Seven Trends to Watch Out For in the Big "C" Church in 2024

Discover the hidden resilience of church finances amidst economic uncertainty and explore the unexpected rise of lay leaders in today's faith communities. As we unravel the complexities of 'mainline malaise' and the shifting appeal towards smaller congregations, we invite you to join us on a journey through the current state of the Big C Church. Our engaging discussion sheds light on the evolving dynamics within church leadership and the implications these changes hold for believers and congregations alike.

Dive into the heart of Christian education and discipleship, as we examine the transformation from traditional classrooms to intimate, small-group settings. We discuss the pressing need for local church-driven initiatives and the vital role of personal growth in cultivating a vibrant faith. This episode is not just an analysis of trends; it's a call to action for church leaders and members to embrace change and focus on renewal in key areas such as finances and discipleship. Join us as we navigate these transformative trends, with insights that promise to guide and inspire those committed to the future of church ministry and community.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Hey there, welcome to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. My name is Todd Rhodes. I'm one of the co-founders over at ChemistryStaffingcom. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm not sure how you found us today, but we are here every day, monday through Friday for five to ten minutes, hopefully mostly encouraging news specifically and input specifically for church staff and pastors across the United States.

Speaker 1: 0:32

Today we're going to look at seven trends to watch out for in the Big C Church, and I'm going to have to move through these fairly quickly here because we only have a very limited time, but let me just talk on some of these Some. I'll have a little bit more to say than others. This came from an article that I thought was really interesting. So here are seven kind of big things to watch out for, maybe trends that are happening, things that were in the middle of or things to watch out for in 2024 in the Big C Church. The first is what the authors of the article call mainline malaise, and what they're talking about is a noticeable decline in both attendance and influence among traditional mainline denominations, and this is we're seeing a lot of, not just in mainline churches, but we're definitely seeing in mainline churches, but in evangelical denominations. There's a lot of shake up. There's been more new denominations, more groups of churches in the past I would say five years than what I've seen in the past 20 or 25 years Denominations that are breaking up we saw this with the United Methodist Church A lot of denominations that are in turmoil and internal struggles right now with the Southern Baptist Convention, for one. We've seen other denominations make some huge decisions on things like gender issues in the past couple of years that are creating a lot of fallout, a lot of instability, a lot of sometimes just discouraging people that are in leadership, sometimes resentment even with people in leadership. I talk with a lot of candidates every day and some people just feel like, because of all the changes, that they don't really have a home anymore and that's a little disheartening. So that's one of the things I think it's going to continue to happen. I think it's going to take another five years, quite honestly, and probably even beyond that, for some of this malaise to tone down, and I think you're going to find smaller denominations. I think you're going to see new kind of splinters of denominations where people of like-mindedness will search each other out and join arms together. So that's trend number one.

Speaker 1: 2:57

Trend number two is church finances and, contrary to popular belief, the church, for the most part, is not on the brink of bankruptcy. We've gone through a really tough four years and, as surprising as it sounds, the collection plate is not as sparse as you might think it is. Attendance overall still is down four years after the pandemic. Matter of fact, it was four years last week that the pandemic shut everything down and I was one that thought this is really going to hurt the church, not only attendance-wise and it has but it's going to hurt the church financially, and it has to some degree. But things are not as gloomy and doomy as what I thought they would be for sure, and most churches are actually doing pretty good. They've adjusted pretty well. So I think finances are going to continue to be stable and for those churches that are really on mission and about outreach and growth, I think the future is actually pretty bright. It's been a tough four years just financially, not just in the church, but also just with the economy and everything that's happened in the past four years. It feels to me like things are in a good spot right now, or at least getting better. Let's see trend number three. We've got seven of them, or actually I see eight here. I think I only said we'll give you a bonus one today.

Speaker 1: 4:26

Number three is to kind of look at the small church appeal and I think there's a growing recognition that smaller churches have a unique appeal. I've heard for the last five to 10 years that the mega church is done, it's over. Mega churches are not sustainable and I think that they are. I think we're going to continue to see a lot of large churches. I think we're going to see a lot of churches grow to be really large, but I think there's going to also be this continuing growth of small churches house churches, cell churches, small group churches. I think those appeal to a lot of people and I think they're becoming more accepted. Most churches in America are small anyway. Where I think maybe this maybe may disagree. I would love to hear Send me an email at podcasticchemistrystaffingcom.

