OPINION Mike Doyle, senior minister of St James Berala, was on the committee writing the Sydney Anglican report on “Attendance Patterns and Mission in the Diocese” Here’ are his personal reflections.
I had the opportunity this year to be part of the Sydney Synod Committee looking at the attendance numbers in the Sydney Anglican Diocese. It was a privilege and I want to commend the chair and all the committee members for their hard and excellent work. The report they produced is excellent and significant. [1]
I have written this paper to share a couple of personal reflections on the data that may be lost in the significant size and complexity of the report.
There are five things I want to draw your attention to:
1. The Why/Is/Ought fallacy
2. The “We have a problem” fallacy
3. The fallacy of mixing up “Church Growth” with “Kingdom Growth”
4. The fallacy of division (or why helping just 20 churches may have changed everything) 5. The “big is better” fallacy
Itʼs worth noting that for the purpose of the report and these reflections, a “church” is the number of people meeting in one geographical location. It could be just one service. It could be multiple services. If a parish has services over a number of different geographic locations, each of these are considered a separate “church”.
1. The Why/Is/Ought fallacy
It is important to recognise that the numbers, on their own, can not tell us the “why”, or what we “ought” to do.
The report tells us the “is”. The “is” is the current situation in our diocese when it comes to attendance, and how it has changed over the last 10 years. At least with the data available to us.
It is possible that further research may be able to answer the “why” and “ought” questions, but that was outside the scope and capabilities of the committee.
The committee did postulate theories and make recommendations. These theories and recommendations came from the years of experience and wisdom of the committee members. The recommendations carry weight and should be strongly considered, but they were not necessarily driven by the data.
2. The “we have a problem” fallacy
There has been a push by some to suggest that Church Growth is the most objective measure available to us to indicate the health of a church and our obedience to the commands Jesus gave us. A growing church is “successful”. A declining church is a “failure”. To put it in other words – it makes us personally responsible for the outcomes of evangelism and church growth.
If you believe this you will find the report considerably alarming as it indicates a significant problem in our churches that needs our urgent attention.
Iʼm the first to admit that we have a busload of significant and major problems in our churches that need urgent attention, much repentance and immediate action. However, our decline in numbers is not proof of these problems. On the flip side – if we had increased in number, I am quite sure those problems would still exist.
It is a significant theological mistake to accept responsibility for sinners saved, or culpability for sinners who are condemned. By doing so we are putting ourselves in the place of God.
It is God who saves people, not us. He chooses who he will save, and who he wonʼt. By Godʼs grace and mercy he will at times use us as his agents to preach the news of Jesus to the lost, and as a result sinners will be saved. But the salvation of sinners is always Godʼs work, and always his choice.
As the report itself says, whilst we rightly desire to see sinners saved, and rejoice when they do, there is little exegetical, theological or sociological evidence to suggest that healthy churches will grow.
Furthermore – not all things that grow are healthy. Some things that grow are unhealthy and destructive. Cancer grows rapidly. Viruses multiple without ceasing. We are aware of many churches that grew quickly but had toxic cultures.2 An assumption that growing churches are healthy churches is morally bankrupt.
We should have godly grief that sinners arenʼt saved. Thatʼs the right response. But I donʼt think that grief should be that it is our fault that they are not saved.
When Jesus weeps over Jerusalem because of Godʼs coming judgement (Luke 19:41), Jesus doesnʼt then admonish himself for somehow failing in the mission God gave him.
When the Apostle Paul admits that his preaching is the stench of death to those who are perishing (2 Corinthians 2:16), Paulʼs reaction is not of alarm. He doesnʼt fall on his knees in repentance nor does he embark on some preaching or leadership training. Instead, Paul rejoices in those who are saved!
Jesus gives the ironclad promise that his sheep will respond to his voice and they can never be snatched away or perish (John 10:27-29). What sort of arrogance does it take to suggest that our own incompetence, lack of leadership training, or lack of measuring outcomes will thwart Godʼs plans?
Despite saying this. I do measure outcomes. I make plans and evaluate them. I am a huge fan of the consultation, training and support organisations like MT&D, CMD, ENC, MTS, Reach Australia and City to City offer. I make the most of them and I urge you to as well. I also firmly believe that if we take up the remarkable opportunities available to us, we will see more sinners saved. I am responsible for my faithfulness, and this sort of evaluation, reflection and training is part of that. Or to put it another way – if I wasnʼt evaluating my work, and if I wasn’t taking the opportunities available to improve what I do, I would be unfaithful.
