I don’t have much experience with U.S. churches during Covid, having only been to service once since Covid started. No I’m not a prodigal or infidel. I just live in Germany so I’ve only had one opportunity to attend church in the U.S. since the outbreak began.
What I noticed in that service was some people wearing masks, some not. Some practicing social distancing, some not. But mostly what I noticed was attendance was down significantly from earlier services I had attended at that church.
Here in Germany, Attendance is Down
A single church just doesn’t tell the tale. But here in Germany, though I’ve again only been attending one church, it’s clear attendance is down. Part of it is simply the logistics of the rules here. For most of the pandemic, people had to wear masks and practice social distancing.
And of course that meant that our pew-chairs had to be separated by 1.5 meters distance. Families could sit together but each “pod” of families needed to be distanced 1.5 meters from all the others. With required distancing, capacity is about one third of pre-Covid attendance. In addition, congregants were not allowed to sing, which can be a disincentive to attend.
Not long after the pandemic hit, all churches were closed, as was everything else. Some didn’t like it – Pastors especially, but it was a defendable decision as a few churches had flagrantly broken the rules with Covid outbreaks that followed.
When church attendance was reinstated – again with social distancing and masks, there was a “bump” in attendance. Our church went to two services until attendance dropped off with summer vacation. What we noticed was the bump was primarily visitors from other churches. Covid gave them opportunity to sneak out without being noticed and check out other churches.
But unsurprisingly, the bump didn’t last. The visitors checked us out for a few weeks and then were gone. Apparently what we were offering didn’t give a compelling reason to continue coming during the pandemic. We’re back to one service with decent attendance given the constraints.
That said, two years into the pandemic, what’s clear is that well more than half of our regular attenders pre-pandemic have largely dropped out and stopped attending. There’s a small number that occasion the church, but most are either live streaming or they’ve simply stopped attending. I have no way of knowing how many stream but my guess is not many.
Our Church is Not Alone
And of course, like the U.S., we have our share of Christians who are either unvaxxed or chose to vax quite late. Most don’t seem to have good reasons. I get the “standard answer” God will protect them – which is odd, given most of them have largely stopped attending! I must say, I struggle to understand what’s going on.
Though I have limited exposure to other churches, it’s clear our church is not an outlier. Christianity Today published an attendance study showing the gravity of the problem. Attendance has fallen off sharply across the U.S. since the Covid outbreak. The numbers are pretty sobering – 7% overall. If you’re not a family with kids under 18, the numbers are worse. In the U.S., for the first time, church membership has dropped below 50%. Some studies claim a third of attenders have dropped out since the start of Covid and AP has predicted many church closures.
What Comes Next?
What comes next is anyone’s guess. When our church was first closed, understandably there were fears. It seemed like an existential threat. Would we survive? What would happen to giving?
I have no idea how many had fears of catching Covid by attending but I expect some older members of the church would play it safe, stay home and live stream. But most of those who dropped out don’t fit that demographic. For our church, attendance for all ages seems to have dropped off.
The million dollar question is whether those who’ve dropped out will return when the pandemic is over? A better question might be, will the pandemic end? Some are claiming Covid is close to becoming endemic. But will that help if dropping out has become endemic?
I don’t want to sound like “the angel of death” but one must ask if Covid simply didn’t provide the excuse many were looking for to drop out? Christians know they’re supposed to attend church, give and be active. But most who attend don’t become active in ministry and many either don’t give, or don’t give much. One wonders if many attend only because they are supposed to. If so, Covid gives them perfect “cover” to drop out of sight and we should be asking, “Has church become obsolete?” When regular attenders and members no longer see the need for church, it’s time to critically examine what we’re doing.
Honestly Examining Our Effectiveness
Evaluating Congregant Effectiveness
Many churches have struggled with congregational demands during Covid. There have been fights over social distancing, masking and even vaxxing. To the author, those who oppose social distancing, masks or vaxxing see church in a self-serving way. Church has to be their way or the Pastor (and congregants) will hear about it! It doesn’t seem so different from the fights we’ve waged over music style and volume.
Member intolerance won’t build churches. If you want to see attendance continue to fall, then continue to fight these battles. But beware, you may find you stand in opposition to God! I don’t think God cares what style of music we play nor does He care about its volume. Likewise, I don’t think He cares if you want to wear a mask or not. He does care if we love others enough to avoid needlessly exposing them to infection.
