Vice Moderator says churchwide conversation is ‘dreaming and visioning’ how to serve PCUSA

I could not help but notice how the Vice Moderator in this presentation chose to encourage Presbyterians to dig deep into the Scriptures as they seek to discover the will of God for the PCUSA. Her frequent calls for them to seek the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in their discussions is right on target. And if she mentioned Jesus’ name once in this talk, she must have mentioned it a hundred times. It is such an encouragement to see this kind of Bible-based, God-centered, Spirit-led, and Christ-exalting leadership in the PCUSA. One wonders how a denomination being led like this could possibly go wrong.

One benefit of a military career is that you deal with the world as it is, vice as you wish, hope, click your heals and want it to be. When I was in Iraq the provisional authority (US) would publish and Arabic language daily newspaper. In the mists of the general chaos of mayhem on the streets the higher ups in the Green Zone wanted to get the average Iraqi off the street and ask them their opinions of how stuff was going. And when the feedback was not quite what they wanted or expected, or wanted to fit the narrative of what the State Dept. wanted, they sort of let that bold idea slide.

Once on the PCUSA web site and form, once you get beyond the expected demographic entries on race/sex/gender/what have you. you get to the meat of the questions. It becomes apparent that the questions were designed and constructed to yield responses and data which the organization wishes to have. Or in essence they are seeking self-reinforcement of their own opinions and ideas. You double-down on the current trajectory and path of the PCUSA, because the data yielded reinforces such.

As a post-Christian entity the PCUSA operates much like a religious studies department at a local state university. You go into a lecture hall and the professor teaches or lectures, then sits down, awaiting questions and inquiry. In essence you come to him or her, not them to you. As for God, Christ, prayer, Scripture who knows. As I have posited I do not think the local church or even the individual has any value to the organization apart from a utilitarian aspect, an economic unit to be assessed or measured. As to the mechanics and process of data collection, as it was coined in the early computer age, garbage in, garbage out.

Well said. Maybe her comments do reflect on the current trajectory of the PCUSA.

I feel like I’m watching someone dig a well with a shovel looking for water when right behind them is a natural flowing spring.

In 1991 I gave a talk to about fifty men at a PCUSA church men’s prayer breakfast. I’m a scientist, and I enjoy analyzing data and showing graphs in my talks. As I was wrapping up, I displayed a graph of PCUSA membership and extrapolated it 30 years into the future (first order differential). Sadly, my graph has been precisely on the mark.

Each year, I download the new church and membership statistics and post my updated graphs. The trend does not deviate from my forecast. When I show my graphs to my fellow church leaders and parishioners, I hear the same lame excuses I heard 25 years ago. The future of the PCUSA appears set in stone.

Frankly, this video makes me embarrassed to call myself a Presbyterian. But it is merely the latest symptom of the death spiral we are locked within. It is obvious that the PCUSA will continue to dwindle until it finally dissolves, at which time the various congregations will re-affiliate themselves with more conservative organizations. Liberal denominations have no reason to exist; they merely mirror the culture, and so they become redundant. History and current trends confirm that the only churches that survive long-term are the ones that respect traditional Christian values, the authority of scripture, and the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Doug…that is a subject that likewise has been of interest to me. What is your projection for the next 5, 10, 15 years for the PCUSA?

A denomination can never be any healthier than the health of its constituent congregations. I think the median size of a PCUSA is today probably in the mid 80s. At what point does your data suggest a congregation becomes too small (or even too old) but be self sustaining or self supporting?

The entity PCUSA is going through something totally unique in the over 300 year history of American Protestant denominationalism . It is experiencing both a classic historical theological schism, and a systemic institutional collapse at the same time. Out of the 11K or so reported PCUSA affiliated churches in 2014, approx. 40% report under 60 members, about 15% report less than 10. The take away is the entity is far past the point of viability on multiple levels or a rational for existence. The reasons why, theological points, faith matters have been debated ad infinitum in Laymen and other platforms.

The next real institutional shoe to fall are matters with the Board of Pensions, especially as related to health care and its social contract with retiree matters. But that is a discussion for another day and opportunity, and those will come soon enough.

The real myth of the PCUSA and the reason for its crises is that the whole concept of the “connectional” church is dead, and in reality has been since the mid 1970s. In the vacuum you have a whole host of special, narrow interest/agenda groups more or less occupy the denomination, and the money train which supports them is coming to an end, and in this environment its every person for themselves.

