Posted on 12/22/2005 4:23:09 PM PST by Dundee
Happy clappy Christmas
Swelling congregations have given two churches more to sing about on Sundays, mostly due to good old-fashioned recruiting drives, writes Jill Rowbotham
OF the millions who will flock to church this Christmas, none have better cause to celebrate than the Pentecostals and the evangelicals, because they have the numbers - as well as the Lord - on their side.
The growth rates in these two faith traditions are the envy of the rest. Pentecostals, the so-called happy clappers, take their name from the Jewish festival, the Pentecost, during which the earliest Christians were endowed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, including preaching, prophecy, teaching and the best-known "tongues", in which people speak unintelligibly in ancient languages. They are also labelled charismatics, after the Greek word for gifts of grace, and they tend to have a demonstrative style of worship.
Evangelicals are not afraid of having a good time either, but identify themselves by a passionate adherence to the Bible as the final source of authority. They tend to have a more conservative interpretation of the Bible that may preclude the acceptance of homosexuality, or the ordination of women. Some congregations have both an evangelical and Pentecostal flavour.
Perth pastor Mark Wilson describes his Whitford Church as evangelical charismatic and says the church doesn't encourage "the weird factor". Practices such as speaking in tongues are fine, but preferably not in church where it could disconcert other worshippers. "We are happy, and we clap, but some people take the line 'happy clappy' negatively," he says.
Whitford attracts a congregation of about 1100 most Sundays, across four services and two campuses. This is double the roll-up of a decade ago:
"Our vision is to reach people across generations and cultures to build the kingdom of God in multiple locations. It really took off 10 years ago when we defined our values and did some strategic planning - and probably having good leadership is a major factor."
Whitford, which started with 20 people in 1976, operates under the umbrella of the Churches of Christ but, Wilson points out, is firmly part of the "post-denominational" era. Whitford exhibits a characteristic that makes both Pentecostals and evangelicals attractive to churchgoers: a modern, more casual style of worship that doesn't necessarily follow a prayer book.
Researcher Ruth Powell, a founder of the authoritative longitudinal National Church Life Survey, says part of the attraction of Pentecostals is "they have adopted elements of contemporary culture such as music, dress, language, group process and informality, so it's a better match with some parts of contemporary Australia".
The certainty and clarity of their message is another part of their appeal to Australians faced with overwhelming faith choices. And to top it off, it's entertaining. Powell says: "Our surveys tell us the people who are there are very happy with their Christian experience."
Evangelicals, she says, are more mixed in their styles of worship. "It can be anything from the conservative forms such as what we call the 'four-hymn sandwich', to a mixed picture based on the more experiential stuff. It can vary dramatically." And both Pentecostals and the evangelicals have successfully attracted people who have not been affiliated with a church before. "For churches, newcomers are gold," she says.
Australia's best-known evangelical is Sydney's Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen, who points out that the difference between traditions is usually a matter of emphasis: so while all traditions honour and believe in the Bible, for evangelicals it matters above all else. They are also distinguished by "a great deal of emphasis on the sin and salvation story and Jesus Christ being the saviour of the world through his death", Jensen says. "And, they see the need for people to experience a conversion and have a personal faith. That turns us into missionaries."
Director of Melbourne's Anglican Trinity College theological school, Andrew McGowan, describes himself as progressive orthodox, which gives weight to church tradition, liturgy and ritual. He argues the final form of the Bible was decided "at the same time as those 'trappings' [the evangelicals] would like to reject were developing". But, he warns: "I think it is a mistake to think that evangelicals always have an unsophisticated theology."
He notes that 50 or 100 years ago, "evangelicals looked pretty much like traditional Christians, the difference may have been in the things they said. But because evangelicals are less embedded in particular cultural forms, that is liturgy and ritual, [they are] far more adaptable to changing social circumstances."
Whitford qualifies as a "healthy" church, according to Powell. She and her colleagues are preparing for the third five-yearly National Church Life Survey, to be conducted from June to November next year. One of its purposes is to give about 10,000 congregations a "health" rating, which includes vision, leadership and innovation.
The healthiest are the Pentecostals. According to the NCLS, weekly attendance at the Pentecostal Christian City churches has grown 42 per cent between 1996 and 2001, the latest year for which there are figures. The Pentecostal Assemblies of God church, which includes the wildly successful Hillsong church in Sydney, has grown 20 per cent since 1996 and a whopping 30 per cent since 1991. Compare this with the Uniting Church in Australia which has dropped 11 per cent since 1996; the Catholics, down 13 per cent since 1996; and the Anglicans, down 2 per cent in the same period.
Growing evangelical churches include the Baptist Church, up 8 per cent, and the Churches of Christ, up 7 per cent. The Anglican diocese of Sydney bucks the trend in the rest of the Anglican Church in Australia. While national weekly attendance throughout the church fell 7 per cent in the decade to 2001, Sydney registered an 11 per cent increase. Jensen estimates between 2 per cent and 3 per cent annual growth since about 1990 and a slight increase in the past three years.
The Sydney Anglicans also have an interesting age profile. Whereas congregation members aged 70 and over account for 28 per cent nationally, in Sydney they make up only 18 per cent. And while the 50-70-year-olds are on about par, 40-49-year-olds represent 14 per cent nationally, but 17 per cent in Sydney; and 30-39-year-olds are 10 per cent nationally, but 14 per cent in Sydney. There are double the national proportion of 20-29-year-olds and 15-19-year-olds in Sydney.
Jensen says Australia is one of the tougher missionary fields, being secular and Western. He's tackling the challenge with a mission of his own, to win 10 per cent of Sydney for Christ in a decade, and he's thrown the diocese's considerable resources of money and people into achieving that goal via programs to attract newcomers and seeding new churches.
At this stage, he believes some of Sydney's growth is due to mission initiatives, but for the rest takes a historical view, that it is a result of generations of actively seeking converts. "In today's world it is hard to be a Christian but because we have always stood for the idea of winning people to faith in Jesus we are making progress," he says.
Powell warns against making general statements about growth trends. "Not all evangelical churches are growing," she says. "It comes down to whether they are demonstrating those characteristics of healthy churches."
The main reason people drop out of evangelical or Pentecostal congregations is the same as for every other church: they move their residence and do not re-connect with the same denomination in their new area. This coincides with a general decline in denominational loyalty.
"People in these denominations are classic examples of people for whom loyalty to brand does not matter; they do not have a culture of sticking with it, you go where the energy is and where the action is," Powell says.
People leave the Pentecostals and evangelicals because they reach "some point where the culture or message becomes unsustainable. It doesn't fit. That's the real back door: where they leave and do not go anywhere," Powell says. "Some will not be able to sustain the belief 'package'."
Wilson knows all about the lack of brand loyalty and refers to it as "a shopaholic, church-hopping thing". "It's not like they come in and are here for life," he acknowledges. Wilson and the Whitford congregation are, like Jensen, believers in openly recruiting people to their churches. Whitford is in the process of "planting" a new church, which in its early stages is a small group meeting in Yanchep, north of Perth. The Perth congregation is multicultural, including people of 27 nationalities. It has a complex internal network of groups meeting throughout the week, catering for all ages. And the church is heavily into collecting and donating food and clothing. "We have a culture of 'thinking outside the church'," Wilson says.
bttt
Whew---I thought this thread was about sex parties on Christmas...
I fail to see the badness in that ;)
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