Why Some Established Churches Die Painfully Slow Deaths

by Sam Rainer President & Senior Consultant

About 80% of churches are either declining or plateaued. We should celebrate the 20% that are growing, but this post is about the larger group. Struggling established churches are notorious for hanging on—not for years, but for decades. How is it that some churches can remain on life support for so long? The reasons are varied and, to some degree, contextual, but one demographic factor stands out.

Most established churches naturally settle into a mode of demographic replacement.

Assuming a church does not experience a mass exodus or a split, and assuming it roughly reflects the age demographics of the surrounding population (many do), the “replacement rate” of the population will kick in and keep the church afloat for decades.

The average death rate in the United States is 9.2 deaths per 1,000 people—roughly 1%. You’ll lose about 1% of your congregation to death every year (a morbid thought, but also reality). The “replacement rate” of a population is 2.1 births per woman. We’re currently at 1.6 in the United States. Aside from immigration, the nation is losing population and becoming older. The same goes for churches. Fertility reductions typically begin affecting population structure within 20–30 years and produce large, system-level changes within 40–60 years. Therefore, churches—like the rest of the nation—age slowly over decades and thus take quite some time to die. The current median age of a churchgoer is about 60 years old, while the median age in the United States is 39. Churches are typically a generation older than their surrounding communities. The slow trend of aging is beginning to accelerate. Churches are not getting any younger, and it’s catching up to them. As Ryan Burge has revealed, this slow aging…