Traditional vs Contemporary via Bill Easum
Reading Bill Easum's blog recently I came across something I think is worth thinking about. Bill is a well-known North American church consultant who is known for his sharp tongue. This blog post is no different.
He's from a United Methodist background and apparently the United Methodist churches in the USA recently completed a big study about the differences between UM churches that are thriving and those that are in decline. As with most mainline US churches, the UM churches are in severe decline as a group, but there are some exceptions. Why?
Bill welcomes the study. But he felt the results were predictable (which they were). AND (and this is the interesting part) he asks a few interesting questions about aspects of the data the study collected that the UM didn't analyze. He sort of implies they failed to analyze these questions on purpose because they might not like the results. Anyway, here are the money quotes from the blog. Here's what the study found...
I think the findings in the UM study would definitely be replicated in other denominations and other countries among so-called mainline churches. There is little doubt about that.
Do you think Bill's observations about the likely deeper story are correct? If so, what if any changes should be made in a church like mine?
(Just so you know, in his consulting, Bill does NOT recommend shutting down the traditional services. He believes that the folks who prefer that style need to be honored and respected since they have usually been the backbone of the church for many years. He DOES have some interesting prescriptions though. And I *might* blog on those later in the week.)
He's from a United Methodist background and apparently the United Methodist churches in the USA recently completed a big study about the differences between UM churches that are thriving and those that are in decline. As with most mainline US churches, the UM churches are in severe decline as a group, but there are some exceptions. Why?
Bill welcomes the study. But he felt the results were predictable (which they were). AND (and this is the interesting part) he asks a few interesting questions about aspects of the data the study collected that the UM didn't analyze. He sort of implies they failed to analyze these questions on purpose because they might not like the results. Anyway, here are the money quotes from the blog. Here's what the study found...
Thriving churches of all sizes and locations have the following things in common:Here's Bill's commentary that I found so interesting (emphasis mine).
- Inspirational preaching
- lots of small groups
- children and youth ministries
- both traditional and contemporary worship
Now if the truth were known, and the survey had separated thriving established churches from church plants, the study would have shown one more important thing that the vast majority of thriving church plants have in common- contemporary worship without traditional worship. I also wonder if the survey had taken a deeper look into the stats if it would have shown that in the thriving churches contemporary worship was always growing and traditional was most stagnant or declining. I doubt if we will ever know that from the study. But could it be like the rest of the study- those of us who consult for a living already know the answer and like the four common denominators, we have been saying for decades that traditional worship is on the downswing and contemporary is becoming the new normal for thriving churches.At Intl Church Bangkok, we added a contemporary evening worship two years ago. At the moment it is thriving. But it would not survive (financially) if it weren't for the traditional service in the morning. It is still much smaller than the traditional service, but it has grown quickly in the two years it has existed. During the same time, the traditional service has either stayed the same size or perhaps gotten a little bit smaller. Later in the blog, Bill also points out that in the churches with both styles, typically lots of money is spent on the traditional service whereas almost no money is spent on the contemporary one. This is certainly true at ICB. We spend 12,000 baht (375 US $) per week on our traditional service (excluding my salary). We spend 0 baht per week on our contemporary.
I think the findings in the UM study would definitely be replicated in other denominations and other countries among so-called mainline churches. There is little doubt about that.
Do you think Bill's observations about the likely deeper story are correct? If so, what if any changes should be made in a church like mine?
(Just so you know, in his consulting, Bill does NOT recommend shutting down the traditional services. He believes that the folks who prefer that style need to be honored and respected since they have usually been the backbone of the church for many years. He DOES have some interesting prescriptions though. And I *might* blog on those later in the week.)
