister in Vancouver.

Published in The United Church Observer, February 2014, page 41. The Observer now operates as Broadview magazine.

Reality Check Revisited.
In 2014 I wrote a series of articles for The United Church Observer magazine called "Reality Check." They were based on projecting what the United Church would look like in 2025, its 100th Anniversary. Given that we are now engaged in Project 2035, I wondered if what I said then might have relevance for where we are now.

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Notes: 

1. The graphic is copied from The United Church Observer. The Observer now operates as Broadview magazine.
      
2. The second paragraph above incorrectly attributes the post-Second World War growth to teenagers. The spike of New Members from 1945 to 1965 was not teenagers. It was the parents of the baby boom who needed to become members in order to have their children baptized, as was required by United Church policy at the time. It is also likely that the echo in the 1980's was now-adult baby boomers who had not joined the church in the 60's but were briefly returning to have their children baptized.
      
3. We did not hit zero in 2019. There were 1,648 new members that year. Nonetheless a vanishing unsustainable number.