A factor in this that is unspoken in many circles is that many of those who attend the largest denominational churches do not KNOW they are going to a church that is a part of a denomination. Those mega-churches with a denominational allegiance typically go to great lengths to obscure, bury, or never-mention-unless-asked their denominational alignment. Some of them will copy over the doctrinal statements of their denom onto their web page but rarely link over to it for fear that all these really desiring a "non" experience will be driven away. I some cases they don't want the internet trolls to "hold them responsible" for the views of the denomination either (you can imagine some of those.)
So, my thesis is that a meaningful chunk of those who identify as that 13% are actually attending a church from a denomination but they don't know it, and the leaders of that church don't want them to know it.
I say all this as someone who served as denominational headquarters chief-of-staff for 9 years where I saw this dynamic at play in our largest churches (and a majority of our new growing church plants as well). In our case we didn't really try to dislodge this approach at all, for a variety of reasons. But more on that another time.
My personal life observation -- not scientific research -- is that denominations defined and bounded their structural and programmatic identity during the Boomer generation birth period of 1946 to 1964. A few denominations finished up their institutionalization in the mid to late 1960s. However, by the 1960s the growth of styles of churches which were non-denominational began gaining strength. Then by the late 1970s and early 1980s -- symbolized by churches such as Willow Creek and Saddleback -- the non-denominational movement gained a significant crescendo. Denominations were not serving the innovation of new styles of congregations, so parachurch organizations began doing this. Then by the mid-1980s the decline of denominations ,that also started as far back as the mid-1950s in the mainline denominations, caused social science researchers to begin talking about a post-denominational era. I, myself, promoted a denominational transformation era as I felt denominations could adapt. But they could not adapt to the extent necessary so both the parchurch movement and the non-denominational movement gained momentum that denominations could not adequately respond to in a positive manner. Denominations "balkanized" through developing hard boundaries around who was truly part of their movement and who was not. Centered-set, non-denominational churches grew in number exponentially. Now it is too late for denominations without a radical "come to Jesus" scale of change. It is highly doubtful, however, that denominations are willing to make the changes necessary. Thus, we are truly in a non-denominational era and will not go back to what was.
I think this has a lot to do with people wanting a church peer group for their kids. Do you want your kid in a Sunday School class with 3 kids (two of whom are siblings) or a class of 10-15 kids? Do you want to send your teenager to a Youth Group that has 7 kids, or one with 25? A lot of parents want the bigger groups.
This then leads to the Matthew principle, where more kids join the youth group of 25 kids and it grows to 40, and 3 of the kids in the youth group of 7 leave because they don't really click with anyone there, and the youth group at the mega church seems like the place to be. The mega churches keep growing because they have more people, while small churches keep shrinking because they have fewer.
It doesn't surprise me that mega churches thrive in geographical areas with fewer kids. That just means that the average sized chuches will have even fewer kids in them, driving even more families into the mega churches, which then become the only option for finding a church with a variety of kids who are the same age as yours.
I grew up in the Christian Church/Church of Christ group, and graduated from their old Cincinnati Bible College in 1972 with a degree in Christian Education. (The college later changed its name to Cincinnati Christian University, but closed its doors at the end of 2019.) The CC/C ofC were one of three groups that grew out of the New Testament Restoration movement of the early 1800s. Arguments over the use of musical instruments in services after the Civil War resulted in the rise of the Church of Christ (acapella or non-instrument) by 1900. Disputes over liberal theology in the 20th century eventually led to another split, and the organization of the Disciples of Christ denomination in the '60s. The conservative wing did have an annual convention--the North American Christian Convention--although the only business conducted was planning future conventions. There was no authoritative organization or structure above the local church; however, there was quite a bit of what might be called "cultural conformity." But in some ways the group I grew up in might be looked at as a precursor of today's non-denominational churches. They at least set a precedent that you didn't have to have a denominational structure to survive.
