What's Hot and What's Not

Some Reflections about the Church Scene in New Zealand

Please read this preamble first

This paper, for the most part, is not based on hard data. It is simply my reflections after six years of interactions, involvements and asking lots of questions in my role as Executive Director of WillowNZ within the church and para-church scene in New Zealand. I’m not a statistician or a trends expert. I am, however, an interested observer so much so that WillowNZ has recently started a small research unit within our organisation. I’d like this to be a ‘developing document’ and it will certainly be a changing one. Your thoughts, comments and feedback, as an informed reader, are very welcome.

Bill Hybels reminded us many years ago that one of the first tasks, if not the first task of leadership, is to define reality. I have sought to do exactly that in this paper. He has also re-iterated on many occasions Ken Blanchard’s important mantra, ‘let facts be your friends’. That is quite easy when the facts are up and to the right; it is much harder when the facts are not bringing particularly good news as is the case in this paper.

I am an optimist by temperament—most leaders are. We are glass-half-full rather than glass-half-empty people. However, I am not a triumphalist. I have already noticed over the last few years as I have spoken more publicly on this topic that many leaders struggle to engage with this content and invariably point to a success story.

I know there are some great stories around NZ. I’ve both seen and heard about some of these. One of them is in my own family. Most of these stories are off the radar in generally small-town NZ. I rejoice that these stories exist. And they exist right across the church body. They are so encouraging; even more so in a day of decline and spiritually dry conditions.

The truth is that the church scene in NZ is not particularly encouraging at present, particularly in so far as new-convert growth or evangelistic growth is concerned and hasn’t been for at least 10 years, but probably more like 15-20 years. So therefore, this paper is not very bright or upbeat. I am trying very hard to ‘define reality’ accurately.

Of necessity then, I am making a lot of generalisations, as I am taking a national view NOT a local view.

Finally, I believe with every bone in me that ‘the local church IS the hope of the world when it’s working right’. The local church biblically understood is the best representation of the person of Jesus the world has. The church IS the Body of Christ in the world.

Here are my reflections in summary form only. I have a lot more commentary and detail that is best shared in a seminar or workshop setting.

1.      Conversion Growth is at an all-time low. Possibly the lowest since the Billy Graham era of the late 50’s to early 60’s.

2.      Church attendance numbers continue to decline. At best 10% of New Zealanders attend a Sunday Worship service on a Sunday morning. That’s about 470,000 adults, teenagers and children.

3.      Of greater concern is the numbers of children and teenagers regularly at church is of course also declining.

4.      Because of this there has been a huge upswing of what Alan Jamieson[i] called ‘The Churchless Faith’ in the late 80’s and early 90’s and are now referred to as the ‘Dones’ or ‘Church Refugees’. These are not all people who can’t get along at a regular church like I used to think—they are mostly genuine Christian people who love God and are often sad that they can no longer be part of a church family.

5.      There is now emerging a new concern within the evangelical church in NZ, namely what The Barna Group refers to as ‘Cultural Christians’. These are people who are ostensibly committed to a local church but whose faith in Christ is either non-existent or at a very low level at best. In other words, Christian on Sunday, secular on Monday.

6.      The following denominations are in decline: Methodists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Brethren, Salvation Army and Pentecostals[ii].

7.      The following denominations are experiencing increase: Catholics, Migrant congregations and the Independents.

8.      The Independent Church Sector has seen a huge increase in the number of churches in the last 10 years or so and also in the size of four churches in this category. Their growth, by and large, has been by transfer from other churches[iii] both within NZ and from new migrant peoples.

9.      Our brothers and sisters in the ‘Revivalist Stream’ have not shown any better results in conversions (and medically authenticated healings for that matter) than the evangelical, charismatic and pentecostal churches.

10.  There are, according to my research, six churches that have more than 2000 in average attendance every Sunday morning in NZ. Though ‘mega’ technically means one million we tend to refer to 2000 or more in weekly attendance as a megachurch (or very large church). These six churches are all multi-site, using digital and/or satellite technology, run their own conferences every year and except for one are located in Auckland, an officially recognised megacity of the world.

11.  There are approximately 20 churches in NZ that gather 1000 people or more every Sunday—eleven in Auckland and nine in the rest of NZ.

