A research project made possible by funding from The Louisville Institute, Louisville, Kentucky
© 2007, Paul Miller

All material in this document is the property of Rev. Dr. Paul Miller.
Permission is given to reproduce portions of the contents for congregational use only.
For permission to adapt and use the survey instrument, or for other uses, please contact me:

Rev. Dr. Paul Miller
First Grantham United Church,
415 Linwell Road,
St. Catharines, Ontario,
L2M 2P3
(905) 935-5369
paul@firstgrantham.org

Introduction:

The “Untied Church”:
Affiliates as a Key to Congregational Renewal

Ever since I learned to type in high school, I have found myself making the same typographical errors over and over again. And I’ve wondered whether a few of those errors are entirely accidental. For example, instead of “brother” I often type “bother.” Is there a hidden message in that for someone who has grown up in a large family?

Often when I mean to type “United Church” it comes out “Untied Church.” Just a slip of the digits? I wonder. Because “Untied Church” is in some ways a much better description of the reality of church life today than “United Church.” People might still say they belong to the church, but they’ve become “untied” – untied from worship attendance, untied from involvement, untied from regular contributions of time or money. Sometimes they’re so “untied” we don’t even know where they are.

That mainline Christianity is in a state of crisis is hardly breaking news. We’ve known for a long time that our once booming churches are going to be in big trouble if we don’t do something. I am convinced, though, that the old cliché about the Chinese character for “crisis” consisting of “danger + opportunity” is true of the church as well. Social and cultural change, combined with a loss of vision have created a situation of great danger for the church. But concealed in that situation are great, as yet undeveloped, opportunities. If we can learn to seize those opportunities with courage, creativity and faith, the best days of the United Church of Canada and other mainline churches may lie ahead of us, not behind us.

I think one opportunity is right under our nose, but we have tended to regard it as a problem rather than an opportunity. I’m talking about the “Untied Church,” those large numbers of people who continue, in some cases stubbornly, to claim to allegiance to our congregations, even though we see them sporadically, occasionally or rarely, who get madder than wet hens when it’s even suggested they should be removed from our roles. They could be one of the keys to renewal. The purpose of this project is to explore whether that is true.

My goal has been to take research conducted on a Canada-wide scale and test its accuracy in a very local context. But the very specificity of the subjects of this study mean that it has relevance outside of its own bounds, because

There are many people who have contributed greatly to this project. I want to thank Jim Lewis and the Louisville Institute for the funding that made the research possible and the congregation and Council of First Grantham United Church for providing me with the time to complete it; Professor Reg Bibby for his invaluable advice and encouragement; my daughter-in-law Kathryn Miller who spent countless hours entering and analyzing data; Rosemary Jaworski and Elenore Goertz in the First Grantham office for invaluable computer help; my beloved wife of 25 years, Rev. Diane Walker for her steadfast love and wisdom; and the congregations of Niagara Presbytery who participated in this project.

When I was a young man studying for the ministry, the minister of my home congregation used to summon me for an occasional audience in his office, sigh a heavy sigh and say, “You know, son, if I was you I’d just pack it in. Forget about it! The church is going to hell in a handbasket and it’s just not worth it.” (How’s that for pastoral encouragement?) I’m glad that over 26 years of ministry I have found his words to be deeply and profoundly wrong. The church today continues to struggle with what it means for fallible, flawed and sometimes foolish human beings to dare to carry the Gospel of divine love into a lost and lonely world – just like it has from the first Day of Pentecost almost 2000 years ago. We face challenges unique to our context, but the task remains the same, and the promise remains the same. If we are faithful, God will honor our faithfulness.

I hope this project will contribute a small bit to our ability to carry out the task we have been assigned.

Fenwick, Ontario,
September, 2007

The “Untied Church”

Not a pretty picture.

“My kids were in church every Sunday when they were young and now not one of them goes. What happened?”

“We used to have standing room only on Sunday mornings. Now you could shoot a cannon through the sanctuary and not hit anybody.”

“What’s wrong with young people these days? They just don’t seem to be interested in church.”

“If we don’t soon get some new people in here to share the work and pay the bills I don’t know what’s going to become of us.”

These statements and others like them are heard in United Church congregations across the country and the statistics make it hard to dispute them. Since the 1980s, according to all standard measurements, the United Church of Canada has been in continual decline with membership dropping by 33% and average weekly attendance by 45% between 1985 and 2005. [Figures 1 and 2] The situation in Niagara Presbytery, which covers most of the Niagara Region of Ontario, mirrors the national picture. There were 16 fewer congregations in Niagara Presbytery in 2005 than there were in 1985. Membership declined by 50% and attendance by 40% over the same period. [Figure 3] But the United Church’s woes must be seen against a more fundamental long-term trend. The number of Canadians who said they attended church in the previous week declined from 61% in 1956 to 41% in 1975, and now hovers somewhere are 20-25%. Old dependable clichés like “Oh, they leave for a while, but they’ll come back” no longer sound as convincing or comforting as they once did.
More worrying still is the demographic make-up of those who remain. While evangelical churches appear to be bursting with young families, youth and children, the average age of United Church members has increased steadily. Church School membership in United Churches has plummeted from almost 240,000 in 1985 to 94,000 in 2005. It is not uncommon to find United Church congregations that literally have no children, no youth, in fact, almost no one who is not a senior citizen. The active leadership of these congregations – those who make the decisions and chart the church’s course – are folk in their 60s, 70s and 80s. It does not take a great deal of imagination to predict where many, if not most, of the United Church congregations in Niagara will be in fifteen years unless something changes dramatically – and soon.
These trends are not unique to the United Church of Canada, however. Other mainline denominations – Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Baptist – are facing similar if not greater levels of decline. And the plight of the churches is echoed in other once robust organizations from service clubs to square dancing clubs to the Legion. It seems that the churches that once played such an important role in Canadian society are on a fast track to extinction.

Is it as bad as it seems?
But is the picture really as grim as it seems to be? Certainly, if we compare the present situation of the church to that of 30 or 40 years ago, there is little cause for optimism. But that may be due in part to how we look at it. Researcher Diana Butler Bass has chronicled a spiritual resurgence in the American “old mainline” churches that has been flying under the radar of conventional measurements. (Butler Bass, 2004.) There are signs that the same trend may be starting in Canada. Ruth A. Tucker has described the quiet power and authenticity that she has found in many “left behind” churches. (Tucker, 2006)
And University of Lethbridge sociologist Reginald Bibby has uncovered surprising data strongly suggesting that there is cause for plenty of optimism about the future of mainline Christianity in Canada. For thirty years, Bibby has been conducting research into Canadian social trends, with particular emphasis on religion. In 1987, Bibby, accepting the prevailing sociological orthodoxy, predicted that religion in an increasingly secularized society would decline indefinitely until traditional churches were nothing but empty shells of their former robust selves. (Bibby, 1987)
However, Bibby has had a change of mind and heart. His more recent studies have shown that, even as weekly church attendance dwindles, people seem to be attached to their churches as much as ever. Bibby’s research has suggested that “people were not ‘dropping out.’ Some nine out of ten [Canadians] were continuing to identify with the predominantly Roman Catholic and Protestant ties of their parents.” (Bibby: 2004a: 14) The data have led Bibby to renounce the “secularization thesis” that had dominated the sociology of religion for decades – the belief that “religion in the Western world was in decline, an inevitable result of societies becoming more highly industrialized.” (Bibby, 2004a:1) According to the secularization thesis, as modern society becomes more specialized and consumer-oriented, the role of religion in public areas like politics, economics and social values recedes and it is relegated to the essentially private areas of “meaning, morality and mortality.” As a result, traditional forms of religious expression and activity become less and less relevant. Bibby has followed the lead of perhaps the best know contemporary sociologist of religion, Peter Berger, in rethinking his commitment to the explanatory power of the secularization thesis. While according to traditional criteria such as weekly attendance at worship, churches give the appearance of decline, people continue to consider themselves part of those churches at astonishingly high and persistent levels. Both professional sociologists and church leaders have assumed that “identification without involvement simply doesn’t count.” (46) Bibby argues that this assumption needs to be challenged. As recently as 2000, 85% of Canadians claimed some connection or affiliation with a traditional church or religious group. That, he argues, is a significant fact.
People do not seem to be abandoning religion. Nor are they deserting the mainline churches in favor of evangelical or conservative groups. What Bibby has forcefully argued in his recent books Restless Gods: The Renaissance of Religion in Canada and Restless Churches: How Canada’s Churches Can Contribute to the Emerging Religious Renaissance is that an enormous number of Canadians continue to affiliate themselves with the churches, and that they are not likely to reject those affiliations any time soon. The key to the hoped-for revival of Canadian churches is whether or not they can find effective ways of reconnecting with these “affiliates.” Perhaps Bibby’s most important finding is that, in response to the question “Would you consider the possibility of being more involved in a religious group if you found it to be worthwhile for you and your family?” 63% of mainline adults who attend church less than once a month and 47 % of teenagers answered “Yes.” (Bibby, 2004b: 47.) Incredibly, one-third of those who describe themselves as having “no religion” also answered “Yes.” The challenge for the churches is to determine what that word “worthwhile” means and how they can address it in such a way as to touch the lives of their non-active affiliates. The silver lining hidden behind the storm clouds of church decline is that “people continue to have some needs that ‘only the gods can provide’” – and that they are prepared to look to their own churches to address those needs.” (Bibby, 2004a: 60) “The demand for religion is constant,” Bibby argues. “What varies is the supply side.” (Bibby, 2004a: 31)

Is Bibby right?
The purpose of this project is to explore the attitudes and habits of affiliates in one particular local context – the Niagara Presbytery of the United Church of Canada.

