Authentic Means Real

Over the past decade, Xenos leaders have led research teams to dozens of the most famous and rapidly growing churches around the country to study their methods and outcomes. These include churches from a wide array of approaches—charismatic, seeker-sensitive, cell-based, emergent, house church, health and wealth, satellite churches, extra-local planting, etc. During our early trips, the teams often commented that virtually none of the members or staff they interviewed had met Christ as grown-ups or at that church.

Curious at this anecdotal finding, we decided to begin counting. In the studies since that time, we have determined that large, growing churches in America are gaining nearly all their growth through transfer of believers from other evangelical churches. To make sure of these results, we interview as many members as possible (at least scores, and sometimes hundreds) randomly at services or home groups. We ask them whether they consider themselves Christians, and where and how they became believers. To our own shock, we have found that the number claiming to have become believers at that church is invariably less than 10% of the sample—often less than 5%! In some cases our teams include dozens of researchers and we interview hundreds of members to reduce the sampling error. I am not going to name the churches involved, because I don’t want to cause problems for them. But readers would be shocked like we were if this research were ever published. So far, using this technique, we have only identified three churches where more than 10% of their own people report that they were converted in that church: Willow Creek Community Church. There, we found a significantly higher 23% of the people interviewed saying they became believers at that church. Several others said they were non-Christians still, which is also a good sign (most studies have failed to discover any non-Christians present). Best of all were Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa and Xenos Fellowship. Both these groups have over 60% converts in a typical meeting (both include 7-12% of their own home-grown kids).

We continue this research today, still looking for other large groups where the majority of their growth comes from conversions. If you think you know of one, let us know in a comment!

I discuss this problem more in Organic disciplemaking.

Do you think these results are valid?

Why do you think this is happening to the American church?

What’s the answer?

Filed under: church growth, ecclesiology, megachurches, transfer growth by Dennis McCallum
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JeffD wonders if there is study showing that smaller churches are closing their doors as megachurches grow. Yes.
William Chadwick has written a book, Sheep Stealing: The Church’s Hidden Problem with Transfer Growth. Blogger Tim Challies says, “Chadwick writes about the dark side of church growth. Having done extensive research and having examined the fruits of his own early ministry, the author came to the startling revelation that the church growth movement has succeeded far better in pulling believers from other, smaller churches than in reaching the lost. ‘Great effort is being expended, but few are actually turning to Christ for the first time. Instead, the faithful are mostly just changing churches’ (from the back cover).”
I read Chadwick’s book, and I urge all to read it, even though I don’t agree with one of his central claims. He thinks when churches take transfers from other churches this is stealing in the ethical sense. I can’t accept that, because it implies that churches OWN their members. But there is a moral problem, when the church is structured mainly to appeal to existing Christians and is not reaching non Christians.

According to Barna, small churches have their own problems, including being more theologically liberal and full of low-involvement members. David Charlton agrees from personal experience “Overall attitude is TOTALLY different. In a larger “church”, there’s much more TEAM in everything, while smaller churches overall attitude is apathetic towards involvement and commitment… Clarity of vision or lack of in smaller churches. It seems like every ‘gimmick’ under the sun is talked about but action rarely gets done-talk is cheap, and people know that.” And, “While you’d think as a servant you’d get pastoral care and guidance in a smaller church, what’s true is just the opposite.”

But Barna also says tens of thousands will close in the coming decade in Revolution (a book I didn’t like at all). And I’m racking my brain to remember where I read extensive research on how the number of small church closings in America is reaching shocking proportions. If anyone can find this research, give it up in a comment. I’m going to have to work on this and get back.

Related Links”
Bill Muehlenberg’s commentary
David Charlton
Tim Challies

Filed under: church growth, large churches, megachurches, transfer growth by Dennis McCallum
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At Monday morning insight Bernie says,
“Another reason why I tend to megachurches, in general, is because they tend to promote “Churchianity” rather than true Christianity (corrupting the Gospel). Keeping the main institution alive takes so much money and time that outreach is severely affected. Then they bring in false teaching about tithing in order to bring in money, to add insult to injury. From experience, they usually also have a “big tent” mentality, which means tolerating all kinds of evil teachings like the prosperity gospel, because they don’t want to offend anyone (the donors).”

