Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

After showing the statistics describing the declining membership of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Jack Marcum, coordinator of Research Services for the General Assembly Mission Council, offered what he called a “modest suggestion” — new church developments.

But he’s not recommending new church developments in the traditional sense unless that model is used “where it fits.”

The suggestion to grow through new church developments isn’t just one that Marcum created. It’s one way of looking at what the GAMC hopes to accomplish in the next 10 years — 1,001 new worshiping communities.

Speaking July 2 at the denomination’s Big Tent here, Marcum said new church developments, outside of the traditional model, would be one way to accomplish GAMC’s dramatic goal. Marcum led the workshop “Can the PC(USA) Grow Again? What Causes of Membership Loss Tell Us about Strategies for Turnaround.”

Marcum had several ideas about how to foster new church developments: the PC(USA) could encourage immigrant fellowships, especially among immigrants who are Presbyterian; encourage faith groups in a variety of settings; use proceeds from the sale of dying congregations’ property to develop new worship communities; close dying congregations and start new worship communities in existing facilities; and encourage satellite locations of healthy congregations.

“I’m not saying any of these things are going to be easy,” Marcum said, but he also pointed out that the traditional model of new church developments within the PC(USA) hasn’t been working well.

He described the traditional model as “a new building on a suburban lot.” That model is “very expensive and requires quick growth to pay off the debt,” he said.

And the denomination has only averaged 17 newly chartered congregations per year over the last 10 years, Marcum said, and added that there have been many “expensive failures.”

Marcum placed much of the PC(USA)’s membership decline in the “broader societal context,” including changes in family, diversity, giving patterns, political polarization and growth in relativism.

“There is a greater percentage of Americans who have no religious preference and they’re not atheist and they’re not agnostic,” Marcum said. The proportion, growing since 1990 and now 15 to 20 percent, is made up of those individuals who just don’t fit into any particular religious category.

The proportion of individuals tied to one particular denomination or religion is shrinking and there is a greater tolerance of other faith groups, he said. “Families are more diverse religiously and people in one family can be of different religions. They don’t want to condemn Aunt Sally to hell,” he said.

Membership loss, too, is taking place among all mainline denominations, Marcum said.

There is little evidence that actions by the PC(USA) General Assembly contributes “anything but a very small amount to membership loss,” Marcum said. “There just aren’t that many people in the pews who know what’s going on in the national church.”

But apart from new church developments — or variations on that model — it is difficult to see ways in which the PC(USA) can grow in membership, Marcum said. Attracting new members from other non-Presbyterian congregations would “go against our ecumenical nature,” he said. And finding new members among the unchurched, he said, “doesn’t seem like something we’re particularly good at.”

Duane Sweep is associate for communications for the Synod of Lakes and Prairies in Eagan, Minn. He covered the Presbyterian Communicators Network National Conference at Big Tent for PNS.