What do breath mints, kisses and Church decline have in common? The Dutch Reformed Church looses 21 congregations last year!
Sunday, November 7, 2010 at 1:27PM So, what do breath mints, good kisses, and Church decline have in common with one another?
Well, I'd like to encourage you to come along to the Coronation Ave Methodist Church in Somerset West this evening, 7 November 2010 (if you're in Cape Town!) to find out. Here's the map - the service takes place at 18.30.
Well, this quote, from Ed Silvoso, gives a framing clue to what I'll be talking about:
Preaching the truth without love is like giving someone a good kiss when you have bad breath. No matter how good your kiss is, all they will remember is your bad breath!
I have given a great deal of thought to, and spent some time researching, the decline in Church membership and Church attendance.
This story in today's Rapport Newspaper bears out my feeling that South African Churches (and Churches in other regions in the world) are emptying at a rather rapid rate! Across the world Churches are facing two factors:
- Fewer people are joining Churches.
- The average age of members in existing Churches is increasing.
Simply stated this is not good news for the Church. Unless the Church can truly touch more people with Christ's love it will continue to decline (either as members leave, like this Rapport Article on the Dutch Reformed Church points out. Or the average age of congregations will get older and older and eventually the members will die out - this has been the case in large parts of Europe. England is a good example where congregations are generally quite small and relatively elderly. One friend suggests that the majority of Methodist Churches in England have only one generation of 'membership' left. Coffey and Gibss in the their book 'Church next' suggested that 60% of American Churches will die out by 2050).
The gist of the article is that the NG Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church) has lost 10588 members in the last year. By their calculations this means that the Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk has lost the equivalent of 21 congregations of 500 members in one year! The situation is even more dire when one looks at a longer view - since 1986 the denomination has lost 23.8% of its members.
You can read some of my other posts on Church decline, and some of my research here:
- Church decline and neuroscience - how people decide.
- Is the Church dying or just changing?
- A Church with a mission, or a mission without a Church?
- God is not good and why religion poisons everything.
If you don't feel like reading can I please encourage you to watch this short little video? It is a superb reminder about what we should be doing as Christians and the Church.
If you can't read Afrikaans please use google translate - simply copy and paste the text below into http://www.google.com/translate and translate it from Afrikaans to your language of choice.
Die NG Kerk het verlede jaar genoeg lidmate verloor om 21 gemeentes van 500 lidmate elk vol te maak.
Teen Februarie vanjaar was daar in dié kerkverband 10 588 lidmate minder as ’n jaar vantevore.
Dit blyk uit die jongste syfers wat deur die NG Kerk se algemene sinode se taakspan oor geldsake inge samel is.
Dié syfers is bereken op grond van ’n opname wat in die tien sinodale gebiede gemaak is en waarin gemeentes gevra is om die aantal belydende en dooplidmate in hul onderskeie kuddes te vermeld. Gemeentes het die syfer onder meer bereken na aanleiding van hoeveel mense nog aktief eredienste bywoon.
Ds. Clem Marais, lid van die taakspan, het gesê hy is nie seker dat die syfer 100% akkuraat is nie (dit is nie geoudit nie), maar dat dit wel die tendens van dalende lidmaatgetalle bevestig.
Die NG Kerk se gebruiklike Kerkspieël-proses, waartydens ’n meer wetenskaplike opname van lidmaat-tendense gemaak word, is tans aan die gang. Wanneer dit na verwagting teen volgende jaar bekend gemaak word, sal daar meer betroubare syfers oor die NG Kerk se lidmaattendense beskikbaar wees.
Marais meen een van die vernaamste redes vir die afname in lidmaatgetalle is emigrasie onder dié kerkverband se tradisionele lidmate, hoewel die verskynsel van mense wat na ander kerkverbande oorloop, ook daartoe kon bygedra het.
In ’n artikel wat in die jongste Kerkbode verskyn, wys die ekonome drr. Fanie Joubert en Jannie Rossouw, asook die predikant ds. Fanie Joubert daarop dat die NG Kerk se algehele lidmaattal tussen 1986 en 2010 met 23,8% afgeneem het (van meer as 1 400 000 tot minder as 1 100 000).
Ook in dié artikel word emigrasie as een van die vernaamste bydraende faktore genoem. Die skrywers meen ’n gepaste reaksie op dié verskynsel is vir die NG Kerk om al hoe meer in die geestelike behoeftes van Afrikaanssprekendes in die buiteland te voorsien.
In ’n nuusbrief wat Marais, ook skriba van die NG sinode Namibië, die afgelope week aan gemeentes in dié streek gestuur het, noem hy voorts dat die taakspan oor geld sake se jongste syfers oor gemeentes se finansiële welstand kommerwekkend is.
“Ook wat gemeentes se geldsake betref, begin die bytmerke van die onlangse resessie wys.”
Die totale lopende inkomste van die NG Kerk se 1 133 gemeentes het in die vorige boekjaar met net 2,3% gestyg, vier uit elke tien gemeentes het die jaar met ’n tekort op hul boeke afgesluit en al hoe meer gemeentes raak afhanklik van basaarinkomste soos wat ander bronne van inkomste opdroog.
“Moet jy moedeloos word weens die oorwegend negatiewe tendense?” skryf Marais.
“In die gees van die Luisterseisoen dink ek almal moet dit hoor as ‘stemme’ wat ‘van buite’ na ons kom. En in hierdie ‘stemme’ moet ons probeer om ook Die Stem van die Here God te onderskei … Die Here is immers met ons op pad. Deur ’n proses van geloofsonderskeiding moet ons by Hom hoor hoe ons geloofsrespons moet lyk op hierdie droewige prentjie,” skryf Marais.
Tonight I will be making the case that as Christians we need to find a way to give the world a good kiss! In other words we need to expose the world to what the Good News feels like before we preach about it. We must engage the world in love before we expect them to make a decision about God's love.
I have previously spoke about the Luke 10 Model of sharing God's love here. You can also read about it in chapter 8 of my book 'Transform your work life'. Download a few chapters of the book here.
Reader Comments (3)
Hi,
I wish I could be there. If you have a means of sending a copy of your address somehow that would be great.
Thoughts and prayers for the family.
David
I think you’re being pessimistic, Dion. :-) Perhaps not, though, about the denominations you refer to. A “good kiss” is important – however, I have more than once read arguments that an emphasis on love may in itself be a destructive psychology – like Christmas dinners. It can only be the product of something else. Apart from my own Church, the Churches I most often attend are the URC and then the DRC. From my point of view, there are clear reasons for decline in parts of the DRC. If I did things the way some of their congregations do, I would expect my Church to decline.
As someone who gets to talk to people from churches of every denomination and part of the world, I thought I'd at least add some cheer and mention that I routinely see churches that are growing faster than anyone could expect.
It really seems to me that the key is, this is a period of change for the church. There are a lot of moves by the enemy to squeeze the church out of relevance and out of the culture as a whole, but just as that makes many churches shrink, it also makes many churches grow. It's just a matter of how each church handles the changes and the pressure.
I think it's also important to recognize that every church has it's own set target audience of who it can reach with the gospel. Some churches are just sent to shrinking audiences, like the elderly whose children are out of the house. That does mean the numbers will shrink, but it also means those people are getting reached and edified with the gospel. Then, there are other churches sent to the young, and they have their place too. We have to see it in context of how many people are reached, not how many churches are reaching out. I love to see new churches, but I must value people over numbers of anything.