The Niagara Region
Niagara Presbytery encompasses most of the Regional Municipality of Niagara, (excluding the Towns of Smithville and Grimsby which are part of Hamilton Presbytery.) The population of the region in 2006 was 427,420. Niagara has experienced slower growth than the Province of Ontario as a whole (4.1% between 2001 and 2005 compared with the provincial average of 6.6%), has a higher median age (41.9 years versus 39.0 years for the province.) and a higher proportion of residents over the age of 15 (83.2% compared to 81.8%.) (Statistics Canada 2006) In spite of increasing immigration, Niagara remains more racially and ethnically homogeneous than many other metropolitan areas with the persons of British or European descent forming the majority of residents.
Economically, Niagara has experienced slower growth than many other regions. Niagara ranked seventh out of ten metropolitan areas in terms of economic expansion. There has been a steady loss of manufacturing jobs, lower annual earnings, and a smaller proportion of the population with a university degree than the provincial average. (Niagara Region, 2006)
In other words, most of the churches in Niagara Presbytery are situated in table communities with an aging population (17% 65 or older) that are not growing either in terms of numbers or economically, or dramatically changing in their ethnic and cultural make-up.

The Survey
The main instrument in my research was a written survey consisting of 35 questions. (See Appendix B for Survey with results) The survey was sent by mail with return postage provided to persons between the ages of 25 and 55, identified by their own congregations as affiliates. These age cohorts represent the critical “missing” generations in many congregations.
The primary goal was to answer this question: “If people are not in church, why aren’t they; and what, if anything, could change that?” Consequently, I defined “affiliates” in fairly broad terms, as referring to someone who has a connection to the church but does not attend weekly, attends only sporadically or not at all. I included those who have returned to church after a long absence. Only those who live in the Niagara region who could at least theoretically become more active, received surveys. For example, they were not sent to young adults who had moved away to attend university or to get married.
I began with my own congregation, First Grantham United in St. Catharines, Ontario, and compiled a list of affiliates who met one or more of the following criteria:
• Members who attended irregularly or not at all.
• Adherents.
• People absent for long periods of time.
• Adult children of current members.
• Those who had been confirmed as teenagers.
• Parents who had children baptized in the previous ten years.
• Couples who had been married in the previous ten years.
• Parents who brought their children to Sunday School.

I assembled a list of 260 individuals in about 170 households and these people received a survey with a stamped return envelope, along with a covering letter to explain the project. Husbands and wives each received their own survey.
I invited each congregation in Niagara Presbytery to take part. Twelve congregations agreed to participate. These congregations ranged from small rural churches to large urban or suburban churches. In some cases, they provided me with lists of their affiliates and I mailed the surveys. Other churches, because of privacy concerns, wished to address and mail the surveys themselves. Each congregation’s surveys included a covering letter from their own minister or Council. However, all responses were returned to me.
Participating congregations, in addition to First Grantham, were:

Bethel Cook’s Mills Pastoral Charge, Port Colborne
Carlton United, St. Catharines
Central Avenue United, Fort Erie
Central United, Port Colborne
Central United, Welland
Fonthill United, Fonthill
Jordan Station United, Jordan Station
Lundy’s Lane, Niagara Falls
Pelham Community Church, Pelham
St. Andrew’s United, Niagara Falls
Wesley United, Welland
Welland Avenue United, St. Catharines

Two congregations explicitly declined to participate. The other congregations in the Presbytery did not respond.
In total 1056 surveys were mailed. Approximately 3-5 % were returned as undeliverable, meaning that about 1000 individuals received a survey. First Grantham responses totaled 84 and responses from the other twelve churches totaled 116 for a grand total of 200 surveys returned. This represents a response rate of 20%. First Grantham affiliates responded at a rate of about 30%, which is not really surprising as people could be expected to identify more readily with a survey coming from one of the ministers at their own church rather than from a complete stranger.
Respondents were asked if they would be willing to meet with me for a follow up interview to discuss their church affiliation. I conducted interviews with twenty individuals.
What the survey and the interviews yielded was detailed feedback on a series of questions from 200 individuals who attend church anywhere from “never” to “a couple of times a month.” This is very significant. In my experience, active church people are often puzzled, hurt and bewildered by the absence of their affiliates. “Why aren’t they here?” “Where have they gone?” “Have they joined other churches?” “Don’t they care?” “What’s wrong with their priorities?” Active church leaders have many guesses about these questions, but not many clear answers. (Haugk, 1992: 22) The data from these surveys, and from the follow up interviews that I have conducted, provide our churches with a gold mine of information about what our own affiliates are thinking.

Who are the affiliates?
First, a comment on terminology. Every pastor or church leader knows who the affiliates are. They are the people who do not attend church regularly, but who continue to look to the church at certain times such as weddings or funerals, or who never fail to show up on Christmas Eve. Sometimes they reappear without warning, and then just as quickly disappear again. From the inside, these people are “inactive” or “drop outs.” Less kindly, they are “lazy” or “uncommitted.” And this insider perspective is reflected in some of the literature. Baptist consultant and sociologist Kirk Hadaway describes them as “Mental Members,” subdivided into “The Estranged,” “The Nominals” and “The Indifferent.” (Hadaway 1990: 35-46) Lutheran Kenneth C. Haugk refers to them as “Inactive Members.” (Haugk 1992)
I think Bibby’s term “affiliates”, however, is a more helpful one that encourages us to see the church from their perspective, rather than filtered through our own lenses. “Affiliates” avoids the pejorative connotations that seem to make sense when viewed from the perspective of the core leadership who do not fully appreciate the reality of church connection today.
Second, two comments on methodology. Every survey contains an element of bias to the extent that the choice of questions predetermines the answers that are given. The explicit purpose of this project is to test the validity of Reginald Bibby’s thesis in a local context, and so the questions have been designed specifically to explore certain of his conclusions, for example, that affiliates could become more active if they consider it worthwhile, or that ministry focusing on family and relationships would be a key to touching affiliates.
Also, the individuals who responded were too self-selective a group to function as a scientifically predictive sample, permitting accurate extrapolations to the population in general. This study makes no claims about what “all” affiliates are thinking. Simply the fact that they were the ones who chose to complete and return the survey and others didn’t introduces an element of distortion. Having said that, almost 3 in 4 (73%) were people who attend church “a few times a year” or less including 10% who said they never attend church. For that reason, the concern that only active people would care enough to complete the survey does not seem to be born out.

Questions 1-4

Personal Background

• 35% were male and 65% were female.
• 2% were under 25, 17% were 25-34, 28% were 35-44, 40% were 45-54, and 12% were over 55. Although the upper age limit was 55, some people older than 55 received the survey because they were married to someone younger or because their exact age was not known. The number of responses increased with age, half being 45 or older. There are several possible explanations for this. First, it’s simply a lot easier to find and identify people in their 40s and 50s than people in their 20s and 30s who tend to be more transient and in the midst of getting established in work and family. Some churches were not as careful in sorting out their lists by age, so included persons outside the target group. For these reasons, more surveys were sent to 45-54 year olds than to 25-34 year olds increasing the number of responses from the upper age range. Secondly, as pollsters will attest, it is getting increasingly difficult to get younger people to complete surveys if they are not able to perceive any direct benefit to themselves. Having said that, I did receive valuable data from almost a hundred individuals under the age of 45.
• 8% were single, 77% were married, 8% were divorced or separated, 4% were widowed and 3% were living common law.
• 71% have children living at home.

Questions 6-9

Church Background

According to Reg Bibby, churches should take the time to connect with their affiliates simply because people tend to stick with what they know. They remain affiliated with the religious groups of their parents and “most are reluctant to wander far from their religious homes.” (Bibby, 2004a:35) This was certainly born out in the survey respondents:
• 76% attended church “Most Sundays” when they were children, 17% attended occasionally, while only 4% attended rarely and 3% attended never.
• Fully 70% of the respondents attended the United Church when they were children, and a further 12% attended other mainline Protestant churches, powerfully confirming Bibby’s thesis that people maintain their affiliations over the long term. Only 11% grew up Roman Catholic, 2% “conservative Protestant,” 4% “evangelical” 3% “Pentecostal” and 11% “Other.” Remarkably, only 3% did not attend church at all as children.
• 89% of respondents say they were baptized as children and 82% were either confirmed or received as members of the church.

Church attendance today

Question 23
The survey deliberately targeted the less than fully involved, so it’s not surprising that only 10% said they attend church “More than twice a month.” A further 18% attend “About once a month.” 37% attend “A few times a year,” 26% “Once a year or less.” But only 10% “Never” attend church. Again, it is possible that most of those who truly never attend church couldn’t be bothered to complete the survey. But, given that most survey recipients would be identified by the leadership of their congregations as more or less “inactive,” it turns out that 90% of them are there at least occasionally.

Summary: The proportion of men and women who answered the survey pretty much reflects the reality in our churches. We heard from more older people than younger people. Overwhelmingly, they grew up in the United Church; and hardly any of them did not attend church as children.

How do the affiliates feel about the church?
Criticism of religion in the media and the popularity of aggressively atheistic authors such as Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens have created an impression of widespread public hostility towards the churches. Many people also assume that those who no longer attend church are feeling alienated. Popular church consultant Kennon Callahan has argued that “church dropouts” can be the most difficult group of all to reach because many of them have stopped attending because they are upset about something (Callahan 1983: 16-18).
But the data from these church affiliates presents a different picture. In fact, people continue to feel surprisingly positive about the church. Respondents were asked to agree or disagree with twelve statements about the church.

