Maybe all the women should stay home from church so it will grow LOL - I know it is not cause and effect with statistics -but could be easily used to bash women (it's their fault) yet again.

Congregations decline, he said...where worship is "rote, predictable and uninspiring."

An interesting conclusion for a church that uses a prescribed liturgy for every occasion...

Is the implication that we must now turn to extemporaneous prayer and praise bands? And who is defining what "rote, predictable and uninspiring" mean?

I take great comfort in the predictability of the liturgy. Does that mean I am part of the problem with declining membership? (Having just seen Ann's comment...maybe it's because I'm female and middle-aged! ;-)

Paige Baker

The Northern Cal story links up nicely with Torey's post yesterday on part time clergy:
http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/congregations/tentmakers_popping_up_in_other.html

Regarding the ENS story this is the same as the picture Kirk painted last year. But it bears repeating -- perhaps especially since we no longer have a national evangelism office.

I know one rector who asks, how do you reboot a congregation? Why didn't this parish come with CTRL-ALT-DEL?

Assuming there's you, and hopefully a few members of the congregation in agreement, what can y'all do to turn things around?

Worship is something the people do -- I think that sometimes that's what Kirk has in mind: rote in context means stale, without spirit -- not that you don't have a praise band. Are the responses clear or mumbled? Do people sing with any conviction? Can you tell the congregation they are in a malaise and making each other and visitors depressed?

Is your congregation dwindling leaving few couples, few kids, a predominance of the faithful (older women)? That's where you are and without intervention the only thing that will change about that state is that members will die off. How do you get out of it? I don't know, partly because the answer surely varies by context.

Can we talk? What are your suggestions?

We have a vibrant, growing church full of women (several are lesbian), young couples (several same-sex) and lotsa children (in some of the above, non-traditional families). We have school-aged children, young adults, older adults and some seniors, but few adolescents (demographics of the fams).

Our rector is a woman; her preaching is challenging, fostering reflection and responsibility for our problems and our solutions. Our worship is liturgically broad church, eucharistically centered. We toy with worship and music innovations here and there on an on-going basis.

Our mission: to provide a welcoming, affirming, charitable gathering-place of a church, to work for a little social justice, collaborate in the community, and to support contemplative beauty and music in our little, semi-gentrified slice of a big city.

(Editor's note: Thanks for the comment. We need your full name next time.)

As the above comments highlight, we need the greatest caution in analysing statistics before we throw out liturgy and encourage women to stay home! My response is here:
http://www.liturgy.co.nz/blog/predictable-worship/2546

Bosco Peters

I wonder why people read this stuff and always assume it means we need to get praise bands. We need to be who we are and do what we do (liturgy) with excellence. We need to be willing to listen to thoughtful feedback and correct our course if necessary. Most of all we need to be mission-minded. Why did God put us here? What is this congregation's purpose and are we living it out? That allows the Spirit to get involved in the answers. It also creates the kind of growing church Kirk talked about.

Kit--I've heard too many "church growth experts" say that people are turned off by formal worship services. Often they cite traditional hymns as an impediment to drawing people in--which is why I immediately jump to praise bands. (Which, I might add, would send ME running for the nearest exit!)

John--I have been mulling this issue a lot lately. I suspect the truth is that Christianity in America is now heading in the same direction as it has in Europe. Without the cultural pressure to attend church regularly--and with the pressure of modern life being what it is--I'm not sure the church can compete with the pleasure of sleeping in on Sunday mornings. (Throw in the growing negatives associated with the word "Christian"--negative, judgmental, homophobic--and you have the beginnings of the Perfect Storm.)

That is not true for me--or for many of the faithful Christians I know. But I'm afraid we are a dwindling breed, we lovers of liturgy and the sacraments.

I see glimpses of hope every once in a while. My 13-year-old son recently attended a local nondenominational megachurch with some friends. He came home and told me that it hadn't "felt like church" to him at all, and he joked about whether or not he needed to be re-baptized. (Good opportunity for me to explain the theology of baptism!) And then he asked me if my husband (his stepfather, the priest) could "do church" for us at home that night because he felt all wrong about the day.

So maybe there *is* hope after all, when a teenaged boy can prefer liturgy and traditional music to a praise band and Wiis in Sunday School. Only time will tell....

Paige Baker