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church demographics

Chasing the Elusive Demographic — the Young

A New Ministry for a New Age

Church has long recognized that it has trouble connecting with the young. For several decades it was taken for granted that our youth would disappear in high school and return with their children in their twenties.

The benign neglect of this demographic is now haunting us.

Young people began putting off parenthood until their 30s or 40s. A two-decade absence was insurmountable. Add to that the demands of the modern family, including high divorce rates and intensive community commitments, and you have an entire population missing from church life.

Time has only widened the demographic.

Our Ambassador visits reveal that the problem demographic is now pre-school through 40.

This should alarm congregations.

We won’t pretend to have all the answers, but we had some of them. Redeemer’s membership, though small, had every age group represented with a good representation of families with young children and a small group of active youth. Our cradle roll was showing particular promise when SEPA Synod decided to vote us closed without our knowledge.

Whatever it was we were doing right, we have learned even more in the last few years.

We took our ministry online. 2x2virtualchurch.com is the voice of Redeemer, East Falls. We are about to celebrate the second anniversary of our launch.

We are pioneers in social media ministry and we have attracted attention from church leaders all over the world.

As of this month, we average more than 2000 readers per month. This doesn’t count readers who subscribe by email, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. This adds another 200 daily readers.

These social media channels are valuable in growing our ministry. They help us identify our readers.

Surprise! Most of our readers fit the very demographic missing in bricks and mortar churches. Our subscribers tend to be in their 20s and 30s. They are from any number of ethnic backgrounds. They tend to be adventurous in lifestyle and involved in making spiritual connections online. Many of them blog on spiritual subjects.

They are timid to comment online but tend to write to us by email.

Another demographic is beginning to emerge. From time to time (we wish more often) we publish resources we hope are helpful to other small congregations. Some of them are from our archives of things we used in our own worship.

Our church was unique in that most of our members spoke English as a third language and learned music by ear, not by reading from hymnals. Our early attempt to use published resources flopped. We started writing our own resources that could be performed simply and without expensive professional leadership.

Last year, we posted an Easter/Holy Week play that Redeemer produced and performed for the community in 2008. It sat there all year getting little attention.

At Christmastime 2012, readers started to find it. It has been downloaded 700 times in the last month.

Our Adult Object Lessons, based on the Common Lectionary and published weekly, are also attracting a following and are beginning to engage readers.

Will our ministry ever be seen as worthy to the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod who claimed our assets with the unsupported rationale that we were incapable of fulfilling our “missional” purpose?

They are unlikely to budge.

Meanwhile, Redeemer will keep moving! We think the survival of the church in the next 100 years depends on learning the skills we are pioneering today. We’ll be glad to share our adventure.

15 Jan 2013

Chasing Demographics with Selective Mission Work

Dodging Bullets in the City

I often have the television news on in the background while I fix dinner. Lately, I’ve been wondering if my house near the center of Philadelphia, one of the largest cities in the United States, has been picked up by a tornado and plopped down in neighboring New Jersey.

All the worthwhile news seems to be about the Garden State, with place names I recognize but would have to scan a map to know exactly where they are.

The Philadelphia news is crime- and sports-oriented.

That was my impression. Was I imagining things?

Last night when the news came on, I was sitting in my easy chair, so I grabbed a scrap of paper and pen and took notes. CBS-3 local news opened with the story of a woman who was beaten by another woman near a subway stop in South Philadelphia.

The next five or so stories, bringing us seven minutes into the 20-minute broadcast, were about Hurricane Sandy relief at the Jersey shore—seventy or so miles away. (I know NJ Governor Christie’s politics much better than that Tom fellow in Harrisburg.)

Commercial Break

The next segment opened with a teaser about the weather. Great map. Beautiful gal standing in front of it. No real information. That was coming. Promise!

Some poor soul in New Jersey was practicing the art of kidnapping. Glad we got him!

At last, some Philadelphia news. A shooting in North Philadelphia. An update on two shootings at Temple University (where my son works, should I panic?!).

Back to New Jersey. Camden County police will be replacing Camden City police, something all we Philadelphians need to know about our crime-ridden sister city across the Delaware River.

Back to Philadelphia. I was happy to learn that the fired Eagles coach found an $8 million dollar per year job in Kansas City. His family will eat for five more years.

More promises of a weather report. Meanwhile, be advised, it is cold.

Commercial Break

The next stories gave me a view of the world. Another celebrity visited Newtown, Connecticut. There was some trouble in Minneapolis, a drunk on a plane that flew into New York’s JFK Airport, and a health alert.

More about the Eagles and some footage of a tired-looking Sixers team. At least they help each other up off the floor. We are the City of Brotherly Love.