Questions 10 and 11

• 86% either strongly agreed or agreed that “My church would be there for me if I needed it.” [Figure 4]

• 82% said that “Churches play a vital role in community life” and a whopping 94% either strongly agreed or agreed that “The community would lose something valuable if the churches weren’t there.”
• While only 16% strongly agreed that “Going to church is an enjoyable experience for me,” another 56% agreed. Only 4% strongly disagreed with this statement. Remember, these are folks three quarters of whom attend church “a few times a year” or less. [Figure 5]
• The data do not suggest that affiliates are staying away because they have powerfully negative feelings about the church. If they are not there, there are other factors at play.

Having said that, there are significant levels of criticism towards the church that congregations should take care to heed. For example:

• 13% strongly agreed and a further 28% agreed that “The church is too stuck in old ways.” Depending on whether we want to see the glass as half full or half empty, however, fully 52% disagreed with that same statement.
• 45% either strongly agreed or agreed that “Church people tend to be more judgmental than other people.” Even though this is not quite half, it is still a sizeable number who have the impression that the church is a place of judgmentalism. This should give congregations food for thought. [Figure 6]

• While 49% either strongly agreed or agreed that “The church needs to work harder to make a difference in society,” over 80% disagreed with the statement that “The church worries too much about its own people and not enough about others.”
• 11% strongly agreed and 52% agreed that “A few people run everything in the church.” [Figure 7]
That may not necessarily be a criticism, but only an observation. Further exploration would be required to determine fully the significance of that response.
• One response that should give us all pause is that 54% strongly agreed and a further 44% agreed – that’s an overwhelming 98% -- that “You can be close to God even if you don’t go to church.” This attitude points up a dilemma for congregations, namely, that mainliners are more likely to think of the church as optional rather than essential in their spiritual lives. On the one hand, people are drawn to the United Church precisely because they see it as more open and less demanding than more conservative churches. But this very sense of being easy-going and tolerant makes it easier for them not to make a firm commitment and to drift away.

The very thing that attracts people to the United Church, in other words, may be one of our biggest hurdles to overcome. [Figure 8]

Other responses indicate that they would like the church to contribute to their spirituality and their experience of God, but that if the church fails to do so, they are quite prepared to look elsewhere. The sense of duty that was such a powerful motivating factor in bringing our grandparents out to church no longer has much effect.



Question 12

Here is a small sample of the varied responses to the question:
“What words would you use to describe the Church to which you are presently connected?”

“Enjoyable, teaching, welcoming, listening.”
“Retirement villa.”
“Family oriented, occasionally too pushy for involvement in church activities.”
“Friendly, caring.”
“Not always willing to make a change, to try something different – political.”
“Haven’t been in years, but the church was warm and friendly including all people as a family.”
“A sea of white and grey-haired people.”
“Big, old, dependable.”
“Friendly congregation, excellent minister, many of hymns are not inspiring.”
“Full of cliques, self centred.”
“Too administrative; members can micromanage.”
“Kind, welcoming, traditional, warm.”
“Country church, small, intimate.”
“Old school – needs to be more uplifting to interest new comers & younger families.”
“I haven’t attend in a few years – it is not the church – it is the United Church of Canada.”
“Energetic, involved, helpful, ambitious, reliable, caring, irreplaceable.”
“Friendly, beautiful, musical.”
“Always wanting more money.”
“Too many chiefs.”
”Old fashioned, stale, out of touch.”
“In transition. Looking for a leader. Elderly congregation in search of younger people.”
“Welcoming, comfortable, encouraging, non-judgmental, healing.”

In general, these responses would seem to indicate that while people may be staying away from regular Sunday worship, the main reasons do not have to do with deeply negative feelings towards their churches. Even if they are prepared to make critical statements about the church, these don’t seem to run very deep emotionally. This is further confirmed when people are asked to “Tell us about your personal experience of the church.”

Questions 13-15

• 20% said their experience of their present congregation was “Very Positive” and a further 42% said “Positive.” 31% said “Mixed – sometimes good, sometimes bad,” while only 3% said it was either “Not every positive” or “Negative.” [Figure 9]
• Younger people actually seem to feel more positive about the church. 73% of the 25-34 age group said they feel either “Very Positive” or “Positive” compared with 59.5% of 35-44 year olds, 53% of 45-54 year olds and 61% of over-55s. This could be due to the fact that younger people haven’t had as much time to experience the dark side of church life.
• 23% had “very positive” and 61% had “Positive” childhood memories of church.
• 15% said the church had been “Very influential” in shaping their values and view of the world, while a further 54% said it had been “Influential.” Only 31% said that the church had not been influential. Even among those who attend church “a few times a year” or less, 89 out of 139 respondents, or 64%, said the church had either been very influential or influential. This suggests that these affiliates approach life in terms of values that have been formed through their involvement with the church. This presents the church with a significant challenge, however, because it would seem that the same formative influence is not being passed on to the generation of their children. How can the church continue to play its formative role in these times of increasingly sporadic church involvement?

Summary: Affiliates feel pretty good about the church. They see it in a positive light, although they tend to think the church has a problem with being judgmental and out of date. In general, affiliates had a positive experience of the church when they were growing up, which they maintain now. Virtually everyone, however, believes that you can be close to God without going to church.

Question 16
The results are a little more mixed when people are asked to comment on their “experience of God.”
• Only 15% say that “Yes, definitely” they have had an experience they would call “an experience of God.” A further 24% “think” they have had such an experience, while 31% have had experiences but aren’t sure they were experiences of God, and 20% state categorically that they have not had such an experience. In other words, more people are sure they have not experienced God than are sure they have. [Figure 10]

• Furthermore, a mere 2% say that they connect those experiences closely with the church, that “Church is where I experience God the most.” (Question 17)
• More encouragingly, 35% say they “experience God both inside and outside the church.”
• But 39% say there isn’t much connection at all; that “If I experience God, it’s more likely outside the church.”
• Fortunately, only 1% say that “The church actually interferes with my spirituality,” and, consistently with the previous question, 19% say they have never had an experience of God.

Differences between men and women [Figure 11]

While these responses do not show a lot of variation by age, there are some interesting differences based on gender. Only about 30% of males said they had either definitely or probably had an experience of God, while 42% of females said they had definitely or probably had such an experience. Conversely, 29% of males say they have definitely not had an experience of God while only 15% of females agreed.

One of Bibby’s conclusions is that people are looking for answers that “only the gods can provide,” and that spirituality is one of their main concerns. They are preoccupied with questions of the purpose of life, of the meaning of suffering and happiness and of what will happen to them after they die. However, the intensity of concern with these ultimate questions seems to be on the decrease. This is not necessarily because they aren’t important, however. Bibby argues that one reason why people are devoting less time to thinking about these ultimate questions of meaning is that they have not found the religious groups with which they identify particularly effective in addressing them. (Bibby, 2004b: 133-134) Most current research suggests that, as the world increases in complexity and uncertainty, people are open to the things of the spirit. But the fact that 98% of respondents to this survey do not look primarily to the church to mediate their personal experience of God should make us sit up and take notice.

Summary: Four out of ten people are pretty sure they’ve experienced God, while two out of ten are sure they haven’t. More women than men have had “God” experiences. But the church is far from the only, or even the main, place where they find God.

What do affiliates want from the church?

Question 18
Respondents were given thirteen options in response to the question “What would you like your Church to do for you personally?” including the option “I don’t want the church to do anything for me.”
• Let’s start with that choice. Surprisingly, a mere 5% said they don’t want the church to do anything for them. I regard this as one of the more significant findings from the survey, that so few people really don’t look to the church for anything at all. This indicates an enormous latent openness to what the church may be able to offer.
The top responses of what people would like to receive from the church are shown in Figure 12.

Differences Between Age Groups
Again, there is hardly any variation across the age cohorts. Consistently, every age group includes “Help me to deal with pain and loss,” “Provide a sanctuary away from the stress of life,” “Help me improve my relationships with family and friends,” and “Increase my knowledge of the Bible and Christianity” among their top five choices.
There are a couple of significant variations by age, however.
The 25-34s and the 35-44s included “Increase my knowledge of other religions” in the top five, suggesting that an interest in other religions is more of a concern to younger people raised in a culture of religious pluralism.
Furthermore, the 25-34s were the only group not to include “Teach me to be a better person” in the top five, while the over 55s were the only group to include “Give me a meaningful task to accomplish.”

Differences Between Men and Women

The differences in choices between men and women are shown in Figure 13.
Women and men also differed in the number of choices they selected. When asked about what they want the church to do for them, men simply picked fewer things. Women checked an average of 2.54 choices while men only selected 1.7.
Men and women appear to want somewhat different things from the church. This would bear exploring in greater depth. On full length study of this issue is Why Men Hate Going to Church by David Murrow. (Murrow, 2005) Although written from a more conservative evangelical perspective, this book is useful for getting us thinking about the extent to which churches fail to connect with men.
In spite of these variations, however, it would seem that affiliates have clear needs with which they would like their church to help them: coping with pain and loss, help with relationships, deepening their understanding of Christian faith, respite from the stresses of life and help with becoming better people.
At the other end of the scale:
• Only 17% want the church to “Show me the difference between right and wrong.” This would seem to echo other research suggesting that mainline Christianity is more characterized by openness, exploration and personal freedom than by clear-cut moral answers.
• Only 18% want the church to “Give me a meaningful task to accomplish.”
• And, somewhat surprisingly, given the popularity of interfaith questions, only 28% want the church to “Teach me about other religions besides Christianity.” This would seem to indicate that what people are looking for from Christian churches is guidance in the meaning of Christianity, and that if they want knowledge of other faith traditions, they do not expect their church to provide it. However, as noted above, interest in other religions appears to be on the increase among younger age groups. This finding has implications for adult education programming.
• A significant minority (29%) want the church to “Connect me to past traditions.”

Congregations will find plenty of food for thought in these findings that will guide them in preaching, programming and pastoral care among their affiliates.