Later I spent 9 years as part of a congregation that had been CC/C of C, but had drifted into the charismatic movement in the 1980s, and still later spent 10 years with a Vineyard church in Cincinnati.
I think we are seeing a nationwide failure of institutions in the US. The mainline denominations are part of it. But so are the declines of civic organizations (I was in a Boy Scout troop that was sponsored by the local Kiwanis Club--haven't heard anything of them in a while), public education, universities, and even government. Besides the messes going on with the federal government, we have states that appear to be falling apart--eastern counties in Oregon wanting to become part of Idaho, western counties in Maryland wanting to join West Virginia, suggestions to divide California into 4 or 5 states--and serious decline in many major cities.
What causes this? I think there is a case to be made that the 20th century was the age of the Bigs--Big Business, Big Government, Big Education, and more. But after a century of that, it seems likely that the people running the Big institutions have drifted too far and lost touch with the people at the bottom--and the people are starting to go their own way.
I think this doesn't just have to do with a declining attachment to institutions, but just the logical endgame of Protestantism. If your faith is based on "Bible and Faith Alone", and the Bible says there is "One Body" of Christ, eventually believers are going to lose not only the justification for a bunch of separate denominations all bearing the name of their human founder or theological particularities, but they are also going to find the emphasis on differences and divisions distasteful.
Christianity desires some kind of unity. Eventually the tension between the Scripture and Faith Alone ethos and the biblical necessity of Christian unity is going to break.
If you can't have official institutional unity because Protestant logic doesn't support strong ecclesial authority and is too theologically diffuse, you can at least get something that feels like a loose, spiritual unity by smoothing over emphasis on those theological divisions and just calling your Churches "non-denominational."
The thinning of ethnic and local cultural ties also contributes to the decline as people fully assimilate.
I was baptized American Lutheran (which later became part of the ELCA). I was baptized this because my grandparents were (very late stage) Swedish immigrants. In the early 80s the ELCA "got weird" in my mom's words, so we switched to the LCMS when I was two.
What was the purpose in being Lutheran if you threw out the cultural "Lutheran-ness" and ties to Germany and Scandinavian culture? That really was why we switched. The local LCMS Church kept singing old hymns and the local ELCA Church was trying to get all the old Swedes and Norwegians to sing African Spirituals, which is quite cringe.
But by the time I got to college most other LCMS kids I knew were questioning how a small offshoot of an offshoot whose tradition was less than 500 years old was consistent with what Jesus had in mind 2000 years ago. They were questioning the very notion of such an ethnic tradition to begin with.
And again, what was the point in being Lutheran if its not ethnic and cultural? The theology is not particularly logical or consistent with historical understandings of Christianity.
Most LCMS kids I grew up with went non-denominational, not out of hostility towards institutions, but out of a desire for a deeper Christian authenticity that was at the same time more in tune with modern needs when it came to worship and fellowship. They wanted an institution, just one that better met their idea of what Christianity should be.
A few however, like myself, converted to Catholicism. I was received in 2001, at the end of my sophomore year of college. We were also motivated by a desire for a deeper Christian authenticity, but one perhaps more attached to ancient tradition and with a deep intellectual core.
I can only think of three LCMS kids I grew up with that remained in the denomination - but most LCMS kids I grew up with are still practicing Christians.
I curious if there is data on self-report of the switchers from Dom to Non-dom, on reasons give. How much is distrust of institutions, desire to not be within a formal hierarchy, loyalty to individual pastor/church leader vs church tradition, or that non-dom more comfortable being openly Christian nationalist/dominionist.
I suspect (but am not sure) that non-dom tends to lean more into partisan and culture war side of things which may be a draw for Christian seeking more apocalyptic/prophetic/spiritual warfare narrative from thier church service.
These are questions and hypothesis, not statements of fact.