But what if more sinners arenʼt saved? I am content to find my rest and peace in the Sovereign God who is reconciling the world to himself through his Son the Lord Jesus Christ.
How can I hold these two ideas together? I am to take responsibility for my actions, not for the salvation of sinners. That outcome belongs to God alone.
It is also worth considering the considerable sociological changes in Australia over the last 100 years. Those who identify as Christian in Australia have dropped from 96% in 1911 to 43% in 2021. Since 1972 church attendance has dropped from 36% to now just 15%. These drops are huge.
Itʼs a mistake to attribute this drop to the incompetence of pastors over the last 100 years or so, as if itʼs only recently that pastors have been failing to adequately measure outcomes.
Itʼs also a mistake to believe that if every pastor in Australia had the gospel heart of Kanishka Raffel, the strategic planning of Andrew Heard, the contextual insights of Tim Keller and the drive of Mark Driscoll, that the outcomes would have been significantly different.
Another way to look at it is that in the 10 years between 2011 and 2021, those who identify as Christian declined by almost 30%. That the Sydney Diocese has only dropped in attendance by 14.4% (when adjusted for population). In a sense – thatʼs a significant win!
3. The fallacy of mixing up “Church Growth” with “Kingdom Growth”
It is important we donʼt mix up “Church Growth” with “Kingdom Growth”. Doing so pushes us into the territory of empire building and celebrating attracting Christians to our churches rather than seeing sinners saved.
The data shows that where we are growing, the source of our growth is not sinners saved.
Our growing churches are growing overwhelmingly by transfer and switcher growth. They are not growing Godʼs kingdom through evangelism and conversion. They are growing their local church through attracting Christians from other Anglican and non-Anglican churches.
In fact, it is our slightly declining churches who are doing the best job of seeing sinners saved. The data shows that our churches that have declined by 0-13% have more newcomers than our growing churches. Newcomers are our best indicator of conversions. [3]
If the measure of obedience to the great commission or the health of a church is conversion, then it is our declining churches that are the most healthy or most obedient, not our growing churches.
4. Thefallacyofdivision(orwhyhelpingjust20churchesmayhavechangedeverything)
The fallacy of division is thinking that because something is true for a whole, it must be true for all or some of its parts.
Thereʼs been a decline in attendance in our diocese. Yet, what is true of the whole is not true of the individual parts.
When you break down the figures, some churches grew, more declined.
● The ones that grew, grew by a total of 7,431 people.
● The ones that declined, declined by a total of 10,640 people.
● This gives the total decline in our diocese as 3,209.
Yet – when we break this down even further we find that the vast majority of churches contributed relatively little to this overall growth or decline.The majority of our growth or decline came from a relatively small number of churches. These few churches had a significantly disproportionate impact on the growth or decline in attendance numbers in our diocese.Twenty of our churches contributed 50% of the growth of all the churches who grew. These 20 churches grew by a total of 3,731 people. 7 of those 20 were church plants.Twenty of our churches contributed 34% of the decline of all the churches who declined. These 20 churches declined by a total of 2,996 people. As a percentage of the diocesan wide decline, it is 93%. [4]
In other words – if these 20 churches had experienced no decline, it is possible the diocese would only have declined by a total 213 people.
In systems thinking, you want to find the minimal change needed to bring about the greatest results. Perhaps if we had better helped the 20 churches that declined the most, or avoided whatever circumstances that lead to their decline, our diocese would have grown.
Perhaps we donʼt need to change the whole diocese – but just work on a few small areas.
The converse is also true. Would further investmentment in the churches that grew the most have created a multiplier effect? If we invested in other churches in similar ways to how we invested in these growing churches, could we have replicated their results? Are there lessons on how these churches grew that could be replicated elsewhere in the diocese to bring growth?
A few implications:
● More research should be done on the churches that grew and declined the most. Whatcontributed to their growth or decline? Is it possible to avoid such things happening in the future (or repeat or duplicate them)? Is it possible to identify issues early and intervene to bring about a different outcome?
● Perhaps just focussing well on a few churches will bring a significant return.