Finally, the promised weather report. It was cold today and it will be cold tomorrow.

It’s great to live in Philadelphia. We just have to dodge bullets. Everyone else has real problems.

It is clear that the local news is about building a platform to sell advertising. They, like the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, want to broaden readership. The news becomes about the New Jersey suburbs. They wonder why Philadelphians stop following them.

They are chasing demographics.

Dodging Bullets in City Ministry

We tend chase demographics in the church, too. We find mission projects upon which we can build our reputation and will be easy to support. It feels good to support the organized efforts of organizations like Habitat for Humanity and the Weekend Walk for any number of causes. But let’s not fool ourselves. 

It looks good in the bulletin. It feels good to those who participate. It is good work.

It is not mission work. 

Within the church, an attractive demographic is one that is already predisposed to church tradition, where mission work is not needed to meet a budget that supports a pastor and a building.

This demographic fled to the suburbs decades ago. Replacing it is too much like work—mission work.

When the experts come to evaluate city churches they use that very language. The demographics for success are not here, city congregations are advised. Don’t expect help from us, but keep sending in your offerings. We will provide a minister to hold your hand. Make sure you provide the required benefits package as if ministry were actually happening. Let us know when the money runs out. We will help you then.

All those little churches in the city neighborhoods—still populated with plenty of God-loving, hard-serving people — well, let them dodge bullets. The suburbs will get the benefit of their property sooner that way.

Meanwhile, at Christmas, suburban church members don stylish dungarees, reluctantly shell out $20 parking in center city, dish out some soup to the city’s worst off, and call it mission.

That’s a pretty paltry return for the millions of dollars they are taking from city neighborhoods when they force church closures and lock local people out of the churches they built—contributing to slum-building.

And now for the weather. It’s STILL cold!

By the way, those people you fed at Christmas are hungry again.

05 Jan 2013

Why Churches Should Reach Out to Boomers

There is a demographic that the church rarely considers, the Boomers, the generation born between 1946 and 1964. They were called Boomers by their parents’ generation before that generation christened themselves The Greatest Generation.

The Boomers are an outstanding generation that face difficult years. While their parents had a World War to unite them, the Boomers faced the rise of individualism and the moral and societal changes of a democracy gaining sudden world prominence.

Their experience and strengths represent many and varied feats.

Many are caring for The Greatest Generation and putting children through college, while taking on increased grandparenting demands.

Professionally, their careers were peaking when the Recession hit. Many are struggling to find employment comparable to their pre-Recession lives.

Adding to the challenge is the sharp shift in job skills that technology has demanded. Most Boomers feel a need for schooling and juggle learning with work and home demands — while their competition (their own children) still live under their roof, unburdened by the financial pressures of running a home.

They are experienced. They lived through the Korean War, Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the Space Age, The Gulf War, Iran, Afghanistan (too many unrests to mention) and now 9/11 and the Arab Spring. They’ve witnessed the end of the Cold War and demolition of the Wall that remained from the war their parents fought. They have battled polio, AIDS, and new virus strains. They’ve seen cures for the diseases that claimed their grandparents. They’ve witnessed the societal change among the races and genders. They have seen the Church crippled by scandal.

The maps they studied in school have been recharted dozens of times.

Boomers were part of information revolution that continues to reshape society.

Women of Boomer age were at the forefront of the fight for equality. Some achieved it. Most still struggle.

Many boomers are divorced or widowed. Many parent blended families. They know firsthand the challenges that younger Americans will face.

They are reaching the age when their health may be challenged.

They are facing end of life decisions—their parents and their own. They can be troubled and grieving.

With all the challenges that Boomers face, they are still a capable lot! They have skills and better health than previous generations. Many were raised in church even if they have abandoned religion as adults.

They are the decision-makers of many families. They are not likely to go to church to be told what to do. It is more likely that the Church can learn from them.

With all the attention on youth and the Greatest Generation, they feel forgotten.

They are a generation that could be very well served and also serve the Church.

Should we mention that the commercial world is discovering they have economic clout?

But how many churches set out to serve the Boomers?

Something to think about!

photo credit: {Guerrilla Futures | Jason Tester} via photo pin cc
09 Sep 2012

Transforming Congregations: Changing Attitudes

Discovering Our Target Demographics

Imagine this common scenario.

Your congregational leaders are meeting with representatives from your regional body or with paid consultants. You are part of the “congregational study” process.

Part of congregational studies is to examine demographic data. 

Now, listen for the words that will be used. It will be something like this: “Which group of people should we target.”

Our relationship with our community is defined with predatory language. TARGET.