12.  The small church of under 100 is not financially viable any more given our current church model (i.e., a building, a full-time pastor etc.) unless it has been given or has access to ‘extraordinary funds’ or a pastor and his or her family that effectively subsidise the church which, by the way, happens a lot.

13.  Intentional church planting has been patchy over the last 15 years and has now, by and large, stalled. No denomination has had significant success here[iv].

14.  Alternative church models haven’t had traction in NZ even after all the talk about emergent church, missional church, simple church and other alternative models. I do want to note that there are a few outstanding exceptions to this.

15.  The reasons for this overall decline are many and varied which I will discuss in a follow-up paper, but suffice to say for now, here are five reasons as I see it:

• I believe that, at least in part, it is a leadership problem. Pastors are salt-of-the-earth people and by and large have chosen Pastoral Leadership as a vocation because they love God and they love people. However, many pastors do not have the requisite gifts or emotional resilience to do the job in today’s complex world. They would be better as Assistant Pastors on someone else’s team.
• Too many pastors have not personally experienced a person coming to Faith in Christ for a very long time. Pastors have forgotten that one item on their job description is to be an evangelist, a preacher of the Gospel.
• I believe our training models are not helping with the problem.
• Many mid-size churches are spending too much on wages and salaries leaving too little for the resourcing of existing sub-ministries in the church, not to say anything about new evangelism and mission endeavours. This has largely come about due to a shrinking of total volunteer hours available to churches as it has in the wider NZ community. For example, talk to most sports clubs.
• Grandma and Grandpa are quite possibly still the major reason for low levels of innovation, bold steps of faith and courageous leadership in the established church in NZ. That is hardly an issue in the newer contemporary churches where change is in the churches’ DNA.

16.  Finally, and perhaps the most sobering: Over the last 15 years we have talked a lot about being missional. Hundreds of local churches have started Charitable Trusts to do community outreach work; new training institutions have opened up and conference offerings have multiplied exponentially, it seems. While all this important activity has been going on, just about every social statistic in NZ, as a percentage of the total population, has gotten worse in that exact same period of time: Homicides, incarcerations, family violence, childhood poverty, marriage breakdowns, abortions, suicides, problem gambling, STDs, and addictions, especially the two deadly Ps (porn and Methamphetamine), to name a few. In other words, the two-way bridge is broken and has become a one-way bridge only. What started out as a genuine desire to have church people walk over ‘the bridge’ into the community, do outreaching ministry of some kind and as a result walk back over that same bridge with a not-yet-Christian person or family on their arm, has, by and large, not worked. Sadly, the bridge has only experienced one-way traffic. We have to go back, I believe, to the drawing board and figure out how we in the evangelical church can see the transformation of The City.

So, as I said, this is merely a summary—hopefully, a contribution to the ongoing discussion that is top of mind at present, and my prayer is that it will form an important backdrop to our praying, our strategizing, our conversations and our local church mission. As I have said earlier, please feel free to be in touch.

Thanks for your interest.
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[i] See https://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com/2016/02/19/a-churchless-faith-alan-jamieson/

[ii]I principally refer to the Pentecostals as New Life, Acts (formally Apostolic), Elim and the Assemblies of God as being the largest Pentecostal denominations in NZ. I know there are several other smaller ones as well.

[iii] I am aware that this sector does see reasonably good numbers (comparatively speaking) of believers’ baptisms. However, most of their growth is still transfer growth. This is a source of some pain for the churches that lose good people to these new ‘hipster’ churches.

[iv] I believe we need to have a church-wide conversation about ‘the need for church planting’ AND ‘the ethics of church planting’.

ISIS | Climate Change | Colin Craig

This month I would like to touch on three subjects quite briefly.

ISIS is Islam

Many of you will know that last year in June I hosted Dr Mark Durie on a NZ tour called Understanding Islam. We had a very good response, and it generated a lot of interest as you would expect. Mark is a highly recognised western expert on Islam.

Since the tour we have seen so many more ISIS-inspired terrorist acts of violence around the world. When the perpetrators are tracked, almost without exception, they can be traced to Islam. To say that these acts of violence are not perpetrated by Islam is simply not true. It is widely agreed that ISIS is Islamic … full stop. However, what I am not saying is that all Muslim's are terrorists—not even close. In fact most Muslims, from what I can gather, want to distance themselves from these acts of violence, even though their sacred texts teach violence of the worst kind which, of course, is a major conundrum for them. I am hearing and reading so many cool stories of Muslims coming to Faith in Christ in Auckland and around the world, especially Iran. 

