Talking Points for Church Leaders
by Hank Bitten
- “The conclusion of this research is that the LCMS will not be able to engage in effective mission outreach unless it forthrightly addresses the changing demographic reality of the United States. There is no reason for the LCMS to forsake its constitutional objectives such as promoting doctrinal unity while avoiding unionism and promoting mission. But when we give minimal attention to the doctrine of catholicity are we meeting our second objective? Will we take to heart Leo Sanchéz’s reminder “that, in light of the increasingly ethnocultural diversity of our future, unity and mission language in synodical ecclesiology will need to be broadened and deepened critically and constructively with language that fosters the catholicity of our Synod’s identity and task in the church, the world, and the marginalized areas between the two”? It is essential for the LCMS to understand that to take its second objective to heart requires the Synod fully to appreciate and to teach that catholicity is of the ‘esse’ of the Church—it is an element of identity. And, as such, it implies a task: giving attention to places and people we have largely forgotten.” (p. 376)
How do we understand ‘catholicity’? Is it catholicity with Lutherans, all Christian denominations, non-Christian faiths? Is our understanding of ‘catholicity’ limited to ages, sexual or gender preferences, people without disabilities, language, or mental health? Does ‘catholicty’ mean our church needs to accept all people without any restrictions?
- The catholic calling to the LCMS means returning to cities and other places with non-Anglo populations. It means recognition of people of color throughout our communities. It means recognition that the poor will not be forgotten by God, nor are they to be forgotten by us. And it will require workers who can joyfully accept these tasks. (p. 379-80)
How can our congregation best serve the people of color in our community and support those living in relative poverty?
- The Census Bureau predicts that the trend toward racial-ethnic diversity will continue: The non-Hispanic White population is projected to shrink over coming decades, from 199 million in 2020 to 179 million people in 2060—even as the U.S. population continues to grow. Their decline is driven by falling birth rates and a rising number of deaths over time as the non-Hispanic White population ages. In comparison, the White population, regardless of Hispanic origin, is projected to grow from 253 million to 275 million over the same period. (p. 236)
How can the people of the local church become personally connected with the people in their neighborhood and in their church neighborhood?
- The LCMS ought to be fostering both internal and external growth by engaging in solid teaching about the gifts of marriage and children, so that the Synod would grow as individual members marry, faithfully live according to the Word of God together, bear children, and bring them up as baptized disciples who learn to keep all that Christ has given to His church. In addition, the Synod and its congregations ought to be vigorously engaged in evangelizing those who do not know Christ. (p. 254) “Congregations must be safe places for young people to wrestle with life and faith.” (p. 255)
How do we understand the recommendation to “be vigorously engaged in evangelizing those who do not know Christ?” How safe is our church for people who are wrestling with life and faith and not living according to the teachings of Jesus in the Holy Bible?
- In contrast with that, religiously unaffiliated American adults are now 26% of the overall population. This decline in religiosity is primarily at the expense of Christianity, not non-Christian religious traditions whose adherents have actually increased, from 5% to 7% of the US population over the decade from 2009 to 2019. (p.153) In the last five years alone, the unaffiliated have increased from just over 15% to just under 20% of all U.S. adults. Their ranks now include more than 13 million self-described atheists and agnostics (nearly 6% of the U.S. public), as well as nearly 33 million people who say they have no particular religious affiliation. (p. 156)
While the number of atheists and agnostics has certainly increased, Pew emphasized “that many of the country’s 46 million unaffiliated adults are religious or spiritual in some way. Two-thirds of them say they believe in God (68%).” And at least a small segment of them (10%) are interested in a religious institution.157 But the most striking result of the 2012 survey was its implication that this movement away from religious affiliation would increase, not decrease, because it was a phenomenon “largely driven by generational replacement, the gradual supplanting of older generations by newer ones.” (p. 158)
What is the significance of more than 1/3 of the population in the United States under the age of 30 having no religious affiliation with a local church or denomination? Can our local church ignore this population? How can we connect with them?
https://scholar.csl.edu/phd/146/
Behind the Numbers: A Traditional Church Faces a New America
Larry Vogel, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis
Document Type Dissertation
Date of Award 5-19-2023
Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department Practical Theology
First Advisor Richard Marrs
Abstract
The dissertation examines membership data for The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) from the mid-1970s to the present. It considers the analysis of LCMS decline by two scholars, George Hawley and Ryan MacPherson, who independently proposed that LCMS membership decline was internal in causation due to diminished birthrates and fewer young families. While acknowledging the reality of such internal decline, this dissertation argues that the lack of external growth is a greater cause for LCMS decline. Its lack of external growth is due primarily to the racial and ethnic homogeneity of the LCMS and its failure effectively to evangelize the increasingly diverse American population. This indicates a theological weakness: a failure to teach and emphasize the catholicity of the church adequately in LCMS catechesis and dogmatic theology.
Recommended Citation
Vogel, Larry, “Behind the Numbers: A Traditional Church Faces a New America” (2023). Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation. 146. https://scholar.csl.edu/phd/146
Bible 500 