5. The fallacy of “big is better”
One of the narratives in our diocese is that “big is better”. The data clearly shows that in our diocese, big is not better. Of the 21 big churches [5][ in our diocese in 2013:
● 1 grew by 20%
● 4 grew by 0-9%
● 5 declined by 0-20%
● 5 declined by 20-29%
● 3 declined by 30-39%
● 3 declined by 40% or more.
The 16 that declined, declined by a total of 1,917 people. [6] This contributed to 18% of the decline of all the churches that declined, and 60% of the diocesan wide decline. [7] Their average loss was 15.5%, [8] compared with the diocesan average of 11.6%. [9] NCLS stats suggest that larger churches are more likely to have fewer newcomers. In other words – their growth is not from conversions but from transfer.
It was outside the scope and ability of the committee to determine why large churches did significantly worse than small or medium churches. It is possible the large churches declined because they planted lots of new churches.
Implications
● More research is needed to determine what is happening, and what should be done about it.
● However, considering this small number of churches have such a disproportionate effect on Diocesan attendance, if we can help them in any way, we should prioritise it.
● If it is true that the Senior Ministers of larger churches are more likely to be better trained asleaders and have higher qualifications (such as obtaining a Doctor of Ministry), it challenges the narrative that such leadership training and qualifications bring much value. Better leadership may not lead to church growth.
● Our Diocesan Wide Property Strategy should be re-examined. The current strategy is a “large church” strategy. It plans for one geographic location per 30,000 people. This translates to 600 people in a church building per Sunday. If this is what we end up with, on current figures these churches will not do as well as one smaller geographic location per 10,000 people.
Thank you for considering what I have written. I hope that you have found the Attendance Patterns report as stimulating and challenging as I have, and I hope my reflections have provided some food for thought. Let us recommit to the wonderful and incredible endeavour our gracious Lord has given us, and pray without ceasing that the Lord of the Harvest will bring more sinners to salvation.
Detur Gloria Soli Deo
Mike Doyle
[1] The full report can be found on page 70 on Book 1 of “Synod Book 1” of the 2024 synod. The appendixes are in a separate report.
The main report https://bit.ly/AttendancePatterns
Details https://bit.ly/AttendanceAppendixB
Details of mission areas bit.ly/AttendanceAppendices
[2] Such as Mars Hill and Hillsong
[3] However, also be careful of the “fraction fallacy” (thanks to Anthony Douglas for pointing this out), where a church may have a high newcomer percentage not because they have more newcomers, but because their regulars have le, and the church is smaller. In this case, it may be that a church has doubled their newcomers from 3% to 6% over 5 years. However they have the same newcomers, itʼs just their “regulars” have all moved to the big church down the road and they are now half their size.
[4] An earlier version of these reflections had the total decline of these 20 churches as 4,449, which is an incorrect figure. The number has been updated. There is a legitimate question about if representing the decline of a subset of churches (such as “the 20 churches that declined the most”) as a percentage of the total decline of the diocese is a legitimate and helpful representation. This is included here to show the disproportionate impact on the diocese as a whole. You can make up your mind about if it is helpful or not.
[5] A “large” church in the report is a single geographic location with more than 400 meeting during the day. This could be spread over multiple services. It does not include a parish with multiple services over different geographic locations. The report used the Tim Keller definition of church sizes.
[6] An earlier version of these reflections used the figure 1691 as the decline of the 21 “large” churches. I have updated this figure to be the total decline of the 16 “large” churches that declined, excluding the 5 large churches that grew. I felt this comparison better shows the impact on the wider diocese. If you take the “large” churches as a whole, their total decline was 1,691, which is 16% of the decline of all the churches that declined, or 51% of the total decline of the diocese.
[7] There is a legitimate question about if representing the decline of a subset of churches (such as “large churches” or “declining large churches”) as a percentage of the total decline of the diocese is a legitimate and helpful representation. This is included here to show the disproportionate impact on the diocese as a whole. You can make up your mind about if it is helpful or not.
[8] An earlier version of these reflections had the average decline for large churches as 17%. This is the figure in the Synod report and an earlier version of the data. However, a mistake was made, and the correct figure is 15.5%.
[9] An earlier version of these reflections had the diocesan average of 6.7%, however this includes “new” churches. If you remove new churches, the average is 11.6%. This is a fairer comparison.
Clarification: tagged as opinion