The most common — almost universal — outcome of this discussion is “Let’s target families.” All churches want families. Our Ambassador visits reveal that few are achieving that goal.

In our mind’s eye, we still see families as Mom, Dad and a bunch of children to populate our Sunday Schools. We see income, we see longevity of relationship. These are the things the Church wants for its own survival. When we think in terms of targets, we reveal our self-interest.

Today, families are in disarray on one hand and inclusive beyond any old-fashioned measure on the other. Families are not a well-defined target!

What church goes through the congregational study and decides to TARGET the elderly, the poor, the immigrants, the homeless, the unemployed, or people with special needs? These are not populations with expendable income. Most are members of families but that’s not exactly what we are thinking when we define our goals.

There are congregations with inclusive ministries worth mentioning. Prince of Peace in Plymouth Meeting, Pa., for example, is developing programming for families who have members with autism and developmental delays. Their ministry did not grow out of the “congregational study.” It stemmed from a teaching/preaching series.

When we start to think of segments of our community as “prey,” we cloud our vision of God’s total Kingdom.

When we narrow the focus of ministry, we become, unconsciously unwelcoming to everyone else.

Redeemer experienced this once some 30 years ago. We asked our regional body for advice on dealing with people who were finding their way to our door from the state psychiatric hospital in our neighborhood. The answer we received was, “That’s not the synod’s emphasis (target) right now.”

Church people see ourselves as welcoming. If we are to be truly welcoming, we must adjust our attitudes and stop approaching our neighborhoods for what they can do for us, but for how we can serve them.

When they walk through our doors, they should not get the “once over” to see if they fit our ministry’s target demographic.

Every person who enters a church has a story. Every church should make some effort to learn something about that story before they leave. Then we will understand the demographics of our neighborhoods!

photo credit: emiliokuffer via photo pin cc

06 Sep 2012

When the Church Ignores the Obvious

Another Chapter in a Tale of Two Churches

In 1979, Alfred Krass, A United Christian Church pastor from nearby Levittown, Pa., wrote a “white paper” on Evangelism in Mainline Denominations, published in Christian Century magazine.

Reading this study 33 years later reveals that many of the issues raised remain serious issues in mainline denominations. As is often the case in the Church, issues raised that are not on the popular agenda are often ignored.

Rev. Krass’s paper ends by identifying two questions for which he saw no denominations taking any steps to address. One involved the methods of communication used by the Church. The article did not foresee the internet and its tremendous potential for change (largely ignored by the Church).

The other problem he identified 33 years ago was the absence of families in Church and the ineffectiveness of motivating families as evangelists.

Redeemer’s Ambassador visits reveal that this is still a crying need in the Church. Rev. Krass identified the absence of 15- to 45-year-olds. Redeemer’s Ambassador visits reveal that the spread is now even broader. With very few exceptions, among the nearly 50 churches we have visited, children and youth are absent. When present, they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Furthermore, the missing age group in church today is more realistically 1-50.

This was not true of Redeemer. Our age spectrum was fairly broad with no one age group dominating.

This problem unaddressed for the last three decades remains a problem. What are we doing about it?

The missing age group is the demographic where multiple generations actually live together under one roof — or in today’s world — under two roofs. The prevalence of the divided family is probably a big part of the problem. Religion can be an additional divisive agent.

How do we shape our message so that it reaches this majority population?

He closes with a point that church camps are ideally situated to minister to families. Interesting! Redeemer was a big supporter of church camping, making sure that as many members as possible were able to attend family camp and other church camping programs. Perhaps Rev. Krass’s ideas were working for us!

East Falls is an interesting place to study this question. This traditionally working class neighborhood happens to be blessed. It is a nice place to live and raise families and many generations stayed in East Falls through the years of “white flight.” Property values are strong despite the average family income. Families that raised six kids in their millworkers’ rowhouses and hung onto their property are now property rich. The vultures are all too willing to swoop in.

The conditions in East Falls and the actions of leaders of its faith communities reveal the priorities of hierarchies.

East Falls has Redeemer, where SEPA Synod has evicted the families and locked the doors, claiming the property the congregation had owned and the building they had built on working class salaries. More recently, St. Bridget’s Roman Catholic Church, was forced by its hierarchy to close its school. Redeemer had a strong family ministry. St. Bridget’s School was the hub of parish activity.

In sharing their experiences, both congregations noted the same thing. The “hierarchy” wasn’t listening. (Note: Lutherans aren’t really hierarchical. Their leaders just act that way.)

Another thing the two congregations have in common: Their hierarchies see church property as of more value to them when they are occupied by people who can pay more to use them than church members who live in the neighborhood.

Interesting, indeed!

photo credit: John Carleton via photo pin cc
08 Aug 2012