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
8 Comments »

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
7 Comments »

Brian comments in an earlier post that in a study of megachurches, “18% of the 406 churches claiming that 40% or more were converts, there should be about 70 churches where people are being converted in large numbers.”

I don’t think so.

In the research work referenced earlier, we also often meet with staffers when studying other churches. We routinely ask them what percentage of people they think are converts. Some pastors admit the percentage is low—as low as 18% in one case, but usually 25 to 40%. Yet the survey in those same churches show that only 3 to 7% are actually converts reached at that church. So far, no pastor has come closer to the truth than five times the actual number.

We don’t suggest the pastors are lying. They appear to actually believe that they are doing five to fifteen times better than they actually are. On the other hand, it’s interesting to notice that the same staffs that can break their statistics down in a dozen different ways from memory are unable to give a statistic for the convert vs. transfer composition of their people. They have so far all admitted that they don’t study that question. Perhaps some leaders don’t want to know the answer to this question?

This is Chadwick claim (See William Chadwick, Stealing Sheep: The Church’s Hidden Problems with Transfer Growth, Chadwick thinks church leaders purposely conceal the truth about transfer growth, and that they also purposely seek transfer growth by launching strategies only likely to win transfers.

I can’t judge that question, but I do think the blank area in our knowledge here begs for some kind of answer. One thing for sure: You can’t go by what churches say about their own composition! Their statements about their attendance are often correct (not always) but their statements on composition have never even come close.

Filed under: conversions, megachurches, pseudo-growth, transfer growth by Dennis McCallum
2 Comments »