The Young Fogey gave me a proper shout-out in his post about Big boxes and boutiques, referencing a post by Br. Stephen Treat at The Anglo-Catholic.
He did capture the sense of “at home” I find in PNCC Parishes — down to earth people, a mixture of backgrounds and classes, all coming together to worship God without much in the way of snobbishness. It is people unafraid of their blue collar, factory, farm, coal miner, meat packer backgrounds, regardless of where they are in the present day. They embody the PNCC motto: Truth, Work, and Struggle. The PNCC also works because it is Catholic, with consistent worship from town-to-town, parish-to-parish. That works for me, as for anyone whose background and tradition is Catholic worship (or who are seeking that stability). I understand Brother Stephen’s point about certain “boutique” churches being an adventure from location to location, pastor to pastor — a disconnect from authentic Tradition and a source of confusion for seekers.
I received a press release a few days ago from Church Growth Mastery entitled The Answer to Church Growth. The press release noted: “Most Churches in the U.S. have an average membership of 60-75 members.” A citation from The Hartford Institute for Religion Research notes in its Fast Facts section:
Q: What’s the size of U.S. churches?
A: The median church in the U.S. has 75 regular participants in worship on Sunday mornings, according to the National Congregations Study. Notice that researchers measured the median church size —” the point at which half the churches are smaller and half the churches are larger —” rather than the average (186 attenders reported by the USCLS survey), which is larger due to the influence of very large churches. But while the United States has a large number of very small churches, most people attend larger churches. The National Congregations Study estimated that the smaller churches draw only 11 percent of those who attend worship. Meanwhile, 50 percent of churchgoers attended the largest 10% of congregations (350 regular participants and up).
They do note that 59% (177,000) of all parishes were small, with 7 to 99 members. The statistics exclude Roman Catholic and Orthodox parishes.
On the hopeful side, we might consider that this represents an affinity for smaller “boutique” churches, a niche. On the down side, it may represent the last of the “hangers-on,” keeping the doors open until the last member is buried (but who will bury the last member). In the end it still comes down to what each parish does, what it represents for its community. Is it open, welcoming to newcomers, or a closed society. Does it proclaim Jesus first and above all. If it is closed, or puts any message before its proclamation of Jesus, it is already cold and on the way out.
Last year, hundreds of churches took part in the first national “Back To Church Sunday,” which saw members invite more than 700,000 friends and family. This year, an estimated 1 million “unchurched” and “dechurched” people will be invited to the special day.