I am currently praying and thinking about what WillowNZ might do as another contribution in this space. If you have any thoughts, I would be glad to hear from you. It's an issue that will not go away and by all accounts will only get worse, and therefore we need to get to grips with it. 

Climate Change

Many Christians, and especially Christian leaders, I have noticed are not believers of man-made climate change. When I ask … very politely of course … what and whom they have read on this subject, it usually amounts to not that much. 

Last week on Wednesday, a small group of Christian leaders in Hamilton were privileged to hear Dr Rob Bell, a principal scientist from NIWA, give us a superb briefing on this topic in one hour. Personally, I found this incredibly interesting and at the same time very disturbing. What are we doing to the planet, and in what condition will my grandchildren inherit this wonderful creation of God?  At current projections (which are different to predictions) it is not looking very good at all. Rob reminded us we can all do something as stewards of the good earth.

Pastor, how 'Green' is your theology?  Please note: I am in no way suggesting Christians should ‘vote Green’. 

Rob has worked in this area for 35 years—written, spoken and advised people in high places both in NZ and internationally. Rob and I are talking about how we might brief other Christian leaders and indeed Christians in general going forward. I believe this is one of a number of hot issues of our day, and we at WillowNZ would like to contribute to this discussion within our new stream of content called Willow Academy.

Colin Craig

"Our relationship became close and affectionate … I considered Rachel to be like a sister to me … I accept my affection went too far … my behaviour was inappropriate, I regret that". Colin's own words said in court by him on Thursday last week.

I do not want to throw the first stone, or any stone for that matter, as I know so many other Christian leaders, and Christians in general, have done the same as Colin or worse—sometimes much worse—and it has never been made public. Because, sadly, this case is public (very public, unfortunately) we can, and probably should, talk about it.

Before all else, this is a very sad situation. It's sad for everyone involved (directly and indirectly) and it's another very sad day for our witness as Christians. I grieve over this as we are having a tough enough job as it is. It certainly, in my view, marks the end of 'Christian-based’ political parties for a very long time which … (taking a risk here) … may not be such a bad thing actually. 

The big learning, of course, is how to ensure it doesn't happen to me or any of you, my colleagues and friends, in pastoral leadership. We have read the books, some of us have confessed our struggles in accountability groups, and we have repented before God when we inadvertently strayed off course.

For me, about 37 years ago, I committed myself to become a Proverbs 5 man, specifically verses 15-19. With Jeanette's help it has enabled me to stay on track even when things were not going all that well at times. Secondly, I think the following thoughts often. "If I mess up sexually, I will do so much damage. I will hurt Jeanette, my marriage, my children, my grandchildren, my ministry, my credibility, and my testimony. This is a price that is far too high to pay for crossing a line I should not cross … not ever. So I have established very clear and strong boundaries. I hope and pray that they will continue to serve me well into the future. I hope the same for you.  

Why am I Leaving my Church After 20 Years?

Meet M, a good friend of mine.

He’s a thoughtful guy and a good preacher. Recently, over breakfast, he talked about how he’d left his church. His comments were carefully and thoughtfully expressed. I felt he put words to what a lot of my wife Jeanette and my older Christian friends (and some younger) have been saying about their church experiences around NZ.

M’s comments are not mean-spirited, nor is he bagging the church. Quite the opposite.

Please understand I love the local church. That’s why I am doing the work I do (WillowNZ). But I think we all agree we can do better, and in most cases most of us want to do better. I hope and pray this short and honest story will be instructive and give us all something to think about and perhaps be less judgemental of the literally tens of thousands of good people in NZ who are now known as the ‘Dones or Church Refugees’. Alan Vink

M is husband and father. He and his family have been members of their church for 20 years.

For four of those years, M worked an associate pastor role. In his two final years, M created and led a group for Intermediate boys.

“Why am I leaving my church after 20 years?”

I wrote that on a serviette at my local café. I expected answers to flow because (a) I’ve had years to think about it, and (b) I’m usually good at finding the right words to frame my thoughts. But by the time my second coffee had come and gone, I had nothing on the napkin.

So I squeezed out some words. “I’m bored and uninspired.”