Yep. I think one of the biggest things denominations did was to give us an idea of what each church believed if we, for example, moved to a new town. I know what the "First United Methodist" is going to teach, i know what the "First Evangelical Free Lutheran" is going to have going on on a sunday, and so forth.
But that's changed now, due to technology. Now, if i move, i can just ask Dr. Google what positions each church holds, regardless of the name. I no longer need that nationwide (or worldwide) structure to evaluate each church.
That said, i do think the loss of accountability with all these independent churches is a problem. I think denominations do provide some oversight, though I do think it doesn't matter when a church can just renounce their denominational affiliation at any time.
Finally, I would argue (as many have) that these mega churches in particular (not all independent churches of course) act as their own denomination anyway, with various congregations that could be spread throughout a city or even a country.
Amazing, thank you. Is there literature about what, if anything at all, all of these thousands of non-denominational churches share in common, other than being "non"?
I.e. is it like an "other" category that is just a catch-all, or is there a genuine "thing" that is typical of the "non"s?
Several of the organizations I work with have changed their names and brands to move away from unfortunate events when their names were ruined because of bad publicity. By far the largest churches in Ohio are nondenominational. Some were planted as NONs but most removed their old skins and emerged with Willow Creek names matching their location or a nice biblical moniker.
It started in the Jesus Movement when new music and new styles emerged and replaced the old ways of worship and relating. We also started to welcome people with unseemly backgrounds of drugs, sex, and crime that traditional churches rejected. The growth of charismatic and Vineyard congregations with no names also mixes things up.
The denominational model is really just European State Church 2.0. Like any institution, it attracts grifters looking to grift off a big well-funded organization. This is true even of fairly orthodox denominations. But in the marketplace of ideas, grifting organizations don't last. They promise great things because of the collected strength of a big organization, but in reality all that collected strength is consumed by the internal grifters. That's why big companies like IBM etc. always end up running out of juice, laying off, restructuring, etc. All large institutions that don't have guaranteed funding (think Universities and Government) eventually have to purge the dead wood, or become dead wood. Non-denoms are really the separatists of our day. Unfortunately, unlike the 17th century separatists, the non-denoms can be characterized by 'fluid' doctrine, or no doctrine, style but no depth, charisma but no Holy Spirit. They are the new Kiwanis / Rotary / Lion's Clubs - maybe even a bit Masonic spiritually. So the goats are moving out of the denominations into their own pastures. The new shepherds are entrepreneurs who know how to plant a pasture and build a brand. They won't survive once the persecution begins in earnest. Be interesting to see your graphs in about 2 years or so.
In the chart of denominations and their sizes, the line for Church of Christ is followed by Christian Church and Church of Christ. Was that second mention of Church of Christ supposed to be Disciples of Christ (which I usually couple with Christian Church)?
I also wonder about the role of small-group ministry in gaining or retaining members. Evangelical churches seem to excel at involving folks in small fellowship groups, whereas for most mainline and Catholic churches, small faith-sharing groups are not on the radar. There may have been a time in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s when mainline and Catholic congregations had thriving movements like Cursillo, Walk to Emmaus, and Marriage Encounter to bond members to each other (and to their churches), but those ministries have all diminished in terms of numbers.
What would be interesting to explore more deeply is that the loose non-denominational networks. They are more inter-connected and associated than many people realize. Many nondenom mega churches have church planting arms that birth a lot of the new churches, and many of the child churches relate back to the mother church, though in a more relational way rather than in a top-down denominational way.
Great article, great graphs. My neighborhood fits the picture for Washington nicely. Decent working class area, mixed race. There are four churches in easy walking distance. One 'Cornerstone', one E-Free, one black unaffiliated Baptist, one Northern Baptist.
Excellent analysis as usual, Ryan.
