ICOC Membership Survey Shows First Growth Since 2002 PDF Print Email
by Kelcy Hahn -- www.missionmemo.org  -  Saturday, 03 May 2008
Leadership >> Church Surveys

We are grateful to God that, for the first time since 2002, our annual survey of membership among International Churches of Christ shows an increase in estimated membership.

This is part one of a five part report published in cooperation with www.missionmemo.org and Disciples Today. Click here to see other reports: Church Surveys Or just use our Google search feature in the upper right corner.

Part 1 of 4: Summary, Background and Total Membership
 
Summary
 
For the first time since 2002, our annual survey of membership among International Churches of Christ shows an increase in estimated membership.
 
· Total membership increased by an estimated 1.7% in 2007, to 90,130.
 
· We now have over 560 churches in 147 countries.
 
· The losses that started in 2003 were the culmination of a ten-year trend of declining growth rates since at least 1994. Growth in 2007 continues an improving trend apparent since 2005.
 
· The ratio of growing-to-non-growing churches improved substantially in 2007. Over 200 churches reported growth, not including newly planted churches.
 
· Recovery has been uneven. Many churches continue to struggle to stop losses, much less initiate a turnaround.
 
· Overall, the numbers tell a remarkable, if uneven, tale of survival, repentance and recovery.
 
Background
 
The 2007 survey is the fourth in a series since the initial survey conducted by ICOC Info in 2004.
 
At that time the churches lacked any a formal mechanism for collecting membership statistics, and many were still wary of repeating our past unhealthy emphasis on, and use of, statistics. ICOC Info, a member-edited website with no official church status, put out the call for churches still interested in voluntarily providing annual membership statistics. That year, over 416 churches responded, and this annual survey was born.
 
Kelcy Hahn, the editor of ICOC Info, and Roger Lamb, who had recently launched Disciples Today as a successor to KNN, met in 2005 at the Seattle International Leadership Conference. They agreed to cooperatively build an official directory of churches on Disciples Today, and to conduct the annual membership survey together. Kelcy collects and analyzes the data, while Roger, through Disciples Today, provides the largest network of relationships with leaders and members in our churches worldwide, raising awareness of, and building support for, the survey.
 
The survey has also been an important tool in updating the churches’ contact information available on the Disciples Today online church directory.
 

 

After announcing the 2007 survey, we heard from 545 of the 562 churches. We thank God for this sign of maturity and health. By faith, we are entering a new era where churches feel safe sharing vital information without fear of competition and comparison.

 

I. Total Membership[1]

 

After five consecutive years of declining membership, we estimate membership increased by approximately 1.7% in 2007, to 90,130 members.

 
Survey participation in 2007 was by far the best to date. The estimated portion of total membership covers just 17 of 562 churches[2] in our fellowship, and amounts to fewer than 1,000 members, or only 1.1% of the total membership estimate. Of the total membership figure we are reporting for 2007, 98.9% of that amount is compiled from actual survey responses.
 
Two cautions apply when considering what appears to be an increase in membership in 2007:
 
1. The estimatedportion of 2006 membership was greater than the estimated portion of 2007 membership, covering 70 of approximately 546 churches. The estimated portion of the 2006 total membership was 4,043 members, or 4.5% of the total of 88,597. As a matter of course, we estimate conservatively for churches which do not report membership, so it is entirely possible some or all of the apparent increase from 2006 to 2007 is the result of under-estimating the membership of non-reporting churches in 2006.
 
2. The survey reports are based on membership as reported by the churches themselves—their leaders, administrators, and in some cases, church members. While we have little reason to doubt the accuracy of these reports,[3] there is enough margin of error to keep us from stating the 2007 finding of growth with complete certainly.
 
Having stated the above cautions, we feel free to make this observation: the 2007 result is really quite remarkable. The change from -3.6% in 2006 to +1.7% in 2007 is in many ways the equivalent of going from no growth to 5.3% growth. The financial and leadership dynamics that exist in churches which have lost members over several consecutive years make turnaround growth extremely rare,[4] but that appears to be what we are now seeing among many of the churches.


Notes for Part 1:
[1] How churches define membership varies somewhat from church to church. Among International Churches of Christ, only baptized adults and teens are considered members. Children are not considered members. Many churches have more specific criteria for defining membership, including regular participation in church activities or small groups.
 
[2] It is more difficult than one might imagine to make an accurate count of churches. It is rather difficult at times to confirm, for example, that a church is no longer in existence, by virtue of the fact that if it has disbanded, there is no one left with whom we can communicate about its status. The churches for which we are the least certain are 1) those which may have disbanded but for which we are unable to confirm this directly, and 2) those churches which may be in the process of evaluating the extent of their fellowship with us and are, therefore, reluctant to answer the survey one way or the other. The number of churches in these two categories is, in any given year, quite small (usually fewer than 10) and, with one exception, the churches themselves are also usually quite small.
 
[3] We all know of egregious examples of false reporting of membership statistics. We find it quite unbelievable, however, that such reporting could go undiscovered for long. Now that we publish the survey results openly, anyone submitting exaggerated numbers runs a serious risk of being caught lying, and even honest mistakes will eventually be spotted. Lately we have been more concerned about a tendency among the churches to be over-conservative in their estimates when an exact membership number is not known (which then unintentionally overstates subsequent growth).
 

[4] See Thomas Rainer’s Breakout Churches for a sense of just how uncommon it is for churches of any denomination to reverse a period of plateau or decline.

Tomorrow, see Part 2: Rate of Membership Growth/Decline

posted by Jerry Maday

 
Last Updated:   Saturday, 10 May 2008
 
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