Membership and Mars Exploration

Remember a few years ago when NASA made the front page of the papers because it's Mars Climate Orbiter crashed into the planet's surface at unsurvivable speeds?  The mishap was caused because one group of NASA scientists were working the math in feet and the others were working the math in meters.  Kaboom.

The same thing is happening in the PCUSA.  As a denomination, we measure the size and scope of the church by counting members and baptisms and certificates of transfer, but in reality our congregations are no longer so static. We also do not count in our annual membership numbers those who are part of a community that identifies with the PC(USA) but is not a chartered church.

We are still measuring in feet and inches while the world has moved on to meters and millimeters.

In the grand scheme of things, I really don't care. This year the PC(USA) dipped below 2 million members for the first time in generations.  So what?  In the end, what does it matter what our official membership is?  Jesus never said, "go, therefore, and make active members recorded in your church record of them."  What does it honestly matter if we have 2 million or 10 million members?  Still, the chattering class have already begun to lay blame for this state of affairs at the feet of, well, whomever they can find.  These statistics have been used to proclaim the pending demise of the PC(USA).  With Bishop Ussher like precision, some use the data from the annual statistical report to declare the date that the PC(USA) will be no more.

Is that really what we need to spend time worrying about?  Is it really just a question of numbers?

No, it is not. The question is, what are we doing with the lives before us right now?  How are we seeking to live out Jesus' commands of love, care, nurture, freedom and hope?  When asked by the PNS about these statistics, Stated Clerk Grayde Parsons gave a wonderful answer and said, "[t]he first and primary need is to continue to increase our efforts to live out the Great Commission and share the good news of Jesus Christ."  He is spot on with that answer!  We need to be focused on doing the work of Christ in the world and stop measuring ourselves by the world's measuring stick of success.  The statistics are an important snapshot, but they do not tell the full story and do not show the full picture.

What about the life of the person who comes a time or two and then retreats into his or her own life to live with the questions of faith that so many of us have?  Or the youth who is active in the Sunday night youth program, but attends another church with mom and dad on Sunday morning?  Or the immigrant who, fearing possible consequences, is not a joiner but is yet faithful in attendance and participation in the church?  Are these souls somehow less a part of the PC(USA)?  The scope of our communities is not limited to the names on the rolls but to the extent of our welcome.

In addition to the membership statistics, our way of counting the number of churches in the PC(USA) needs to change.  Under our current system any body that is not chartered as a congregation under the Book of Order is not counted among our worshiping communities. 

I spend almost every Tuesday during the school year in chapel at the PC(USA) related college in our town.  The chaplain there does a wonderful job of both making students feel welcome and in making that campus a worshiping community.  No, they do not have a charter as a congregation.  However, I can tell you  from experience that this is a Presbyterian worshiping community in leadership, liturgy, theological conviction and worldview.  Yet, this vibrant community does not get reflected in any of our published statistical data.

It is important that we keep an eye on how we, as a traditional denomination, are tracking statistically.  That is a useful tool of evaluation.  However, when we allow those numbers to be the full story, we lose something.  Taking a single picture of the church in its many forms is about as easy as standing on the ledge and taking a picture of the whole of the Grand Canyon.  We need to start taking multiple snapshots of the church and, piecing them together, see what larger picture emerges.

There is a new metric for evaluation in this new world of the church.  We as a church need to begin speaking that language if we are to honestly assess the state of the PC(USA).