Summary: The good news: Only one in twenty doesn’t want the church to do anything for them. 95% of people surveyed say the church might have something to offer them. Affiliates want the church to help them deal with the stress of life, to become better people, to deal with painful experiences, and to teach them about the Christian faith.

What do affiliates think about their own spirituality?
It is a commonplace in our culture that personal “spirituality” is distinct from organized or institutional “religion.” According to Reginald Bibby’s latest “Project Canada” survey, “some 75% of adults across the country maintain that they have spiritual needs and a similar proportion has told us that spirituality is important to them…. In addition, six in ten people indicated that they are interested in learning more about religion and spiritual matters.” (Bibby 2004a: 86) Even among people who never attend religious services, 55% claim to have spiritual needs. Of course, not all of that interest is connected with churches; but Bibby’s research does show that approximately half of Canadians think of spirituality in fairly traditional “God” terms.

Spiritual Enrichment

Question 19
Even though this survey was targeted at people who are not regular church attenders, 39% said that “Coming to Church on Sunday” is one of the things that help them “to be more in touch with your spirituality.” Conversely, it could be pointed out that 61% did not identify Sunday worship as an important contributor to their spirituality, but there is some cause for optimism in this reply.

The top five sources of spiritual enrichment are: [Figure 14]

• “Being out in nature” (55%)
• “My relationships with family and friends” (55%) (According to Project Canada, “Family Life” is the single most important source of enjoyment for 86% of Canadians. Bibby, 2004a: 204)
• “Observing important occasions or familiar rituals” (47%)
• “Music” (47%).
• “Prayer and meditation” and “Coming to Church on Sunday”, both with 39%.

There is relatively little variation between age groups. All age groups included “Being out in nature,” “My relationships with family and friends,” “Observing important occasions or familiar rituals,” “Music,” and “Prayer and Meditation” among their top five choices.

Somewhat surprisingly, depending on how you look at it:

• Only 27% said reading was important.
• Only 20% said “exercising or working out” was important.
• Only 17% identified “the arts (film, visual arts, poetry)” as an important source of spiritual sustenance.
• A mere 4% look to “fantasy or science fiction” for spiritual enrichment.

Spiritual Needs

Question 20
People were asked to identify their most important “Spiritual Needs.” [Figure 15]

• Far and away, the most prevalent response was “To find inner peace,” selected by a substantial 71%.
• “To know that I am not alone.” (47%)
• “To discover my purpose in life.” (41%)
• And, astonishingly, “To know that I will go to heaven when I die,” selected by 38% of respondents. Not surprisingly, this need becomes more pronounced as people grow older as it was chosen by only about one in four 25-34 year olds, but 41% of 35-44s and 43% of 45-54s. In one congregation, which had a very high proportion of responses from this age group, this was the most popular choice (8 out of 11 responses). Interestingly, the number goes down for those over 55 (33.3%). Maybe this means that concerns about mortality and life after death peak at mid-life. In any case, it is hard to imagine a more conventionally traditional religious aspiration than this, and yet even among the marginally active it remains quite a powerful desire. Significant numbers of people still think about their personal destiny in pretty traditional Christian terms (going to heaven when I die). This response also confirms Bibby’s finding that ultimate questions of life, death and life after death are very much on people’s minds. Clergy and church leaders need to recognize the ongoing power of many traditional Christian symbols and not to be too quick to purge it of its mysterious and numinous dimensions in the interests of sophistication. Bibby makes the following observation: “The current situation calls Canadian religious groups to ask themselves whether in fact the faiths they value have something decisive to say about ultimate questions relating to life and death. If so, they need to be doing a much better job of explicitly and effectively sharing these messages with people….” (2004a 136)
• “To succeed in the things that are most important to me” (37%).
• “To forgive those who have hurt me” was selected by 35% of respondents. This suggests that a substantial minority of people are troubled by issues of forgiveness.

Once again, there is a great deal of consistency across all age groups on these issues, with the search for inner peace topping the list by a wide margin in every single cohort.

At the low end of the scale of spiritual needs are:

• “To sacrifice myself for the good of others” (19%). This is not an encouraging response. It would seem to confirm the general research indicating that people’s spiritual desires are fairly self-interested. They are more concerned with what the church can do for them than with what they can do for others.
• “To have a personal experience of God” (22%), reinforcing the ambivalence towards religious experience identified above.
• “To overcome my feelings of guilt and inadequacy (23%). Guilt is becoming less and less of a motivating factor in people’s lives. As Reg Bibby put it, “guilt is in scarce supply in our society today.” This tendency is becoming more pronounced among younger people who are refusing to be pressured by feelings of guilt. Not surprisingly, the group that responded the least favorably to the question of guilt and inadequacy were the 25-34 year olds. This was illustrated anecdotally for me at a recent social gathering of friends in their 40s and 50s, most of whom attend conservative evangelical churches. They were discussing how affected they had been as teens and young adults by the “left behind” mentality of their dispensationalist churches – the fear that Jesus might return and not take them. This prospect was enough to scare them into all kinds of moral and religious conformity. But one parent commented, “My own kids are simply not into that way of thinking.” If this is true of young people thoroughly enculturated into evangelical Christianity, we can predict that it will be even more true of those raised in a mainline context.

Spiritual Accomplishments [Figure 16]



Question 21
When asked to identify their most important “spiritual accomplishments”– what they would like to achieve or attain spiritually – responses were as follows:
• “To discover beauty and gootdness in the world around me” (52%)
• “To make a real difference in the world” (51%)
• “To connect my faith to my daily life” (45%)
• “To develop my God-given potential” (36%)
• “To follow the teachings of Jesus” (26%)
• “To become knowledgeable about the Bible and Christianity” (19%)
• “To learn about other religions” (17%).

The top responses tended to be highly personal, clearly outdistancing those that stressed sacrifice and self-giving. But there are some encouraging signs. More than half of respondents really want to make a difference in the world. This should offer some guidance to churches in designing opportunities for involvement. Along with other findings, it suggests that what really keeps many people away from church is simply the sense that it’s not that important or significant. If churches can offer people ways of feeling that they are making a difference, many will respond. Almost half of respondents to this survey say that they want to find some practical application for their faith. Furthermore, it could be argued that the fact that one out of four people who are not core church attenders or leaders still say that “following the teachings of Jesus” is very important to them, is not to be discounted. For at least a substantial minority of people, it could be that the key to greater receptivity to the church involves not asking less of them but asking more.

Summary: The church is a primary source of spiritual nourishment for about four out of ten people who responded to the survey. Remember, though, most of them go to church less than once a month. Being out in nature, family and friends and music, are other important ways they feed their spirits. But finding inner peace is by far and away the strongest spiritual need. People also yearn to know they are not alone, to discover their purpose in life, to succeed, to forgive and to be sure they’ll go to heaven. They want to discover beauty in the world and to make a difference. And they want to connect their faith to their daily lives.

Personal church involvement of affiliates.

Where would they go if they did go?

Question 22
Reginald Bibby has argued that people tend to stick with what they know. This runs counter to the perception that conservative evangelical churches are overflowing with refugees from mainline congregations. When asked what church they would be most likely to attend today , two points stand out clearly.

• First, only 2% of respondents said “None.” In other words, when given the option of saying that they would not attend any church, almost none of them took that choice.
• Secondly, 85% said “My own United Church.” Bibby has argued that mainline churches, especially United Churches, have enormous pools of potential, latent members to draw on without ever leaving their own affiliates. The responses to this survey give strong reasons for thinking that he may be right.
• Furthermore not one single person said they would attend a “Conservative Protestant” or “Evangelical” church, and only 1% said “Pentecostal.”

One of the main goals of this project is to answer the question, “If people aren’t in church, why aren’t they?” Remember, these are people who, if you were to ask them, would say that they belong to the United Church. In my experience, clergy and church leaders have hazarded a lot of guesses as to the answer to this question, but often without much information to go on.

What keeps affiliates away?

Questions 24 and 25
In answer to the question, “What would keep you from attending church?” the most prominent responses were:
• “There are not enough people there who are like me” (18%)
• “I don’t get anything out of the services” (17%)
• “The church is too concerned about money” (15%)
What is noteworthy, however, is that no single choice garnered even one out of five respondents. What this suggests is that there is no one compelling reason having to do with the church itself that is keeping people away. In my opinion, one of the most significant findings is that a mere 12% of respondents said that “There are too many beliefs I don’t agree with.” This would seem to disprove the argument advanced by some popular theologians that people are rejecting the church because they perceive Christian beliefs to be out of step with the modern scientific outlook. Now, it could be that there are scores of affiliates who think that and declined to return the survey, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The reason people are not attending church would appear to have little to do with the content of the church’s theology or philosophy. For answers, we must look elsewhere.
Also interesting for the paucity of response were:

