Non-Protestants Will Soon Be the Majority

Insight Four by George Bullard on the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey 2008. [Conducted by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life at www.pewforum.org.]

Learning: "The United States is on the verge of becoming a minority Protestant country; the number of Americans who report that they are members of Protestant denominations now stands at barely 51%. Moreover, the Protestant population is characterized by significant internal diversity and fragmentation, encompassing hundreds of different denominations loosely groups around three fairly distinct religious traditions--evangelical Protestant churches (26.3% of the overall adult population), mainline Protestant churches (18.1%) and historically black Protestant churches (6.9%)." [5]

Implications for Congregations: 1. The basic understandings of church, religious practice, and Christ-centered spirituality will be present among fewer people that congregations encounter. At the same time, this does not mean these people will be devoid of spiritual perspectives. They will simply be uninformed of Protestant practices, concepts, and language. Congregations will increasingly have to speak the language of the unchurched rather than asking the unchurched to speak the language of the churched. 2. Congregations do not need to convince people to be Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, etc. It is not about movement within Protestant traditions as much it is about encountering a relationship with the story of Jesus and of Christ followers. 3. If congregations feel their message of God's love is the greatest message available for humankind, then they need to re-examine how they are communicating that message if it is seen as attractive to a decreasing percentage of the population. It may be necessary to cross more cultural barriers than congregations have traditionally been willing to do.

Implications for Denominations: 1. Denominations need to look at long-term trends as to who they historically have been able to attract through the ministry of their affiliated congregations, and who they are able to attract now. Their congregations may be targeting an increasingly narrowing market of people. 2. Materials, strategies, learning experiences, and coaching needs to be provided for congregational leaders to help them re-discover how to speak authentic truth and relevance into unchurched and preChristian people groups who may be more interested in Christ and less interested in church. 3. As always, the decrease in market share must inform the church planting strategy of denominations. It is about how to start congregations that speak into the spiritual needs of unreached people groups and communities, rather than those that only recapture members who have moved into an area where there is no church of their denomination of heritage.