Most of the studies I have read about “church plants” strongly suggest that for a new church to reach the point of independence it needs to have a functional membership of 150-200 people. That definition means it can afford an owned or rented facility and pay for some full time staff. An established congregation in a facility owned free and clear can “survive” below that level.

You are correct. The end is clearly in sight.

Can the conversations and dialogue talked about here save the denomination? The OGA questionnaire is all about demographic information, meaningless slogans and this will be used to promote more liberal political agenda.
There is a disconnect between the urgency at the local church level for Spiritual Renewal and the agenda of OGA and PMA. An example is when Marilyn Gamm (PMA) said they could not make recommendations for change in time for the next GA. That is complacency that is dangerous. The biggest thing that will undermine the stability and the future for this denomination is that these two groups (OGA and PMA) monitor themselves and make recommendations from within their group. They bring their ideas to the GA but there is little oversight from outside since the GA will acquiesce to their plans. The ability of this group to do the hard things, illiminate their own jobs, disband whole departments and corresponding jobs, and have God honoring vision is in question. So while Radda and Larissa have called us to dialogue and appear to be sincere, it remains to be seen how these conversations and surveys will be used. Will there be any call to the church to humbly seek God? It is disappointing that they do not care about the message coming out of churches in discernment and seek those who have already left.
Instead the financial instability has made them greedy for Church property.
How will these dialogues affect this wayward behavior toward sessions objecting to their agenda.
Will they listen to God….or be “Luke warm” and dismiss the real need…..
Spiritual Renewal born out of awe of the God they seek to serve?

Keep praying for the next GA as God will make His will known by the decisions made. We must call people to discernment …weighed by Scripture and empowered by the Holy Spirit!

LOL. Great, witty post.

Here is what I posted back in March for membership and congregation statistics. (www.toolsforanalysis.com/PCUSAStats2014.jpg)

In my own presbytery (Cincinnati) we lost 1/3 of our members in ten years. Rather devastating.

Loved this one too. Posted it on Facebook…

This is an intriguing analysis. Gonna think on it.

A simple algorithm factoring in mortality tables, denominational stats, membership losses since 1973, point to the last “PCUSA” person dying off around 2035-40, or so. The organization will never simply go to zero, but what you will see as the governing structure collapses on its own heft and bulk, that it will become more and more aggressive, oppressive, paranoid in dealing with those who resist and not conform to its view and orders of things. Further retreating into its own insularity and irrelevance.

10, 20 years from now there may be something called the PCUSA in a 5013C charity, non-profit sense. But have little or nothing to do with matters of faith, confession, or anything we would call “church”. It’s “clergy” nothing more than part-time baristas, a boutique or vanity type profession, majority LGBT.

My guess is that even though giving will continue to decrease, the PCUSA will survive for a while by cannibalizing its departing churches. They may even encourage some of the smaller churches. As churches leave, they’ve been paying large settlements (e.g. Highland Park) which can be used to cover substantial shortfalls. As these resources diminish, the official organization will falter, and become increasingly less centralized. Congregations will no longer see any advantage to being part of a failing institution, so there will be widespread disaffiliations. There will likely be a more progressive offshoot, which will soon falter as well. There will be much heartache, as congregations are forced to address the division among us.

Doug, thanks! Played around with numbers this weekend. From the mid 1970’s until the late 1990’s the RATE of decline per year stayed relatively constant at 1.00% to 1.5% annual loss. In 2001 it was -1.25%. Since then the rate of loss has been accelerating …. and rapidly so. Since 2005 Infant baptisms have dropped 45%.

My suspicion is that we passed the point of no return in the early 200’s. We are now in the middle of systemic collapse. Peter’s guess is 15-20 more years. Could be sooner.

I agree that we are on the verge of systemic collapse, and I think the individual congregation stats (vs for the overall denomination) actually disguise the precipice. Peter’s comment that “40% report under 60 members, about 15% report less than 10” is particularly alarming. I’d not studied those numbers yet, focusing more on the national stats and my own presbytery (fell at a faster rate than the national rates…lost 1/3 of members in 10 years). I’m going to look more closely at them.

I also looked carefully at the demographics, because when I would show the steepening decline to my fellow parishoners, some would blame it on the aging population. But the numbers do not justify this. At least 2/3 of the decline is attributable to conservatives leaving the denomination. All one has to do is to read the public statements of the congregations that are disaffiliating to know that the primary reason we are losing members is because they no longer feel welcome in PCUSA congregations. In J Haidt’s words, the PCUSA commits sacrilege in 5 of the 6 moral foundations. Who wants to attend a church where your beliefs are constantly insulted and offended?