Speaker 1: 5:21

I think churches may get smaller and may get larger in the next five to ten years and by that there's going to be a ton of small churches and there's going to be a good number of large churches. I think the medium-sized church is going to be the church that, if we see a shrinkage of those sized churches that may be the case. Maybe the 300 to 800 church might be less. That's just a theory on my part, but we'll see. Okay, so that's number three. Number four trends to watch. This is fun.

Speaker 1: 5:53

Lay leaders A lot of lay leaders are taking up leadership roles within the church, expanding their roles. Many churches, again, with a small church in particular, are finding that they can't afford a full-time pastor. So there's either a part-time or a bivou or even a tri-vocational pastor now, and some churches, honestly, are just going to go to hey, we've got two or three elders, we've got two or three really good lay leaders that can lead our church. So today's church, and even smaller churches, it's not going to be a solo pastor, it's not going to be a one-man show. It's really going to be transforming more to a diverse ensemble of dedicated believers in a local body that step up and lead, and I think that's a healthy thing in many instances. So that's number four. Okay, here we go. Number five we're already running out of time. I should have made this two episodes, but I'll keep going. I'll talk really fast.

Speaker 1: 6:56

Let's speak about a little bit about the rise of the D-Church generation and those by D-Church. What I'm talking about is people that have been a part of a church but are no longer active. I think we have seen this grow immensely People that still consider themselves Jesus followers, people that still consider themselves living a Christian life but maybe never made it back into a local church. Maybe they're watching online, maybe they're in one of those non-traditional kind of house church movements or in a small group an active small group that's maybe attached to a church but they don't attend on the weekend, and this is a real thing. And those that once filled the pews or the rows on Sunday, not everyone has returned. And guess what? If they haven't returned at this point, it's going to be really hard to get them back. So I think that's going to continue to be for the D-Church generation and we have to, as a church, as a big C church, we need to figure out what to do with that All right.

Speaker 1: 7:56

Number six reflecting on the changing aspects of Christian education. We talked a little bit about this earlier this week when we talked about training up leaders, but discipleship in many churches is broken. Education, our education, our theological education system in the country is broken in some places and we just need to find ways at the local church level to disciple people, and this starts with kids. I've heard many churches putting a lot more emphasis on family ministry and I think that's wise. We got to start discipling early, but we need to continue to do it and train people all along. So Christian education in the church and Christian education, theological education, is changing and that's something to watch this year and hopefully we can write this ship when it comes to education and discipleship.

Speaker 1: 8:46

Speaking of that, number seven is the faith formation or the discipleship, and we're really facing a pressing need for engaging approaches to discipleship and faith formation, and what used to happen in a classroom a lot of times now is happening in living rooms and small groups, and that's really where a lot of the growth has taken place. It seems to have shifted and I think that's going to continue to shift. Okay, so those are the seven. We've got one more and that's just simply we need to. It's a summary point. We really just need to embrace change. A lot of times. Change is God's tool for growth and we need to empower people in our churches.

Speaker 1: 9:32

If you're a senior pastor, you need to empower your staff to encourage some of this change. To discuss these seven things that are changing and see how they're changing in your own local body, because your body is going to be different than everybody else's. But rethink how these things are going to affect your church and really attack them head on. If finances are an issue, that maybe that's something you need to attack this year. If discipleship's an issue, maybe you need to talk about that. Maybe you need to mobilize lay leaders in your church or just figure out how to deal with kind of the church generation in your town, or the people that used to come to your church, that don't anymore, that still love Jesus and don't hate your church, but they're just not coming. How do you connect with that? Pick one or two of these this year, because it's going to be a big year to address some of these seven trends that we're seeing in the church.

Speaker 1: 10:28

Alright, I apologize, we went long. Tomorrow I'll try and make it short. Let's see what we're talking about tomorrow on the podcast. We're going to talk about staffing. It's one of my favorite things. It's what I do all day, every day. We're going to talk about every. It's really a warning not every potential staff member is as good as they appear. We'll talk about that tomorrow on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. I hope you'll join us.