And I must say, I don’t think God is honored by all our antivax arguments. They are simply divisive arguments grounded in human stubbornness. To say I don’t need to vax because God will protect me dangerously presumes we are without sin (1 Corinthians 11:30).
By contrast, God wants a people with pure and loving hearts who genuinely seek to serve Him by serving others, not by insisting church be our way or we won’t attend. When our focus becomes serving others, my guess is churches will start to grow again.
Evaluating Pastoral Effectiveness
To counter drops in attendance, the lead must come from Pastors and Church leaders. Despite many programs, attendance continues to drop, and it’s time to recognize our current approach is failing. It’s critical to realistically examine church programs for effectiveness. Enormous effort has been spent integrating congregants into churches through strengthened relationships.
It’s not bad, but is it enough? My church here in Germany is directly across the street from an Islamic Mosque. The strength of relationships is seen after their services, when many gather in groups in the parking lot to chat. Our Islamic neighbors prove that one doesn’t need to come to church to feel part of a community.
And building community is difficult when Pastors are guilty of needlessly offending their congregants. There is a “get on board” intolerance, “the Pastor’s way or the highway”. Many pastors seem to think they have the right and responsibility to choose the sheep of their flock. You can choose your friends, but not your spiritual family.
Drilling Down on Pastoral Misconduct
There is no clearer example of pastoral intolerance than the recent revolt of SBC Pastors over Russell Moore’s rejection of Donald Trump for office of president. It wasn’t that Russell Moore wasn’t allowed to offer his moral view of Donald Trump. It was that he wasn’t allowed to express a view differing from “certain SBC pastors” who apparently think they run the SBC. A dissenting voice will not be tolerated, even from the highest levels of SBC leadership. In the SBC, the toddlers are running the pre-school.
Everyone should read the article at the above link. It is a divisive rant against Russell Moore’s alleged pro-Democratic, liberal views that the author claims are singularly destroying the SBC. There is not one biblical or moral objection – only an intolerance to any political views deemed insufficiently conservative.
That our pastors cannot see through this ruse is truly astounding. If anything will destroy the church, it will be its insistence that members must hold to a singular political view, whether liberal or conservative. Half the country is then excluded from membership in God’s kingdom. That half is not worth saving. Salvation requires allegiance to “my” political view. God can use an evil man for good as long as that evil man is conservative!
It is part and parcel of a bigger problem in church leadership. Our pastors have endless time for useless, divisive fights. No issue is too trivial. No effort is too great. Whether conservative presidents, conservative Supreme Court, anti-mask, anti-vax, election was stolen, critical race theory, you name it. The Pastor’s job is not to save the lost, but to save “the saved” from the heathen hordes of liberal politics.
All of this is untrue to Scripture and based in utter lies. Our leadership has been toiling away, spinning a web of conspiratorial lies that they are now caught in. Many pastors can no longer tell their congregants the truth without a similar revolt. Dr. Frankenstein has created a monster he can no longer control!
A Call to Repentance and Change
It is not necessary that falling attendance becomes endemic in our churches. There is an alternative. We can acknowledge that we are destroying our churches, not our perceived enemies. The path we have chosen is not building up the church but breaking it down.
Christ’s High Priestly Prayer was not that we would be divisive, but that we would be one so that the world would know that God had sent Jesus as savior (John 17:11-23). He prayed we would have joy not anger. But critically, He twice asked that the church would be one as a witness that Christ came from God.
It is our key purpose to testify that Jesus came from God as savior to the world and this is accomplished only through our unity. The divisive rhetoric from our leadership shows how far the church is from its calling. Unsurprisingly, our numbers are declining and Christ makes clear it is happening because we are not an effective witness. It is our lack of unity and insistence upon divisiveness.
It is time to repent, seek God with all our hearts and recognize as Christ said, we are not of this world (John 17:14-16). Our model is the early church (Acts 2:42-47). They devoted themselves to the apostle’s teachings – not culture wars or Christianized self-help, and to fellowship and prayer. All were together and had everything in common, sharing all to provide for one another.
There was unity, providing a powerful witness when meeting together daily in the temple courts. With their devotion to God came awe from the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. What was the result? “And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved”. That is our mandate, to save the lost. When our witness is truly effective, God will add to our numbers daily – not with transfer growth from other churches, but with those being saved.