I wonder about this too. I just bought the new book by Ron Sider called The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience.: Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World? That’s a good question. Why is divorce just as high with so-called “born agains” as it is with non-Christians, according to Barna? Why is fornication rampant in big evangelical churches? Why is no discipline practiced? Every single I’ve met from one big area church in our city during the past few years was fornicating–including a pastor’s son! Nobody seems to care. When couples in our church fall into sin, they know they can to go this church or several others and nobody will say anything just because they are living together. In fact, nobody would have any way to know.

How much difference would it make for huge churches if they practiced church discipline? What if fornication wasn’t allowed in the church? What if churches knew enough about their people to realize they were in sin in the first place? What if the church preached against greed instead of extolling it? Would that decrease church growth, or increase it? And should the church take an interest in regulating behavior? Or should we just preach the truth and let the chips fall?

Filed under: church discipline, church growth, fornication by Dennis McCallum
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Emergent blogger Bob Robinson went to hear D. A. Carson speak on the emergent church in Akron, OH. He quoted Carson as saying, “the Emerging Church is making a plea for authenticity. That’s good. But since the Emerging Church does not use the Bible as its standard of what is authentic or not (relying more on feelings and cultural acceptability), then the authenticity has to be called into question.”

This brings up a good point I’ve thought about quite a bit. How do we define authenticity in Christianity? And how would we recognize it in today’s world? Here is where the pragmatic definition of truth runs into trouble. If we define authenticity in pragmatic terms (truth is what works for me), where do we end up? Pretty hard to say.

The notion of “working” can be pretty subjective. What does it mean when we say something “works?” Is Osteen’s church “working” when he attracts 47,000 in attendance? Well, he still hasn’t matched Sung Myung Moon’s success. Unfortunately, while I believe results matter, in the absence of objective guidelines for what God considers success, results tell us nothing. Carson is right. Only scripture can give us the spiritual standards by which to judge results.

Christians should spend time pondering what God teaches on this question. Exactly what are we looking for when we say “this approach works?” What do others say on this? What can we get from scripture? There must be multiple answers.

This is at the heart of the question when it comes to authenticity. Authenticity isn’t just a feeling we get because people are being intense. It has to mean that our service for God is real; that God is working in our midst. How would we know?

Filed under: authenticity, church growth, evangelism, purpose of the church by Dennis McCallum
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The Hartford Institute for Religion Research puts out a free powerpoint presentation on Megachurches. They show the amazing increase in number of megachurches, and they have grown in size also.

Unfortunately, they don’t address what I opened this discussion on, namely that 90 to 95% of all megachurch growth is pure transfer growth according to their own people. Look at their slides on evangelism:

Maybe they do, but this question isn’t necessarily asking about evangelism. This just says they invite people to come. Are they inviting Christians, or non-Christians? We don’t know, but this chart is not revealing on that question. It does not prove what the title says.
This says they are willing to talk about their faith, but not many seek opportunities. Again, I don’t see evidence here that people are witnessing, or if they are witnessing, that the church is winning non-Christians. Our studies show they are not. They go on to say megachurches do other things for outreach:
But none of these things has anything to do with evangelism! This could be a good list of ways to attract more Christians to your church.
This study is an intriguing example of how some studies may appear to show evangelism, but might not actually show that when it comes to megachurches. We still have no authoritative, reliable study on composition of megachurches.

Filed under: church growth, church ministry, large churches, megachurches, ministry, transfer growth by Dennis McCallum
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The Bible teaches that spiritual ministry can only be accomplished through the power of God. (Psalms 127:1,2) God’s power is released into ministry situations through prayer, as the following passages demonstrate. Not only did the apostles feel the need to have their own ministries supported by prayer, they sought to accomplish ministry in others through prayer.

• Eph. 6:18,19 “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.”
• 2 Thess. 3:1 “Finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord may spread rapidly and be glorified, just as {it did} also with you”
• Heb. 13:18 “Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a good conscience, desiring to conduct ourselves honorably in all things.”
• Col. 1:9 “For this reason also, since the day we heard {of it}, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.”

hristian workers must clearly understand the role God plays in evangelism, discipleship and other aspects of ministry. Unless we consciously operate out of a God-centered model of ministry, we will automatically default to a human-centered model, and all the defeat that comes with it.