• “I don’t feel welcomed when I go” (9%)
• “When I needed the church, the church didn’t come through for me” (7%)
• “People in the church are always fighting and arguing” (8%)
• And, of encouragement to the clergy, “I don’t care for the present minister” (6%.)
One choice that was not offered and which might not be significant statistically, but which churches should be aware of, is burn-out. Some heavily involved people reach a breaking point where the only way to get away from the demands is to quit going. One man, 45-54, wrote: “I was very involved until ten years ago. Felt obligated to go on and did join several committees – more than I wanted.” He and his wife quit and have not attended for years. Another woman whose church attendance has been interrupted by work demands said that even on those rare occasions when she could go to church, she is reluctant to do so for fear that she will be “pounced on” to take up responsibilities which she is not in a position to assume at this time. Although she yearns for her church, she can’t face having to say “No” to these requests. Another woman, 35-44 cited “Feeling compelled to volunteer more time than I have available” as her main reason for not attending.
Overall, however, it would seem that the problem people have is not with the church.
So what is the problem? Clearly, it has more to do with the pressures under which many families today find themselves. Respondents were asked to identify what factors in their own personal lives made it difficult for them to go to church. Topping the list was “Sunday is my only day to relax” chosen by 37% of respondents, followed by work (32%) and children’s sports (18%.) [Figure 17] (A flaw in the design of the survey was that adult sports and household chores were not given as options, although quite a few people wrote these into their surveys.)
The comment of one woman in the 35-44 group perhaps summarizes many families’ Sunday experience:
“This is Sunday: 1) 9:00 a.m. I went grocery shopping. 2) Cooked today’s dinner and Monday’s dinner by 9:30 a.m. 3) Went to son’s hockey game. 4) Made lunch. 5) Cleaned the house. 6) Did kids’ homework.” In answer to the question “What would motivate you to attend church more often?” the same person wrote: “I don’t think it’s the church. It’s our lifestyle.”
The data would seem to indicate that, while some people don’t like this, that or the other thing about the church, the main barrier to people’s participation in church is the demands of their own schedules which, in turn, are connected to much more fundamental shifts in social patterns. Churches need to become much better informed about the impact of social change on organizational life. Most mainline churches are trying to conduct business as usual as if they were still living in an earlier time. When I was a child in the late 1950s, the venerable Sunday evening service at my own church was on its last legs and was discontinued around 1962. Why then? People had been going to church on Sunday night for generations. Why no longer? The most persuasive explanation I have heard is: “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Folks stopped going to Sunday evening service when they found something more enticing to do.
In my opinion, the event with that has had the single biggest effect on church attendance in the last thirty years is wide open Sunday commerce that came to Ontario in the mid-1990s. One in three respondents cited Sunday work as the main reason they don’t get to church regularly, a number that surprised me. It’s probably fair to guess that a majority of these people would not have been working on Sundays in 1987 or 1977. This goes a long way towards removing the mystery from declining church attendance, particularly among those in their prime working years – the subjects of this study.
This is both good news and bad news for our churches. The good news is that, in the words of Diana Butler Bass, “it’s nobody’s fault” (Butler Bass 2004: 21) There are bigger forces at play than simply what the churches are doing. People are not staying away because they are mad or alienated, or because they have lost their faith.
The bad news, though, is that there is no button the church can push, no wand the church can wave, no program the church can tinker with that will fundamentally reverse the shifts that are taking place in our culture. Dropping flyers around the neighborhood or having the ushers wear happy face name tags won’t do it. Our churches need to go deeper and begin to think about these issues on a more radical fundamental level.
University of Guelph sociologist Kerry Daly has done extensive research on the social impact of time stress, coinciding with “the establishment of the dual earner family as the dominant family form.” (Daly, 2000) Most churches operate with an institutional memory of a culture in which the majority of women filled the volunteer roles and kept the wheels turning. Those women today are out at work during the week. That in itself is enough to explain why the popularity of social groups like Couples Clubs has waned. What a previous generation of women saw as a welcome respite from a week at home with the kids, today’s women see as just another night out. In addition, Daly points out, technology which held so much labor-saving promise has actually added to people’s work load by increasing the speed at which everything must be accomplished and, even more importantly, permitting work to intrude on time that used to be considered private and sacrosanct. We live in a “culture of over-work,” Daly maintains. Between 1981 and 1992, the amount of paid work time for Canadians 20 to 64 years old increased by 15% while the amount of leisure time decreased by 10%. In 1998, 16% of men and 21% of women claimed to be experiencing time stress. The most time stressed group of all are 25-44 year olds, particularly those who have the care of young children, with women bearing a disproportionate load of responsibility for keeping all the balls in the air. Part of the burden that falls on women is the change in expectations of what constitutes effective parenting, resulting in the greatly increased structuring and controlling of children’s activities. “In response to the fast pace of technology and the dramatic increase of women in the paid labour force, family time has been idealized as the private still point in an otherwise frenzied life pattern.” (Daly, 2000.)
The implications of this for church life are clear. The missing age group – adults 25 to 45 years old – are precisely those who are most time stressed and who experience the highest level of conflict about time commitments. The 10% decrease in leisure time has been compensated for largely by dropping out of church and other volunteer activities. The church has tended historically to rely heavily on the volunteer time of women and it is they who are feeling the crunch most painfully. The responses to the survey indicate a hunger for “Sabbath,” but a Sabbath defined in Daly’s terms of the idealized “private still point.” In this context, church attendance and involvement are seen as part of the problem instead of part of the solution.

An interview confirms this view:

Steven and Gail (not their real names) are a professional couple in their forties with two young children. When they moved to their present home, they began to attend the closest United Church. On their written surveys they indicated that they had stopped attending because they perceived the congregation to be intolerant towards gays and lesbians. However, when I met with them face to face and asked them to tell me their story, they spoke at length about their struggles in dealing with aging parents and how that had made church attendance practically impossible. Only later did they express their views about same-sex issues. “That [the congregation’s attitude] just became one more reason not to go,” according to Steven. Given a different set of personal circumstances, who knows if they would have continued to attend and work for change.

While only 16% said the reason they don’t attend is that their spouse won’t go, many of those strongly reinforced this choice with written comments. Lack of spousal support is a serious, “hard-core” issue for those who have to go to church on their own, perhaps using precious time that they might otherwise spend with their partner. It becomes a divisive, rather than a unifying, factor in their marriage and family life.
Churches are facing a social reality that is far bigger than anything over which they have direct control. That is not to say that there cannot be effective strategies to increase the involvement of affiliates, but that churches will have to be much more keenly aware of the lifestyle issues their people are facing and much more creative in accommodating them. Because the leadership of most congregations remains largely in the hands of people a generation older than the ones described here, there is often little appreciation for just what many families are up against in terms of balancing work, commuting and the demands of family life. “If it was important to them, they’d be here,” or “I always found time for church when my kids were young” may make older leaders feel virtuous, but it is not very helpful if the goal is to increase the participation level of people under 50.
The data from this survey would seem to indicate that people find plenty to value in churches and regard what the church stands for as important. The crucial fact, however, is that it is not important enough to outweigh the other calls on their time and energy, or to motivate them to give up precious hours on Sunday morning to attend. There is no deep seated animosity towards the church, but simply the general sense that it does not touch them at the most important places of their lives. The critical question for United Churches to answer is: “How can we make it important enough?”

Summary: Only one in fifty stated categorically that they wouldn’t be open to going to church anywhere; while almost nine out of ten said they’d go back to the familiar surroundings of their own United Church. There’s not much interest in switching to another kind of church among this group. What keeps people away is not mainly anything specific about the church itself. It’s much more likely to be personal issues of work and time stress. What people really long for is some relief from the constant demands of the clock and the calendar.

How has church involvement changed?

Questions 26-29
In answer to the question, “How has your church attendance changed over the last ten years?”

• 23% said they attend more often.
• 53% said they attend less often.
• 20% said they attend as often.
• 3% said they’ve never attended church.

This indicates a combined decrease of 30% in church attendance in ten years, which corresponds more or less to the weekly attendance statistics of the United Church.

In answer to the question “How has your sense of ‘connection’ to the church changed over the last ten years, however [Figure 19]

• 17% say they feel more connected
• 36% say they feel less connected
• While 36% say they feel the same connection
• And 9% have never felt connected.

In other words, the feeling of connection has remained significantly stronger than habits of attendance. 53% of respondents say that they feel either the same or greater connection to the church than they did ten years ago, far surpassing the 36% who feel less connected; while only 43% attend church either as often or more often, compared to 53% who attend less often. This would seem to confirm one of Bibby’s contentions that identification and affiliation are not the same as attendance. People feel connected, even if they don’t attend. It should also give some encouragement to congregations that all is not lost.

Summary: About half said they attend church less than they did ten years ago; but about a quarter said they attend church more. However, less than half say their sense of connection to the church has decreased over the last ten years. People still feel connected.

What kind of worship do people want?

Questions 30 and 31
During the 1980s and 1990s, church growth and renewal strategists focused a great deal of attention on the gap between popular forms of expression in our culture at large and what people were likely to find at church. Whereas people habitually listened to pop, rock or country music on the radio or the CD player, when they came to church on Sunday they entered an alien world of pipe organs and classical choral music. “No wonder people are staying away!” was the strategic response. The explosion in contemporary Christian music and the transformation of worship spaces and styles to look as little like traditional churches as possible was one response. The goal was to remove the line separating the sacred from the secular, Sunday from Monday, the church from the concert hall or the shopping mall.

In this survey I wanted to get a sense for what kind of worship people respond to most positively – and most negatively. This is a tricky question to interpret. First, people might tend to respond by default to that which is familiar, not giving a true picture of their deeper tastes and desires. Second, it may be fallacious to assume that people will stay away from church because of the style of worship. Even if, given the choice, they’d prefer a rock band to a pipe organ, it wouldn’t be enough on its own to make them stay away. I have never bought the argument, for example, that because only 2% of the population chooses to listen to classical music that a classically based liturgy will drive them away from church. There is a big difference between what people will do given the choice, and what they will positively refuse to put up with.

People were given 9 different options of worship styles. Responses broke down as follows


• Contemporary (48%)
• Traditional (38%)
• Intergenerational (25%)
• Meditative (13%)
• Liturgical (5%)
• Intimate (4%)
• Other (3%)
• None (2%)
• Charismatic (0)

A few things to notice here.

First, once again a miniscule number of people put none, indicating that they wouldn’t be there under any circumstances, no matter what kind of service is going on. These 2% are the hard-core stay-aways – although there are probably lots more of them among the non-respondents.