A factor in this that is unspoken in many circles is that many of those who attend the largest denominational churches do not KNOW they are going to a church that is a part of a denomination. Those mega-churches with a denominational allegiance typically go to great lengths to obscure, bury, or never-mention-unless-asked their denominational alignment. Some of them will copy over the doctrinal statements of their denom onto their web page but rarely link over to it for fear that all these really desiring a "non" experience will be driven away. I some cases they don't want the internet trolls to "hold them responsible" for the views of the denomination either (you can imagine some of those.)
So, my thesis is that a meaningful chunk of those who identify as that 13% are actually attending a church from a denomination but they don't know it, and the leaders of that church don't want them to know it.
I say all this as someone who served as denominational headquarters chief-of-staff for 9 years where I saw this dynamic at play in our largest churches (and a majority of our new growing church plants as well). In our case we didn't really try to dislodge this approach at all, for a variety of reasons. But more on that another time.
My personal life observation -- not scientific research -- is that denominations defined and bounded their structural and programmatic identity during the Boomer generation birth period of 1946 to 1964. A few denominations finished up their institutionalization in the mid to late 1960s. However, by the 1960s the growth of styles of churches which were non-denominational began gaining strength. Then by the late 1970s and early 1980s -- symbolized by churches such as Willow Creek and Saddleback -- the non-denominational movement gained a significant crescendo. Denominations were not serving the innovation of new styles of congregations, so parachurch organizations began doing this. Then by the mid-1980s the decline of denominations ,that also started as far back as the mid-1950s in the mainline denominations, caused social science researchers to begin talking about a post-denominational era. I, myself, promoted a denominational transformation era as I felt denominations could adapt. But they could not adapt to the extent necessary so both the parchurch movement and the non-denominational movement gained momentum that denominations could not adequately respond to in a positive manner. Denominations "balkanized" through developing hard boundaries around who was truly part of their movement and who was not. Centered-set, non-denominational churches grew in number exponentially. Now it is too late for denominations without a radical "come to Jesus" scale of change. It is highly doubtful, however, that denominations are willing to make the changes necessary. Thus, we are truly in a non-denominational era and will not go back to what was.
I think this has a lot to do with people wanting a church peer group for their kids. Do you want your kid in a Sunday School class with 3 kids (two of whom are siblings) or a class of 10-15 kids? Do you want to send your teenager to a Youth Group that has 7 kids, or one with 25? A lot of parents want the bigger groups.
This then leads to the Matthew principle, where more kids join the youth group of 25 kids and it grows to 40, and 3 of the kids in the youth group of 7 leave because they don't really click with anyone there, and the youth group at the mega church seems like the place to be. The mega churches keep growing because they have more people, while small churches keep shrinking because they have fewer.
It doesn't surprise me that mega churches thrive in geographical areas with fewer kids. That just means that the average sized chuches will have even fewer kids in them, driving even more families into the mega churches, which then become the only option for finding a church with a variety of kids who are the same age as yours.
I grew up in the Christian Church/Church of Christ group, and graduated from their old Cincinnati Bible College in 1972 with a degree in Christian Education. (The college later changed its name to Cincinnati Christian University, but closed its doors at the end of 2019.) The CC/C ofC were one of three groups that grew out of the New Testament Restoration movement of the early 1800s. Arguments over the use of musical instruments in services after the Civil War resulted in the rise of the Church of Christ (acapella or non-instrument) by 1900. Disputes over liberal theology in the 20th century eventually led to another split, and the organization of the Disciples of Christ denomination in the '60s. The conservative wing did have an annual convention--the North American Christian Convention--although the only business conducted was planning future conventions. There was no authoritative organization or structure above the local church; however, there was quite a bit of what might be called "cultural conformity." But in some ways the group I grew up in might be looked at as a precursor of today's non-denominational churches. They at least set a precedent that you didn't have to have a denominational structure to survive.
Later I spent 9 years as part of a congregation that had been CC/C of C, but had drifted into the charismatic movement in the 1980s, and still later spent 10 years with a Vineyard church in Cincinnati.