A moment’s reflection tells us that what we propose to accomplish in Christian ministry is supernatural. To reach people’s hearts with conviction of their need for Christ, to train them up in the faith, to impart the deep things of God in a life-changing way, to oppose and defeat powerful evil spirits—these are acts that no human can hope to accomplish, no matter how intelligent and competent that person may be. The key to ministry success is always the same: That God moves through us “leading us in his triumph.” (2 Cor. 2:14) Spiritual failure in ministry is predictable when leaders try to supplant the power of God with human charisma, ingenuity, marketing skill, force of will, or social manipulation, even when these are supplied from the best intentions.

Filed under: Prayer, church growth, commuinty, evangelism, ministry by Dennis McCallum
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Here are some thoughts from Organic Disciplemaking on multiplication growth as opposed to linear growth in the church.

Multiplication Growth

The period from the death of Christ until the end of the first century was the most fruitful in the history of the church. During these few decades, Christianity spread clear across the Roman Empire and even penetrated deeper into Africa, the Parthian Empire, and India. The best estimates put the number of Christians at the end of the first century at around 1 million.1 That’s an increase of 2000 times the number of Christians before Pentecost (perhaps 500). And all of this growth was facilitated by the process of discipleship. Without mass media, without advertising, without church buildings, and without seminaries, the primitive church expanded at a rate never equaled in the nineteen centuries since.

Both Christian and secular observers recognize the New Testament church as a perfect example of a church planting movement. In this type of movement, local house churches each strive to replicate themselves by planting additional churches. The result can be exponential growth.

To understand the power of exponential growth, consider the following scenario: Nobody would feel bad about a church that could win fifty thousand people in two years. In fact, we know of no church that has done so well. And if they won an additional fifty thousand each two years thereafter, such a church could win 1.5 million people during a sixty-year period. Remarkable indeed! This would truly be a super church.

On the other hand, a single house church of thirty people, where the average member did nothing but win and disciple one other person during a two-year period would seem rather unremarkable. They would have a mere sixty people after two years, and would become two home churches. But if the original group and the new group both did the same thing during the following two years, and this process continued for the next sixty years, the result would be far more remarkable than that of the super church. In fact the duplicating group would have won 16 million people! They would, in fact have out-performed the super church by more than ten times! Not only that, but within another twenty-five years, this duplicating group would have won every person on earth.

We are not suggesting these numbers are realistic, but they do illustrate the power of exponential growth. However, notice two important points about these calculations:

1. To achieve true multiplication growth, the duplication of individuals and churches must go forward without degradation. If the quality of disciples or churches declines at all with each duplication event, the whole process breaks down very quickly. Quality is one key to ongoing duplication. Historians have noted that church planting movements tend to fizzle out after a number of years. Why? Probably some movements compromise on quality for the sake of quantity. Others may grow so concerned about quality that they cease duplicating and become saddled with too many rules and restrictions.

2. In the duplication model, results are very small during the early years, compared with the super church. By year 10, for example, the duplicating group would have only 480 members in sixteen house churches, while the super church would already have a quarter million members. Can you imagine these two groups looking over at each other? How inferior the duplicating group would feel with less than five hundred members to show for ten years hard work, seeing a super church nearby that had reached a quarter million people during the same period! At this stage the super church would be more than five hundred times larger than the duplicating group. Surely, it would seem, God’s blessing rests on the super church, and not on the duplicating church. (Although we know the duplicating church is actually doing ten times better than the super church, though it doesn’t show yet). It would take a powerful act of faith to continue using the duplication approach. Anyone impatient for quick results will abandon duplication.

Organic growth is biblical and powerful.

Filed under: church growth, church planting, disciple, discipleship, early church, organic church by Dennis McCallum
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As an evangelical leader myself, reading Wicker’s book was not an exercise in edification. But it is a cold dose of reality, and although I don’t believe all her claims, I think the thrust of what she says must be heard. She begins with her thesis:

Evangelical Christianity in America is dying. The great evangelical movements of today are not a vanguard. They are a remnant, unraveling at every edge. Look at it any way you like: Conversions. Baptisms. Membership. Retention. Participation. Giving. Attendance. Religious literacy. Effect on culture. All are down and dropping. It’s no secret. Even as evangelical forces trumpet their purported political and social victories, insiders are anguishing about their great losses, fearing what the future holds. Nobody knows what to do about it. A lot of people can’t believe it. No wonder. The idea that evangelicals are taking over America is one of the greatest publicity scams in history, a perfect coup accomplished by savvy politicos and religious leaders, who understand media weaknesses and exploit them brilliantly. ix

Could this be true? She lays out studies showing the problem is real, mostly from Christian, evangelical sources–Gordon Conwell, Barna, Josh McDowell, Southern Baptist Mission Board, and from some secular, but neutral sources like Pew and Gallup. She, herself, is not neutral. She is a lapsed Baptist who lost her faith in college, like 90% of evangelical children do, according to McDowell. She tries, but fails to conceal her glee over the situation. But I liked the fact that this was coming from a non-evangelical. Do we dare to read what the world thinks of us?

