Limits to Church Growth 3
In two previous blogs I looked at congregational growth
being limited by:
- Demand from society [1];
- Supply by the church [1];
- Lack of enthusiasts [2].
However, even if there is an unlimited potential demand for
Christianity, there are still barriers to church growth that occur from the way the church goes about its mission. Specifically, growth is limited by the
church’s inability to generate the resources needed for growth.
Limit 3: Lack of Resource Production
The types of resources I have in mind are:
- Physical resources such as the attractiveness and functionality of the church buildings, and their capacity.
- Human resources, such as pastoral staff, lay leaders of Sunday Schools, housegroups.
- Programmes such as marriage preparation, bereavement follow up, social engagement in the community.
- Social Networks such as friendships and interactions in the church, opportunities to serve and make a contribution. Sense of belonging. Social, religious and spiritual capital.
The model contains two variables, called stocks: Church represents the numbers attending
church; Resource: represents all the
resources that enhance growth. The central hypotheses are that church generates
resources according to its size, and the resource in turn enhances recruitment
to the church. This is the reinforcing feedback loop R in figure 1, where the two stocks are shown as rectangles.
Opposing this is the balancing feedback loop B1 where I have assumed people leave church at a constant per
capita rate.
 |
| Figure 1: Bounded Resource Model of Church Growth |
The stock Resource
is a soft variable, one that has meaning but is hard to quantify [3]. If it is
not being generated then there is a natural depletion process, loop B2. Just think if people do not try to
maintain housegroups, evangelism courses, Sunday Schools, buildings,
friendships etc., then they will become less effective and get smaller.
The key dynamic with resources is that as they get larger
they become harder to increase further. For example a large number of housegroups
are harder to manage and replicate. More people are harder to keep track of
pastorally. Larger teams of people need more attention. There is a limit to how
many friends you can have. All these effects are captured in the balancing loop
B3, which can be thought of as a
“brake” on resource generation. Easy to start off, but increasingly more
difficult to keep growing [4].
Resource is easier
to measure if you think of a maximum possible resource. That is whatever the
number of groups, buildings etc, it has reached its maximum effectiveness. This maximum is set at
unity, which means 100% effectiveness for the resource.
Limit Determined by Resource.
Consider a church of initially 10 people with a total
leaving rate of 6% per year, including deaths. Church members are assumed to be
very effective at building the resource, enabling growth at 19 recruits per
year per resource unit. However the resource starts low, at 12% of capacity,
due to the small size of the church. The resource is an easily depletable one
at 50% per year. It is built at a rate of 0.0075 per person per year, assuming
there is no resistance to building from the resource itself.
Such a highly effective church grows over 60 years to get
near its equilibrium value of 250. This is an upper limit that becomes
increasingly harder to approach due to the difficulty in generating the
resource, figure 2, curve 1.
 |
| Figure 2: Church Growth Through Resource. 1 = Church, 2 = Equilibrium, 3 = Dominance of Feedback Loops |
Initially the growth of the church (curve 1, figure 2)
accelerates as the recruitment loop R
has the strongest impact on the church. The loop with most impact is indicated
by line 3 [5]. By time 20 this impact has fallen so that the leaving loop
dominates. Church growth now slows. The slowing period is much longer than the
acceleration period and occurs when the church is well below its final equilibrium
value. Thus most growth is slowing growth, not accelerating, because of the
difficulty of making resources more effective.
The resource follows a similar pattern, figure 3, and
approaches its equilibrium at 79% of is possible maximum, faster than the
church approaches its limit. It is not the limit on the effectiveness of the
resource that has stopped church growth but the increasing difficulty of
resource generation [6].
 |
| Figure 3: Resource Generation by Church. 1 = Resource, 2 = Equilibrium, 3 = Dominance of Feedback Loops |
Note the resource starts slowing before church, around time
10. Slowing resource generation is a sign that church growth will also slow in
the near future.
Extinction Through Lack of Resource Generation
If none of the parameters change then a church will reach an
equilibrium value – its growth limit. If any of those parameters change so does
its equilibrium. If they change
too much the wrong way, the church may head for extinction.
Consider a church of 70 people at equilibrium, whose ability
to generate/maintain the resource drops, perhaps due to the unavailability of
key personnel through congregational exhaustion, the loss of a popular minister
or a decision to end a Sunday School, figure 4. Initially the resource declines
fast, with church declining steadily. However, although resource decline slows
down it is not enough to allow church numbers to stabilise, as there are now
even less people in the church to maintain remaining resources. The church has
fallen below a threshold that leads to extinction, probably much faster than
figure 4 indicates if aging is taken in to account
 |
| Figure 4: Extinction Caused by Lack of Resource Generation |
Secularisation
The effect of secularisation on church growth can be
illustrated in this model by allowing the effect of resource on recruitment to
drop as secularisation rises. This scenario reflects the increasing difficulty
the church has of convincing a more hardened population to become believers.
