Among the many signs of increasing health and growth in the International Churches of Christ are the results of the latest Disciples Today Church Survey.
This section of the report demonstrates the turnaround of our Rate of Membership Growth/Decline that began in 2006. Further reports will report on God’s turn around of our victory stories and challenges.
The 2009 survey shows God’s growing our membership approximately 4.4% since 2006.
In each of the post-2003 survey reports, we included charts showing the declines that occurred in 2003-2005 were “in the works” for many years previous. We included these charts to correct an erroneous narrative, one that explained the 2003-2005 losses in terms of events that happened in 2003.
In fact, our growth rate had been declining precipitously for almost 10 years, and the 2003-2005 losses, in this context, were a continuation of this trend.
[We use the midpoint membership number from 2008 to keep the consistency of this graph, which has been given in past reports in two-year increments, since no survey was conducted in 2003. No survey was conducted in 2008, either, but we can reasonably infer 2008 membership from the 2007 and 2009 surveys.]
The 2009 survey does not add anything to this analysis, but it does contribute an additional data point to the turnaround narrative, now even more clearly indicated as having begun around 2005 or 2006.
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-18 churches over 1,000 – 9 grew, 8 lost members |
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– 20 churches between 500-1,000 – 9 grew and 11 lost members |
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– 60 churches between 200 and 500 – 27 grew, 23 lost members, 10 the same or unknown |
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– 79 churches between 100 and 200 – 45 grew and 28 lost members, 6 the same or unknown |
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-122 churches between 50-100 – 64 grew, 33 shrunk, 25 the same or unknown |
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-275 churches under 50 – 97 grew, the rest lost members, unknown and includes new churches |
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-72% of our membership is in churches of over 200 members which is 16% of our churches. |
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-49% of our churches are under 50 members with 7% of the total membership. |
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-93% of members are in 51% of the churches.
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In 2005, for the first year since 1998, an increasing percentage of churches reported growing. There was another slight increase in churches reporting growth in 2006. In 2007 we saw a definite increase in both the overall number and percentage of churches reporting year-on-year growth.
The 2009 survey indicates a continuing, but very slight, improvement in the ratio of growing to non-growing churches. Still, fewer than half of the churches that reported membership in both 2007 and 2009 reported growing in that period.
This ratio of growing to non-growing churches may be more helpful to understanding what is really happening among the churches than the overall membership growth rate itself. It is a leading indicator of future overall growth or decline, since a few large, fast-growing churches can mask underlying declines in a greater number of small, newly planted, or struggling older congregations—but only for a time.
One counter-intuitive finding from the 2009 survey is that our growing churches were, on average, 30% larger than our non-growing churches. Conventional wisdom (and a great deal of research!) holds that it is easier and more common for smaller churches to grow than for larger churches.
Two possible explanations for this result:
− Many large congregations have only recently attained their own turnaround, and have not yet had the resources to help smaller, struggling churches in their field.
− Our comparatively small number of well-executed church plantings over the past seven years means there are few young, vibrant small churches growing among us.
The next article from this survey discusses victories and challenges that face the International Churches of Christ today.
Click here for the International Churches of Christ 2009 Membership Survey download.
Click here for the International Churches of Christ 2009 Membership Survey Summary
ICOC Church Survey by Disciples Today