As soon as I wrote this, I knew I had hit the dartboard but without threatening the bullseye. I was kind of right; my church problem was like boredom and like uninspired, but these were symptoms whereas I was trying to locate the cause.

Three coffees in, I folded my near-blank napkin and left.

Weeks later, I came back to it. Same napkin, same café, but not the same approach. This time I took on the easier task of describing how church made me feel. I figured that if I could name a specific emotion, the follow-up question, What is it about church that makes you feel this way? would be instructive.

What I often experienced at church was the feeling of being perplexed. In its milder form, it felt like mere frustration. But at other times I was genuinely disturbed, even angry. So what was it about church that made me feel this way?

The songs? Yep, sometimes the words were shallow and weak, or the tempo dirgeously slow, or the band too performance-driven (should we elevate musicians on platforms?).

The sermons? Yes, sometimes they were confusing, or worse, were boring, or worse still, served no discernible purpose.

The long Mission talks? The forced ‘high fives’ with congregation members? The lengthy notices and after-match biscuit chats?

Yes to all of them.

But why would they leave me feeling disturbed to the point of leaving my church of 20 years? What was it that linked them all?

Dissonance.

Dissonance is the conflict that happens when things that ought to work together, don’t. It happens in music when notes are at odds. It happens in fashion when clothing doesn’t fit the body. Or in politics when someone’s actions contradict their words.

Wherever dissonance occurs, there are always at least two things involved: This in conflict with That. In my church, what was the Other Thing that so often clashed with the sermons and the songs, the notices and the biscuit chats?

It was the profound truths I had come to believe.

I believe that the world was intentionally made, not haphazardly formed. That the One who invented the universe was infinite and good and wise and was involved with His creatures. I believe that this good God so loved the broken, wicked world that He gave His one and only Son and that this Son, being in very nature God, somehow made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

I believe that Jesus of Nazareth is this incarnate God and that in his human form He was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities and that the punishment that brought me peace was upon Him and that by His wounds I am healed.

I believe it all.

And not only I believe it, but others do as well; the whole church, in fact. So when we gathered together as God’s rescued kids, we expected, maybe subconsciously, to be part of something that resonated with the profound things inside us.

What we got was a clash.

Our small slice of Eternity / HIM were mixed with the words of songs that seemed driven by the need to rhyme more than the need to express deep, living theology. These lyrical clichés were, in a technical sense, completely true. But in being devoid of depth and insight, they were also terribly false.

The Profound Truths often clashed with the sermons.

Having preached a little, I truly respect (and feel for) anyone who takes up this responsibility. Feed My sheep is a daunting task, which is why not many should teach. But if we’re going to take the stage, I think our speech should be of the Emmaus kind. On the road, Jesus spoke words that compelled His listeners to say, “Were not our hearts burning within us while He talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

Hearts burning.

Scriptures opened.

That kind of preaching harmonises with the Wondrous Things within us. In fact, such preaching even heats the Wondrous Things up. I have experienced sermons that were like air blown over the coals of my lukewarm convictions, making them hot again.

Boring / shallow / humanistic messages can’t do that. At best, they clash with our sense of God’s bigness and cause us to be glad when it’s time for coffee and biscuits. At worst, they shrink our sense of God till we begin to think that HE is like the messages we keep hearing.

Sometimes that leaves me angry and perplexed. But mostly I feel very little, which, in the end, disturbs me more. That’s because I’m prone to mediocrity and self-indulgence. I’m nowhere near what I could be as a disciple and cannot afford to stay in a place that allows my weaknesses to go unchallenged. What I want – what I need – is to be in a community that calls better things out of me, that helps me feel a better kind of anguish – the anguish of feeling God’s greatness and wishing that I loved Him more than I do.

So I’ve left my church of 20 years.

Where to now?

That’s the other question I’m invariably asked: “Where are you going to fellowship now?”

The truth is, I don’t know.

I’m interested in exploring other ways of gathering with believers, ways that aren’t the theatre model of seats facing a centre stage. But I’m not gung-ho about that. I could happily take my family to a church that does the standard approach well.

For me, the key isn’t 20 people vs. 200 or Seats in a Circle vs Seats Facing Forward. What I need most is a sense that the things we’re doing together are cut from the same momentous cloth as the things we believe, as the God we believe in.

Blessings

M