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What’s the “WHY?”

Conducting a nationwide survey of Churches of Christ is, obviously, a big task! We began with the mailing list from 2018 that had 10,890 congregations listed. Yep, a big task, particularly since Churches of Christ are not a monolithic, homogenous whole. Even the concept of a “fellowship” of churches may not reflect our reality appropriately. We are probably more of an association of congregations that share a similar historical rootage.

So why try to do a nationwide survey? First, let me give you some of the responses, or guesses, people have made, then I’ll walk you through the whys our project team have worked from.

Here are some of the responses or questions we have heard from people:

  1. Are you trying to “save” Churches of Christ?
  2. You’re wanting to force us into a box
  3. You’re looking for reasons to change us
  4. I hope you’re not going to embarrass us

You probably caught the drift of these responses. I was surprised at their skeptical nature. We’ve received very few positive comments other than, “I’m glad someone is doing this.” We have heard that response quite a bit. I don’t know why so many in our churches have such a skeptical view, but the skepticism does seem to be a strong current among us.

But let’s get back to the WHY question: Why try to conduct a nationwide survey of Churches of Christ? The answers run from the mundane and practical to the significant.

  1. To have an up to date directory. When Firm Foundation began gathering congregational information the chief purpose was so people could know one another, find churches to worship with when they traveled or moved, and to foster a sense of fellowship. This reason is reflected by the title of the 1957 publication Where the Saints Meet (Firm Foundation). Listings were the name of the church and an address if an address was available.
  2. To gain perspective on what Churches of Christ are like. Mac Lynn took up the cause in 1979 while living in Portland, OR, where he and his wife Marty helped start the East County Church of Christ. He saw that the Disciples and Independent Christian Churches had directories, while directories for the Churches of Christ were often either by identification stream or region. He set out to collect these regional and stream identified directories to compile them to a comprehensive whole. Mac added a few new pieces of key data. One was the identification stream (mainline, non-institutional, non-Sunday school, one cup, etc.). All total Mac used nineteen different categories to identify the stream with which congregations identified themselves. Second was the numeric information about their attendance, membership and adherents. It’s helpful to know the numeric trends and tendencies about a large number of related churches. It helps us know how we’re doing by at least one simple measure. Finally, Mac added some contact information: the name of a person, phone numbers, and as time passed church emails and websites.
  3. To add our piece of the puzzle to information about the state of religion and Christianity in America. There is a group called the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB) that keeps a record of the number of churches in America of all religious bodies and a basic count of their attendance membership, and adherents. This information helps researchers, like Ryan Burge, track the larger trends of Christianity. The information we are gaining with this survey will be reported to the ASARB as part of their ongoing work. Interestingly, from our fellowship, Flavil Yeakley Jr., who headed church growth research at both Abilene and Harding Universities, was an honored member of the ASARB.
  4. To understand better what churches in our fellowship are like and what they are doing. Our current survey work is building upon these other “whys” and adding to them. We are now one quarter century into a new millennium. The advances we are experiencing in technology are changing the substance of human existence to a depth last experienced by the introduction of the printing press in 1440. In this first quarter of the 21st century we have already gone through the Great Recession followed closely by the Covid 19 epidemic, quite similar to what our grandparents and great grandparents experienced in the first quarter of the 20th century. These events have deeply shaped the environment in which our churches exist and serve. These things raise new questions about how are churches are doing? How are they identifying themselves? How are they raising disciples and engaging their communities? How are they led? These and other questions led our project team to create a broader survey that will help us answer these and other questions. As we get deeper into the project and begin to assess the information we will have a better idea of what our fellowship is like. Which will lead to the final “why.”
  5. To provide a place for church leaders and members to look for answers to their questions. There are so many new questions churches are asking today. Church leaders are trying to address the new set of needs, desires, and situations, often without anything to go on other their own intuitions and personal experiences. Our project team will be creating a new website in the future that will be a place where church leaders can ask what others are doing and what results they are seeing. Our prayer and goal is to provide helpful, encouraging information that churches can use as they seek to be godly outposts of kingdom mission in their communities.