The other big surprise is that 48% expressed a preference for contemporary worship, meaning upbeat music, casual dress, modern technology and relaxed atmosphere. Initially I thought this would be affected by familiarity; however, the number of people expressing a preference for this style of worship at First Grantham where there is a contemporary service (49%) is virtually the same as the other churches, most of which do not have that style (48%). Furthermore, it doesn’t seem to be that affected by age. Every age group, with the exception of the 55-and-overs put contemporary first, followed by traditional. We could conclude that among affiliates under 55 years of age, there is a strong desire for a more contemporary, energized, upbeat style of Sunday worship.

A lesser surprise is that a substantial number of people still prefer so-called “traditional” worship with organ music, gowned choir, led by the minister with dignity and decorum. As one young couple in their twenties commented, “We want our church to look like a church – to be ‘awesome.’”
Note also that one in four chose “intergenerational” indicating a desire to have a place for children in worship. This would seem to be especially important in smaller churches where the facilities and resources for a full-scale Sunday School program are not available. Intergenerational worship could also be either traditional or contemporary in style.
The message from this question is furthered refined when we consider the next one: “What kind of church service appeals to you least?”
• 12% said traditional worship appeals the least.
• But only 5% said contemporary.
Clearly, these affiliates have no taste for something they regard as truly foreign to their own experience. Not one person expressed a preference for charismatic worship (raising hands, speaking in tongues, prayers for healing) while two out of three said that charismatic worship would be their least favorite. But there is a stronger preference for contemporary worship and a weaker antipathy to it than I would have expected from mainliners who likely have little personal experience of that style.
We should keep in mind, too, that the boundaries between worship styles are not hard and fast but fluid. The blended worship movement of the 1990s and the emerging church movement of today both seek to incorporate ancient and innovative forms of liturgical expression.
Now, simply putting together a band and singing contemporary worship songs will not by itself turn the tide of decline and bring in droves of younger people. Given the right alignment of the stars, a contemporary worship service might be enough to get people into the church but it won’t be enough on its own to keep them there. Other, more fundamental factors must be in place. (More about this later.) Furthermore, launching a contemporary service can be challenging if the leadership, especially the musicians, are not readily available. Attempting to change the style of worship in a church will also engender more hostility and resistance than almost any other decision. In most churches, there is usually a core of permission givers who will work hard to discredit and undermine such attempts.
Having said that, congregations should pay attention to these data. If they are seriously dedicated to connecting with their under-50 affiliates, it would seem that a changed worship style is on the minds of a significant number of them.
The most important consideration, however, is that substance trumps style. Authenticity matters more than appearance. If congregations want to connect with their affiliates, they will need to offer worship that genuinely touches them at the deepest place. No matter what style of worship the church uses, it needs to be done conscientiously and well using the resources available in the congregation. People will make allowances for music that is not exactly their cup of tea as long as that music is carefully presented and effectively conveys the spirit of worship. It is better for a church to do traditional worship well than contemporary worship poorly. What people will not easily tolerate is sloppy, poorly planned and executed worship that gives the message that nobody really cares; or worship that is used simply to promote the agenda of the minister or key leaders.

Summary: People don’t want radical changes in worship. Four out of ten say they prefer the traditional kind of worship service. But almost half say they’d like more upbeat music, more energy and a more contemporary style. One out of four want services that are more inclusive of all ages.

What do affiliates look for from the sermon?

Question 32
I recall when I was taking liturgics (worship) courses in seminary in the late 1970s, it was fashionable to downplay the importance of the sermon. We were told that the sermon is merely one element within the whole liturgical drama of word and table and should not dominate the service. I don’t think most United Church people have ever bought that message, however. For the average person in the pew, the sermon is what makes or breaks the service, followed closely by the music.
When asked, “what kind of sermons appeal to you most?” [see Figure 21]


• An impressive 75%, by far the largest group, said, “Sermons that are related to everyday problems and issues.” One woman commented that she was drawn to the United Church because of the minister’s ability to bring the message to bear on what she was going through.
• 55% said “Sermons that make me think”
• “Sermons that raise questions but don’t tell me what to think or believe” (35%)
• “Sermons that tell stories (20%)
• Only 17% responded “Sermons that explain the unchanging truths of the Bible” and only 9% said “Sermons that draw a clear line between what’s right and what’s wrong.” In other words, people want lively, relevant effective preaching, but do not want to be “preached at.”
• 14% said “Sermons that appeal to my emotions.
• But the lowest response of all is “Sermons that tell me I’m a good person” (5%). People want to be challenged and not coddled by what they hear at church.
Affiliates want to come to church to hear about how the Christian faith applies practically to the lives they are living, to be challenged intellectually and to be taken seriously.
Note that more than one in three people (35%) said they want the sermon to raise questions but not tell them what to think or believe. Instinctively we might think of this as a reaction against literalistic, fundamentalist preaching – “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” But this is a message for all churches of all theological stripes and hues. We shouldn’t assume that people will put up with being told what to think as long as the message is “progressive” or liberal. People are drawn to the United Church because they want to be given the freedom to explore their faith for themselves.
Preachers should also be careful, if they want to appeal to affiliates, to not use the sermon time to deal with matters that are too “in-house.” We’ve all done it. We preach on stewardship in the weeks leading up to the financial campaign. We preach on the importance of small groups when trying to launch a small group program, or on the church’s newly adopted mission statement. We preach on the need for unity when there is conflict. These can all work provided the message is subordinated to the Gospel and to these other concerns – practical, challenging, open-ended. But I do recall attending a summer service at a highly effective and growing evangelical church where the whole message was an extended informercial for their new small group program -- and feeling like it didn’t have much to say to me.
Summary: People want to hear preaching that gives them help with and insight into daily problems and issues. They want to be challenged to think, but don’t want to be told what to do.

What would motivate affiliates to become more involved?

Questions 33 and 34
This is the great unanswered question. Bibby’s research has shown that two-thirds of mainline affiliates are open to greater involvement if they find it to be worthwhile to them and their families. That’s a big if. What people outside the church regard as “worthwhile” may not be possible for the church to implement without compromising its integrity. And there is a world of difference between someone indicating on a survey that they would be open to greater involvement and actually making the effort to attend. There is a further world of difference between dropping into church to check things out, and forming a solid, long-lasting, deeply rooted connection to a church community. However, this expressed openness is cause for optimism.
Again, however, it does seem as though there are not any one or even two or three obvious “buttons” that the church can push to reverse the trend of declining Sunday morning numbers.
Respondents were asked, “What would motivate you to attend church more often than you do now?” [Figure 22]
• Topping the list was “Nothing.” “Nothing would motivate me to attend church more often than I do now” at 25%. However, this number requires some nuancing. The people who answered this are distributed pretty evenly across the spectrum of church attendance. One in five people who attend church monthly or more said nothing would motivate them to attend more often. And only a third of those who never attend say that nothing would get them out. So “nothing” is not an indication of hard-core disinterest, but simply a recognition that they are attending now as often they are prepared to attend. Remember as well that a mere 2% said they are not interested in any form of worship and 5% said they don’t want anything from the church. Probably the most reliable statistic of confirmed non-attendance is the 2% who said they would not be likely to attend any church.
• The next highest response was “Service times other than Sunday morning.” (21%) This reflects the kind of time stress and the desire for a “down day” that was uncovered earlier. This is a response, however, that is highly ambiguous and would require much further research on a congregation by congregation basis. While people might think that a service on Saturday night or Wednesday evening would be more appealing, there are deeply ingrained patterns of behavior that are not easily broken. I suspect that even if people don’t attend church regularly, they still think of Sunday morning as “church time” and would not readily adapt to an alternative schedule. This is leaving aside the question of whether the church has the resources to offer a second service. However, it does bear exploration. Churches could well look at establishing an alternative time for worship and put effort into building a worshiping community outside of Sunday morning which will address people’s expressed spiritual needs. This is perhaps something that could be done collaboratively by more than one congregation which would have the added benefit of breaking down some of the “turf protecting” that keeps congregations isolated from one another and in a weakened state.
• Other responses included “a more relaxed and informal atmosphere” (17%) and “Music that I like” (14%). However, no other response garnered more than 11% of responses, again indicating that the answers will not be simple or straightforward, and that different people will respond to different things.
• Several people wrote in that they would consider attending church when their children are older, or if there was a “crying room” they could go to with young kids.
• A couple of people wrote in that they feel judged because of the way they dress, and would attend if that judgmentalism changed.

Question 34
The final question was “What would motivate you to become more involved in church activities?”
• 27% said “Opportunities to meet people at the same stage of life as me.” For a significant number of people, the perception that there is no one at the church who is like them is a barrier to involvement. Several of the younger people with whom I conducted follow up interviews commented on this perception. The unspoken message they receive is that the church operates for the benefit of the older, longer-term members, with a strong subtext that these are the ones who pay the bills and therefore call the shots. Every church thinks of itself as friendly and welcoming towards newcomers and younger people, but congregations need to become much more sensitively attuned to what these people experience when they do attend. If people sense that they need to gain the approval of certain gatekeepers, learn complex unwritten rules, and do things the way they are supposed to be done before they can be involved, they will conclude that it is not worth the effort. Dedicated long-term members may protest that these perceptions are unfair, but that’s not the point. From the affiliates’ point of view, perception is reality. As Kennon Callahan has put it: “Perception yields Behavior yields Destiny.” (Callahan, 1983: xxiii) Churches need to decide if they care enough about reconnecting with their affiliates to intentionally change the way they are perceived.
• 21% of people said “More social activities with people my age” and 20% said, “More activities that involve the whole family” would be keys to their increased involvement. Even though these numbers represent only one in five respondents, they indicate that a significant number of people are looking for community that is enriching for themselves and their families.