I think we are seeing a nationwide failure of institutions in the US. The mainline denominations are part of it. But so are the declines of civic organizations (I was in a Boy Scout troop that was sponsored by the local Kiwanis Club--haven't heard anything of them in a while), public education, universities, and even government. Besides the messes going on with the federal government, we have states that appear to be falling apart--eastern counties in Oregon wanting to become part of Idaho, western counties in Maryland wanting to join West Virginia, suggestions to divide California into 4 or 5 states--and serious decline in many major cities.
What causes this? I think there is a case to be made that the 20th century was the age of the Bigs--Big Business, Big Government, Big Education, and more. But after a century of that, it seems likely that the people running the Big institutions have drifted too far and lost touch with the people at the bottom--and the people are starting to go their own way.
I oversimplify but the genesis of this was the church growth movement in the 80’s. This led led to the mega church model.
These have hoovered substantial numbers of people out of small and medium sized churches.
I think there is the American consumerism angle which needs to be factored in.
Also, if you’ve not read The Fourth Turning it would be interesting to overlay his sociological theory on what’s going on in the Church.
I think this doesn't just have to do with a declining attachment to institutions, but just the logical endgame of Protestantism. If your faith is based on "Bible and Faith Alone", and the Bible says there is "One Body" of Christ, eventually believers are going to lose not only the justification for a bunch of separate denominations all bearing the name of their human founder or theological particularities, but they are also going to find the emphasis on differences and divisions distasteful.
Christianity desires some kind of unity. Eventually the tension between the Scripture and Faith Alone ethos and the biblical necessity of Christian unity is going to break.
If you can't have official institutional unity because Protestant logic doesn't support strong ecclesial authority and is too theologically diffuse, you can at least get something that feels like a loose, spiritual unity by smoothing over emphasis on those theological divisions and just calling your Churches "non-denominational."
The thinning of ethnic and local cultural ties also contributes to the decline as people fully assimilate.
I was baptized American Lutheran (which later became part of the ELCA). I was baptized this because my grandparents were (very late stage) Swedish immigrants. In the early 80s the ELCA "got weird" in my mom's words, so we switched to the LCMS when I was two.
What was the purpose in being Lutheran if you threw out the cultural "Lutheran-ness" and ties to Germany and Scandinavian culture? That really was why we switched. The local LCMS Church kept singing old hymns and the local ELCA Church was trying to get all the old Swedes and Norwegians to sing African Spirituals, which is quite cringe.
But by the time I got to college most other LCMS kids I knew were questioning how a small offshoot of an offshoot whose tradition was less than 500 years old was consistent with what Jesus had in mind 2000 years ago. They were questioning the very notion of such an ethnic tradition to begin with.
And again, what was the point in being Lutheran if its not ethnic and cultural? The theology is not particularly logical or consistent with historical understandings of Christianity.
Most LCMS kids I grew up with went non-denominational, not out of hostility towards institutions, but out of a desire for a deeper Christian authenticity that was at the same time more in tune with modern needs when it came to worship and fellowship. They wanted an institution, just one that better met their idea of what Christianity should be.
A few however, like myself, converted to Catholicism. I was received in 2001, at the end of my sophomore year of college. We were also motivated by a desire for a deeper Christian authenticity, but one perhaps more attached to ancient tradition and with a deep intellectual core.
I can only think of three LCMS kids I grew up with that remained in the denomination - but most LCMS kids I grew up with are still practicing Christians.
I curious if there is data on self-report of the switchers from Dom to Non-dom, on reasons give. How much is distrust of institutions, desire to not be within a formal hierarchy, loyalty to individual pastor/church leader vs church tradition, or that non-dom more comfortable being openly Christian nationalist/dominionist.
I suspect (but am not sure) that non-dom tends to lean more into partisan and culture war side of things which may be a draw for Christian seeking more apocalyptic/prophetic/spiritual warfare narrative from thier church service.