As a non-believer, Wicker is more interested in the issues raised by the Christian right. She portrays the common perception that evangelical churches are growing in America as sort of a plot, or scam, designed to give the right-wing political people more power at election time. I found this part uninteresting and somewhat implausible.

But while I questioned her interpretations at many points, I did not find her main thesis implausible. Our own studies show the same thing. For instance, “The evidence comes from Southern Baptists’ own studies. Only 7 percent of members who’ve been in a Southern Baptist church five years of less are true converts.” 62 We have done studies that show the same thing, and Baptists are generally better than other evangelical churches. In some of our studies of famous churches, the percent that report they met Christ in that church is as low as 3 percent.

She rolls out numerous studies in an interesting way, interspersed with stories of people from both favorable and hostile perspective. She concludes, “The truth behind all these numbers is that evangelicals are not converting and cannot convert non-Christian Americans, especially native-born white people, in significant numbers.” 64 I believe that is as true as any statement in the book.

In a larger view she says, “A small and declining group of people has been portrayed as tremendously powerful and growing so rapidly that they might take over the country—when in fact that number of converts among this group is down and dropping. They are rarely able to convert and , middle-class American. Their share of the population is not 25 percent, but at most 7 percent of the country and falling. All these numbers come from the churches themselves.” 67

What about the reports that 30 or even 40% of Americans are evangelicals? She de-bunks that myth using work again from evangelical sources, including Barna who made that figure popular. His real test for actual believers of a simple list of 9 basic truths shows that the real number of those who believe the Bible at a level that could be considered evangelical is only 7% of the population. Even this crew is suspect. The rest of the so-called ‘born-again’ Christians in America don’t even know what it means. Wicker observes, “The other larger group [the rest of the 40%] comprised evangelicals who were born again but didn’t accept the great majority of the most basic religious tenets that evangelicals are “supposed” to live by. 86 I’ve known this for years. There’s no way most of the people Barna refers to as born-again are true Christians.

One of the biggest questions in my mind as a read this book, just released on April 29, 2008, is whether the evangelical church will be willing to read it. I don’t think so. I predict this book, which should be read by all evangelicals, is destined for the remainder table. Evangelicals have consistently shown no willingness to read anything that suggests their current path might be wrong.

Next: We’ll drill down into some of Wicker’s data for the facts.

Filed under: Fall of the Evangelical Nation, Wicker, church growth, conversions, evangelical church by Dennis McCallum
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Christine Wicker’s book details numerous serious problems facing the evangelical church today, as explained in earlier posts.
Read Part 1
Read Part 2

One of the most ominous facts she refers to comes from Josh McDowell. Wicker quotes McDowell from his book, The Last Christian Generation, saying. “It has been estimated that between 69 and 94 percent of churched youth are leaving the traditional church after high school, and very few are returning. Furthermore, only 33 percent of churched youth have said that the church will pla a part in their lives when they leave home.”

This is about as bad as news can get. The church is losing its voice with young people more than any others. Why should we be concerned about that? Look at this chart:


As you can see, most people become Christians during their high school and college years. If the church is losing its voice with these people it means we can expect the anemia of recent years to deepen rapidly. This is perhaps the most critical problem the church faces today–how will we develop effective outreach to students, and how can we form communities that they consider cool, spiritual, and nourishing?

Even though Xenos is know as a leader in this area, we too feel the tension. The reputation of Christians are at an all time low with students, especially in college. You can check out our work with 750 university students here.

Filed under: Fall of the Evangelical Nation, Wicker, campus ministry, church growth, church leadership, church ministry, church planting, ingrown church, large churches, ministry, mission of the church, pseudo-growth, purpose of the church by Dennis McCallum
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Tags: church growth, declining church, Wicker, youth ministry