Summary: Three out of four people who answered the survey said that there might be something that would get them more involved in church. What they’re really looking for is the opportunity to connect with people they can relate to. However, the biggest issue is Sunday morning. About one in five say that a service at a time other than Sunday would be important.

FOLLOW UP INTERVIEWS

Respondents to the survey were given the option of agreeing to a face-to-face interview with me to discuss the survey. I conducted 20 interviews with people from seven different churches.

The interviews were extremely valuable in complementing the written responses and providing me with a “thicker” description of affiliates’ attitudes. What I found was a rich narrative variation in situations and insights. Among the interviewees were:

• A man in his late 40s who regards himself as a scientific rationalist. Although he has great admiration for the church community, he does not see how he could participate with integrity. He cannot accept the doctrine or the mythology that he sees as essential to the church’s message. And yet he doesn’t close the door to a return at a future date.
• A woman in her early 30s, the single mother of two, who was very active in church as a child but went through a period marked by teenage pregnancy, drug abuse and broken relationships. “My soul needs to be [at church]”, she said. “I know He[God] is drawing me there.” But she has “an overwhelming feeling of guilt” about the mistakes she has made and fears being judged if she returns.
• A woman in her 50s who developed an intense attachment to a minister, but has not been back to church since that person left. The former minister was able to put the message in terms that spoke to her, but it hasn’t been the same since.
• A widow in her 50s who was active in the church as a child, but has felt a need to explore a wider range of spiritual practices. Her spirituality is connected to a sense of the oneness of all things. She has been involved in various meditation and spirituality groups and reacts negatively to what she perceives as intolerance towards other views.
• A woman in her 20s expecting her first baby who longs for the sense of community she thinks she would find in the church of her childhood, but who has to work on weekends. She would really like to find older mothers to mentor her through this life change.
• A man in his 40s who has pretty much left the United Church and now attends a more evangelical congregation. He found it hard to deal with the liberal approach to the Bible and Christian belief, combined with a rigid approach to certain habits and rituals. “It seems like you can say the Bible is a fairy tale and you don’t need to believe any of it, but you had better take up the offering in exactly the right way.”
• A young mother in her 30s who feels very close to the church and who finds it inspiring and deeply nourishing, but the demands of raising a family and running a business are just too overwhelming.
• A woman in her late 40s who found the church very supportive when her husband died, but felt abandoned and forgotten in the months and years following.
• A professional woman in her 50s, divorced, who has recently moved to the area and would like to get involved in her local church but has found it to be closed and cliquish.
• A woman in her 20s, recently graduated from university, who wishes there was more at the church to hold her interest.
• A young couple without children in their 20s who enjoy church but spend most weekends visiting family out of town.
• A couple in their 40s, both professionals. She had a very active United Church upbringing, he an inactive affiliation with the Anglican Church. They were drawn to the “openness and inclusivity” of the United Church. They joined the local congregation when they moved to the area, being committed to finding a neighborhood community for their two young children. “Sandwich generation” demands struck them with a vengeance when both their aging mothers had to spend time living with them. At the same time they became disillusioned with what they perceived as the church’s “intolerance” over same-sex marriage. Yet their children attend a Catholic School because they want the moral guidance and religious formation that they find there.
• A young divorced man in his 30s who does not attend church but who has come to value the moral training he received there and who is very admiring of his father who is a leader in the local congregation. He loves to be in the church building because it gives him a sense of being connected to something bigger than he is.
• A woman in her 40s who has been experiencing an almost unbearable level of stress due to the breakup of her marriage.
• A woman in her 40s who was very involved in her local church, but whose involvement ended abruptly when she took a job requiring her to work every weekend. Her husband and children stopped attending at the same time. She feels great inner conflict over her situation.
• A couple in their 40s, she with a United Church background, he with none, who were very involved in church through their children’s music. They have not attended for about five years, due to employment, health and other family pressures. Yet they continue to reflect deeply on spiritual issues as they apply to their own situation.

CONCLUSIONS

The surveys and follow-up interviews have yielded a wealth of data about what United Church affiliates in the Niagara Region are thinking about the church. These data are open to interpretation, but I think there are several conclusions that can be drawn.

1. Churches need to invest more time and effort in understanding their affiliates.
This research project has shown some of the complexities of understanding what affiliates think about their churches, why they aren’t more active and what can be done about it. There is no single or simple response that will dramatically change things. I think I have demonstrated, however, that Reg Bibby is right. Affiliates haven’t gone away or dropped out. But reconnecting with them will be a challenging task that will require time and effort. Congregations need to commit way more time to identifying, communicating with and responding to their affiliates if they hope to make any serious progress in regaining them. Because there are only so many days in the week and hours in the day, this may require a diverting time and resources away from the needs of current active members towards affiliates. This will not be an easy choice to make as it is the active, and generally older, folks who pay the bills. However, congregations will need to decide how important it is that there be a next generation.

2. Churches need to realize that attracting people and keeping people are two different things.
It is not that difficult to get people to attend church – once. It is much harder to keep them and to bring them into ongoing and active participation. The key word in Bibby’s analysis is “worthwhile.” People are willing to give the church a chance if they think it is worth their while. As Bibby has said, “the primary reason significant numbers do not want much from the churches is that they are not expecting much from the churches. That could change if people came to believe that religious groups have significant things to offer.” (Bibby, 2004a: 184) Everything hinges on the word “worthwhile” and how successful congregations are in creating a community life that is compelling enough to outweigh some of the other demands that people are under. It will also involve finding new and innovative ways to incorporate people into the life of the church outside of Sunday worship and older, traditional groupings such as UCW or church choir.

3. Churches need to be pragmatic about theology.
Let me be clear: I am not suggesting that theology does not matter. Far from it. Clarity on questions of God, Jesus Christ, the church, creation and salvation is important – critically important.—to the health of the church. What I am saying is that a particular stance on theology will not be enough to hold onto affiliates if other things are missing. The reason people are drawn to the United Church is that they do not want to be told that they must believe in a certain way. Unlike churches that would describe themselves as “Bible-believing” or “fundamental” where faithful adherence to doctrine is the mark of integrity, people look to the United Church to help them incorporate religious belief into the practicalities of daily living. They are non-dogmatic in their approach to theology and doctrine, whether these are expressed in traditional-orthodox or liberal-progressive terms. Three out of four respondents want sermons that are “related to everyday problems and issues.” The implication of this is that to define a congregation in terms of a position on the theological spectrum, whether traditional or progressive, will not be an effective long-term strategy. A church’s theological stance may attract some people initially, but it will not be enough to keep them unless other, more important factors are in place.

An interview with one young couple illustrates this.

Dan and Melissa (not their real names) are newly married, in their twenties. Neither comes from a United Church background. Her family was non-practicing Roman Catholic, while he was actively involved in an evangelical church as a child and a teenager. Dan left that church over what he regarded as intolerance and hypocrisy. Both describe themselves as “left-wing” and “progressive.” When they were planning to be married, they were drawn to the United Church because of its tolerant stance on same-sex marriage and other social issues. It would be very important that any church they attended have the same progressive values they have. At first they felt at home in their chosen congregation, but it soon became apparent that there was no one else of their age or stage at the church. Even the few relatively young couples had children. They have since stopped attending church, although they expect to return when they have a family. Dan in particular claims to have an active prayer life. On Sunday mornings he often looks for a televised service to watch. He especially likes mega-church pastor Joel Osteen whose upbeat message draws 38.000 people to his Houston church every weekend.

This interview is a good example of how people can incorporate a fascinating amalgam of different convictions and practices into their own understanding of faith. They do not fit easily into the “liberal-conservative” schemas that clergy and church leaders tend to use to categorize people. Here is a young couple who see no contradiction between their own progressive beliefs and the “feel-good” Christianity of TV preacher Joel Osteen. Furthermore, what they are looking for from a church cannot be satisfied by the officially inclusive policies of a local congregation if other, more relational qualities are missing.

If they want to connect with affiliates, congregational leaders should avoid stating categorically that “This is what we believe in the United Church” or “That’s not the United Church ethos.” While these things may matter greatly to core leaders, they don’t have much impact on today’s affiliates.

4. Churches need to develop ways of staying meaningfully connected with absent affiliates.
Church involvement is becoming increasingly “seasonal.” Just like the life-long career is going the way of the dodo bird, fewer and fewer people conform to the cradle-to-grave patterns of church involvement that characterized our grandparents. Personally, I have witnessed the return of at least a dozen adults to church in their late 40s or early 50s, some of whom had been absent from the church for 25 or 30 years. One woman 45-54 who attends a few times a year wrote:
“Not sure if it is the church or the options of groups that keep me away… I think there are options for me within and around the church. I am just in a phase. I know the church is there for me.”

Another woman 35-44 wrote:

“It [the church] is like an old friend – even if I haven’t gone in a while to a service, when I do go it is like I’ve never been gone.”

The challenge for congregations is to develop the flexibility to respond to people when, for a plethora of reasons, they decide to reconnect with the church, often “out of the blue.” One man in his early thirties who never attends church, but who values highly his upbringing in the church, commented that it’s important for churches to

“just be ready for people when they come. I think if [the church is] ready to embrace someone when they come, that’s crucial. So when someone does eventually find that faith and say, ‘I’m ready to join,’ they can go down there and be welcomed.”

It is vital that congregations expend the time and resources to simply not lose touch with their affiliates, using whatever means are effective – mail, e-mail, telephone, visiting. Kenneth C. Haugk’s book Reopening the Back Door: Answers to Questions about Ministering to Inactive Members (Haugk, 1992) has some helpful suggestions about ways of staying connected.