Additionally increasing secularisation also increases the rate of resource
depletion, representing the pressure secularisation puts on the commitment of
church members.
Let a small church grow through resource generation until
secularisation starts at time 45, figures 5-6. Resource growth turns to decline
straightaway, figure 6, curve 1, with church following a few years later,
figure 5, curve 1. The reinforcing loop R
is now acting in reverse, setting the path of decline to extinction. Decline is
slow. Secularisation is a very long-term effect and church numbers are always
healthier than the declining “equilibrium” value it is heading towards, figure
5, line 2.
 |
| Figure 5: Effect of Secularisation on Church Numbers |
 |
| Figure 6: Effect of Secularisation on Resource |
There is a period of around 80 years for which the
equilibrium values for church numbers and resource are still positive. If
secularisation could have been halted at that point, church would stabilise
rather then go extinct. It is interesting to speculate which of our current
denominations are still in this phase, and which have passed to the later phase
where extinction is inevitable. Short of fitting data there is no definitive
answer to this, but combating secularisation is an important strategy in
preventing church decline by keeping the recruitment resources of church
effective [7].
Strategies to Raise Limit to Growth
This model suggests 5 strategies that coul raise the limit
the church numbers reach.
1. Fewer Resources
Done Well are Better than Many Resources Done Poorly.
Easy-to-generate resources with little potential to recruit
should be avoided. For example a few high quality social engagement projects
are better than many projects where the quality and effectiveness suffers.
2. Do Not Rely on One
Resource Alone.
Relying on one resource for most of the growth is risky. If
for any reason factors outside the church's control affect that resource, for
example the loss of a key pastor, or Sunday school teachers, then there is no
alternative driver of growth. Thus two or three good resources enable a church
to get through a difficult patch if one of those resources is suffering, or if
secularisation renders one less effective.
3. Improve the
Quality of the Resource Before its Quantity.
Give due attention to improving the effectiveness of the resource. Such improvements will better aid
growth than just generating more of the resource. For example a higher quality Sunday School that attracts more
people is better than just making it bigger.
The higher quality that gives higher church recruitment will naturally increase
church size. Likewise improvements in the quality of pastoral care, the sort
that people outside the church find helpful, will aid growth more than just
making more care available.
4. Reduce the Leaving
Rate.
Closing the back door of the church always helps raise the
capacity limit of the church. A lower leaving rate makes the resource more
effective on net growth.
5. Prevent Resource
Depletion.
Many resources deplete, people leave the church for natural
reasons, leaving Bible studies, Sunday Schools, social programmes etc. But
others leave due to events in the church that hurt them, hinder them serving
God etc. Good pastoral care of people will help reduce this resource depletion,
and of course make more contented people. As church grows the likelihood of
such adverse effects on people increases and leaders should be on the look out
for early signs of difficulties.
References and Notes
[1] Limits to Church Growth – Part 1. Lack of Supply & Lack of Demand.
[2] Limits to Church Growth – Part 2. The Reproduction of
Enthusiasts.
[3] For the background to soft variables in System Dynamics
see the following and the references therein.
Hayward
J., Jeffs R.A., Howells L. & Evans K.S. (2014). Model Building with Soft Variables: A Case Study on Riots.
Presented at the 32nd International Conference of the System Dynamics Society,
Delft, Netherlands, July 2014
[4] Further details of the model construction are given on
my website:
[5] The Loop Impact method is a relatively new tool for
investigating the dominance of feedback loops. I designed to help me understand
church growth, but of course I was building on the works of many others. One
for the System Dynamics enthusiasts! See:
Hayward J. &; Boswell G.P. (2014). Model Behaviour and the Concept of Loop Impact: A Practical Method.
System Dynamics Review, 30(1), 29-57.
Hayward J. (2012). Model
Behavior and the Strengths of Causal Loops: Mathematical Insights and a
Practical Method. Presented at the 30th International Conference of the
System Dynamics Society, St. Gallen, Switzerland, July 2012.
Hayward J. (2015). Newton’s
Laws of System Dynamics. Presented at the 33rd International Conference of
the System Dynamics Society, Cambridge, MA, July 2015.
[6] This can be proved with mathematics but I must confess I
have not written up yet either in a publication or on my website. It has
probably been proved by someone else in a different model. Such is science!
[7] Further details on the model results website are given
on my website:
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