This is a sample article featured in the March 2002 issue of Quadrant

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PASSING ON THE FAITH

There is no simple answer to the question, "How can church decline be reversed?". Some see the answer in more conversions, others emphasise the need to retain existing members more effectively. Of course both are important. Like filling a bath, the taps need to be on and the plug in for the bath to become full!
However church growth is more complicated than filling a bath. As well as conversion from the world, churches also recruit from among the children of existing members. For the first few years of life these children are "part of the church" by their parents choosing. At some point they decide to remain or leave. If they stay the faith has been passed on to the next generation. What effect does this have on the growth of the church?

Processes
Church Growth can be understood in terms of two types of process: positive ones, which increase the numbers in church; and negative ones which decrease them (see box). Their combined effect determines the pattern of growth.
These processes can be built into a computer model with the resulting behaviour analysed using mathematics. The results show that provided the church is above an extinction threshold then its numbers will stabilise to a fixed proportion of the population, less than the total population due to the losses. If above a higher threshold it will see revival growth. Both thresholds, and the number the church stabilises to, are determined in different degrees by the various positive and negative processes. How significant is child loss compared with the others?

Small Churches
When the church is numerous child loss has a relatively small effect. For a church stabilised at 50% of the population, losing half its children before they make an adult commitment would cause it to re-stabilise to 45% (roughly what has happened in the USA). Still a healthy size. However a smaller church is affected more. If instead the church had been 10% of the population, losing half its children would cause it to re-stabilise at only 0.5%. Church numbers collapse within a couple of generations!

English church attendance is currently around 8% making it very sensitive to child loss. Fitting the figures from recent church surveys to the model shows that it is under the extinction threshold. However if the church could keep all its own children it would just be on the point of survival. The English church is literally dying because it cannot hold its children.
This collapse happens even though some of the children become converted back to the church in later life. When the church loses its children it not only loses numbers but potential enthusiasts - those taught in the faith with contacts through schools and university. The church’s best recruiters have gone!

Age Imbalance
The loss of children leaves an age gap in church usually among the teens and twenties. However, as Peter Brierley shows in the Tide is Running Out, the English church attendance data predicts a significant decline in young people in the church. The church keeps getting older! Fitting data to the computer model gives the same predictions - 50% of the English church in 2040 over the age of 65.
This assumes that young people continue to leave at the same rate. There is some evidence that they leave faster as the church gets more elderly. The older church gets, the more young people leave so it gets older still. This is negative feedback, hastening the decline. However this feedback process can be turned around. If there are churches with many young people, more will stay. The age imbalance reverses and growth replaces decline for a generation or so.

Delays
Changes in the rate of conversion have a more immediate effect than changes in child loss. So the temptation is to think that retaining children is less important than reaching new people. But the effects of lack of child retention are delayed, and become large if sustained over many years.
Consider the New Churches who have seen the benefits of a healthy conversion rate with attendance growing from 64,000 in 1979 to 230,500 in 1998. They are above the thresholds of extinction and revival growth and should continue growing for some time. If these churches were able to retain all their own children they would only be marginally better off in 10 years time compared to predictions. However by the middle of the century they would be double their currently predicted size! By improving child retention we may not see the full fruit of our labours but future generations will thank us for the harvest.

Passing on Zeal
For a healthy church in the future it is not enough to just retain the children but also to pass on the zeal, that they become enthusiasts involved in the conversion of others. If those children who remain in the church at present all became such enthusiasts the English church would start growing again by 2010. If ALL the church's children were retained and made such enthusiasts, the church would experience a huge revival and grow to about 12 million by the middle of the century! It is not too late to pray and work for revival among our young people, and it may be the key to the renewal of the whole church.

John Hayward
Division of Mathematics and Statistics,
University of Glamorgan
 

The English church is literally dying because it cannot hold its children

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