5. Churches need to value their affiliates for their own sakes, not just for what the church can get from them.
Long-time leaders of congregations are understandably anxious about what’s going to become of them as numbers dwindle and the expense of running their beautiful old buildings rises. They wonder who will pay the bills and who will do the volunteer work. It’s very tempting to look at affiliates as a source of new givers and workers. The church must be vigilant not to communicate this message, because there are few things that will send affiliates running for the hills faster than the thought that all the church wants is their time and money. The reason the church should work with their affiliates and long for their increased participation is that we care about them. We are attuned to their hopes and their hurts and we believe that the Good News of Jesus Christ has something life-changing to offer them. As Reg Bibby puts it, “it’s all about ministry” (Bibby, 2004b: 66) – about the desire to touch people’s lives with the love of God.

6. Churches need to counteract the perception that they are “closed circles.”
As church consultant Kennon Callahan has noted, “every church thinks it is a friendly church.” That’s because the people who think it is friendly are the people who are there. But it is clear that many affiliates have a different perception. They do not think there is a place in those congregations for them. In many subtle and not-so-subtle ways, congregations can convey the message that the church exists to serve the needs of long-time, well-entrenched members, and that their wishes take precedence over newer or potential members. A long-time leader in a congregation was heard to remark, “I don’t know why we are always catering to these younger families. They don’t pay the bills!” Such attitudes are not often expressed so blatantly, but they are deeply ingrained in the psyches of many church members. It is an attitude that simply must be broken if congregations are to succeed in connecting with affiliates.

Conversations with two members of one congregation illustrate some of the ways in which a church system can function as a closed circle.

Colleen (not her real name) is divorced and in her fifties. She recently moved into the community from far away to take a job. She grew up in the church and just naturally sought out the nearest United Church congregation. On her first visit, she filled out the guest book and heard nothing from the church until about eight months later when she was invited to a breakfast for new members. She described it as “not one of the more comfortable experiences of my life.” The tables were set up in a horseshoe with all the new people together on one side, all the long-time members together on the other, and all the “important people” in the middle with no effort made to mix the groups together. She was hoping to receive information about the various activities at the church and how she could join but there was nothing. Colleen said that, as a single person, she wants the church to be a place where she can meet people, contribute and be involved, and that welcoming has to extend “beyond a handshake at the door.” She hoped the church would give her the tools she needed to be involved, but did not feel she received much help or encouragement. Colleen is an accomplished professional woman with skills she would like to use for the benefit of the church, but there seemed to be no entry point from which she could find a place.

Courtney (not her real name) is a life-long member of the church whose parents are very active. She is in her 20s, recently graduated from university and embarking on a career. In the last few years she has drifted away from active involvement, and, although she anticipates returning to the church when she has her own children, she does not find much there for her now. Courtney is a very energetic person with a well-developed skill set who is looking for a challenge. But she spoke in terms similar to Colleen, sensing that there was no opening in the tightly drawn circle of leadership and involvement into which she could inject her abilities and interests. She does not see it as an age issue. “I would be willing to be involved with people not my own age if they were more into change. I have no problem interacting with older adults.” Although she didn’t use the word, Bibby’s term “worthwhile” seemed to be very much in the forefront of her comments. At this point in her life, she does not feel that what the church offers to her warrants the effort of getting there. “I think there’s lots of young people – or other people – who have all these skills, business skills and other skills, so why not use them to better effect to help the church?”

Congregations have a natural tendency to listen to those who are there. But just as every successful business listens not only to their present customers but to their potential customers, churches need to become much more attuned to the Colleens and Courtneys in their midst.

Reg Bibby puts it this way: “a necessary condition [for renewal] will be the appearance of leaders and laity who see the need for change, are able to envision what is needed to bring about change, and who are capable of operationalizing and implementing ideas.” (Bibby, 2004a: 71)

7. Churches need to make it a priority to generate a “critical mass” of younger people.
A young adult once said to me, “You know what attracts young people to a church? Young people.” And that is the bind in which many United Church congregations find themselves. There is a perception among younger affiliates that there is no one like them at their church. Almost one in five cited that as one of the main reasons they don’t go. But if there are no younger people, how can a congregation attract younger people? It is crucial for congregations to strategize ways of building a core of people in the age group that they are trying to reach. There is no easy way to do this. It might require partnering with other congregations. Or it might mean facing the inevitable and planning what to do when the current generation of leaders is no longer able to carry the load. In any case, building that critical mass of younger people needs to be moved to the top of the priority list if churches are going to have any success in reconnecting with their younger affiliates. And it does seem to make sense to begin with those younger people who already consider themselves affiliated with the congregation.

8. Congregations need to develop new ways of measuring health and vitality.
It is abundantly clear that the social context in which the church finds itself in 2007 is very different from that in 1967 or 1957. And yet most of the criteria that we use to measure church vitality were developed in an era when church attendance was the norm and when social institutions like schools, businesses and governments all cooperated to reinforce religious conformity. We have habitually measured church health statistically, using categories such as membership, financially supporting households, Sunday School membership and weekly worship attendance. According to all of these statistical yardsticks, most United Churches have declined considerably over the last 25 years.

The problem with these criteria in our present context is that they breed discouragement. No one would deny that most mainline churches have shrunk compared to 25 years ago. But the perception that it’s been all downhill obscures some of the signs of real vitality that is showing up in mainline congregations.

Is it reasonable to compare a Sunday morning children’s program today to a similar program in the era before Sunday sports and shopping in terms of numbers alone? Most clergy hear the following lament on a regular basis: “I remember when we had 600 children in the Sunday School every week, and now we’re lucky to get six!” But is this a fair comparison, when family size has shrunk by half and many children divide their weekends between Mom’s house and Dad’s house? I have a colleague who is an associate pastor at a large Presbyterian Church in Arizona where they average 200 children per week at Sunday School. Their children’s ministry director analyzed their attendance to find out how many of those children attended on four consecutive Sundays. She came up with a grand total of two!

We have outlined some of the lifestyle factors that have had such a dramatic impact on worship attendance. Mobility, affluence, leisure and work demands have presented people with major hurdles to weekly worship attendance. This does not affect only young families. Seniors and early retirees have the resources with which to travel far more than they did even a generation ago. As a result, even core, active people can be away from church up to two Sundays a month. Given that reality, is it any surprise that average weekly attendance has been steadily dropping, even in healthy, active congregations?

At my own church, we tracked the number of people attending worship for four Sundays in a row. That figure was twice the number who were there on any given Sunday – about 400 individuals, compared to 200 on an average Sunday. A congregation that can attract 400+ worshipers over the course of a month would seem to be doing pretty well. This exercise even mitigated the impression that the congregation is made up only of seniors. Now there are plenty of seniors; but older folks tend to come to church much more regularly than younger folks. It’s not simply the case that younger people aren’t there; it’s that they aren’t there as often. Of critical importance is to make sure that when younger people are at church they are ministered to in such a way that it touches their lives significantly.

We need also to learn how to factor into our profile of congregational health evidences of life and renewal that may not show up in our statistics. We need to learn to measure and value quality in addition to quantity. Programs, ministries and events that have a deep impact on people’s lives contribute to the vitality of the church, even if they do not involve dozens or hundreds of individuals. In fact, the most significant things in congregational life today often happen in very small groups.

9. Congregations need to remember that the church is ultimately in God’s hands.
It is easy to forget that the “success” of the church is not only a human achievement. The church is a creation of the Holy Spirit, pouring out the power of Jesus’ resurrection life into the world. (Van Gelder, 2000: 112) The church’s effectiveness is not only a matter of the numbers of people in the pews on Sunday.

Ruth Tucker has written an encouraging book entitled Left Behind in a Mega-Church World: How God Works Through Ordinary Churches. (Tucker, 2006) “Left Behind” churches are those congregations that do not conform to the mega- church ideal of ever growing success in attracting new people through. But she questions whether that ideal is the only measure of effectiveness in the Kingdom of God. The Gospel is being lived and preached in countless churches that do not exhibit the marks of successful marketing and institutional growth; and she draws attention to the “left-behind” nature of Jesus and the news that he came to proclaim. Left behind churches can be greater examples of Gospel faithfulness than their mega-church counterparts.

Reconnecting with affiliates is not simply a matter of scratching where people itch or finding a need and meeting it. The ability to reconnect with our affiliates will depend more on the depth of our prayer life and the passion of our servanthood than it will on any technique for institutional growth. Affiliates yearn to be touched by the renewing power of the Good News. Churches that believe in that Good News deeply enough, that have sufficient confidence in the faithfulness of God, and that lovingly share the riches of God’s grace with others, will find a response among their own affiliates that will bear a rich harvest.


I began this project because of a hunch that one of the keys to the renewal of our congregations will be how effectively we deal with “the Untied Church” – the huge number of people who consider themselves “one of us” even if that doesn’t translate into regular attendance and involvement. According to Canadian census data, about 3 million people say they are affiliated with the United Church of Canada – that’s ten affiliates for every member!

The data from the 200 survey responses and the interviews suggests that there are gifted, concerned and passionate people out there who, if we can find ways of forging a stronger connection, could be a tremendous source of fresh energy and enthusiasm for our weary congregations.

At the same time there are huge hurdles to be overcome and changes to be made if churches are going to reach out effectively to their affiliates. It’s by no means assured that we can succeed. Sadly, many churches are reaching the point of no return. They have become too small, too tired, too discouraged, too lacking in vision to reverse the trend. We are faced with having to rethink many of our long-held assumptions about mission and ministry.

But one fact stands out. The affiliates are there. Congregations need to strategize, to think outside the box, and to develop a passion for the “Untied Church” – those people who still think of themselves as belonging to “their” church, who still turn to the church in times of need or change, but who are not strongly tied to congregational life. But above all, they need to pray in faith for the wisdom, discernment and courage to know how to make those vital connections.