These are questions and hypothesis, not statements of fact.
Yep. I think one of the biggest things denominations did was to give us an idea of what each church believed if we, for example, moved to a new town. I know what the "First United Methodist" is going to teach, i know what the "First Evangelical Free Lutheran" is going to have going on on a sunday, and so forth.
But that's changed now, due to technology. Now, if i move, i can just ask Dr. Google what positions each church holds, regardless of the name. I no longer need that nationwide (or worldwide) structure to evaluate each church.
That said, i do think the loss of accountability with all these independent churches is a problem. I think denominations do provide some oversight, though I do think it doesn't matter when a church can just renounce their denominational affiliation at any time.
Finally, I would argue (as many have) that these mega churches in particular (not all independent churches of course) act as their own denomination anyway, with various congregations that could be spread throughout a city or even a country.
po-tay-to po-tah-to
Amazing, thank you. Is there literature about what, if anything at all, all of these thousands of non-denominational churches share in common, other than being "non"?
I.e. is it like an "other" category that is just a catch-all, or is there a genuine "thing" that is typical of the "non"s?
Several of the organizations I work with have changed their names and brands to move away from unfortunate events when their names were ruined because of bad publicity. By far the largest churches in Ohio are nondenominational. Some were planted as NONs but most removed their old skins and emerged with Willow Creek names matching their location or a nice biblical moniker.
It started in the Jesus Movement when new music and new styles emerged and replaced the old ways of worship and relating. We also started to welcome people with unseemly backgrounds of drugs, sex, and crime that traditional churches rejected. The growth of charismatic and Vineyard congregations with no names also mixes things up.
Seems the nastiest aspects of American religion comes from the non denom parts.
The denominational model is really just European State Church 2.0. Like any institution, it attracts grifters looking to grift off a big well-funded organization. This is true even of fairly orthodox denominations. But in the marketplace of ideas, grifting organizations don't last. They promise great things because of the collected strength of a big organization, but in reality all that collected strength is consumed by the internal grifters. That's why big companies like IBM etc. always end up running out of juice, laying off, restructuring, etc. All large institutions that don't have guaranteed funding (think Universities and Government) eventually have to purge the dead wood, or become dead wood. Non-denoms are really the separatists of our day. Unfortunately, unlike the 17th century separatists, the non-denoms can be characterized by 'fluid' doctrine, or no doctrine, style but no depth, charisma but no Holy Spirit. They are the new Kiwanis / Rotary / Lion's Clubs - maybe even a bit Masonic spiritually. So the goats are moving out of the denominations into their own pastures. The new shepherds are entrepreneurs who know how to plant a pasture and build a brand. They won't survive once the persecution begins in earnest. Be interesting to see your graphs in about 2 years or so.
In the chart of denominations and their sizes, the line for Church of Christ is followed by Christian Church and Church of Christ. Was that second mention of Church of Christ supposed to be Disciples of Christ (which I usually couple with Christian Church)?
I also wonder about the role of small-group ministry in gaining or retaining members. Evangelical churches seem to excel at involving folks in small fellowship groups, whereas for most mainline and Catholic churches, small faith-sharing groups are not on the radar. There may have been a time in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s when mainline and Catholic congregations had thriving movements like Cursillo, Walk to Emmaus, and Marriage Encounter to bond members to each other (and to their churches), but those ministries have all diminished in terms of numbers.
What would be interesting to explore more deeply is that the loose non-denominational networks. They are more inter-connected and associated than many people realize. Many nondenom mega churches have church planting arms that birth a lot of the new churches, and many of the child churches relate back to the mother church, though in a more relational way rather than in a top-down denominational way.
Great article, great graphs. My neighborhood fits the picture for Washington nicely. Decent working class area, mixed race. There are four churches in easy walking distance. One 'Cornerstone', one E-Free, one black unaffiliated Baptist, one Northern Baptist.