Optimism for the Churches of Christ?

A surprising chart...

I haven’t exactly hidden my concern for the future of the churches of Christ.

Having been in numerous half-empty church buildings where members lament their former glory days, and knowing that many congregations have closed or will in the coming years, I believe it would be irresponsible to not be alarmed.

The Slow Death of the churches of Christ

At the same time, I hate pessimism and any implication that ours is a lost cause, and that we might as well just give up. I don’t want to be unrealistically optimistic, but I will take real glimmers of hope where I see them.

Two recent possible positive signs have caught my eye

One of these is statistical, and one is more based on vibes and anecdotes.

Looking at the charts

A lot of eyes were turned our direction by a recent data post by analyst Ryan Burge. According to data he scraped from the enormous Cooperative Election Study published by Harvard University, the churches of Christ are the only Christian group not on the brink of age-related collapse.

x.com/ryanburge

This graph charts each church’s population by age. As you can see, most are very top heavy, with one exception: the Church of Christ. A second chart adds to the picture.

According to this chart, the churches of Christ are the most proportionately balanced of all of the top 20 most popular groups in the survey. By percentage, we have double the Gen Z population and 1.5-2x as many Millennials as almost everyone else.

If this data is true, then we are in prime position to hold strong in the future. While everyone else nears the brink of aging out of existence, we are well-stocked with future members.

Unfortunately, this study might not be useful at all. No congregations were contacted. It actually wasn’t even a religious study at all—that data just happened to be collected as part of a study on voters’ views and habits. Most of the respondents were users of the survey site YouGov, and their religious affiliation was self-reported.

In other words, this study doesn’t show that the churches of Christ skew younger than other religious groups. Rather, it only shows that respondents to this particular survey who self-identify as members of the churches of Christ skew younger than respondents from other religious groups.

So, it’s possible that the data is true. But it’s also possible it’s not.

While I haven’t been in even 1% of our congregations, I have almost certainly been in more than most people… and this just doesn’t pass the eye test at all.

Even Burge theorized that the outlying church of Christ results stemmed from users ignorantly picking the most generic name if they didn’t know how to categorize themselves.

So… optimism canceled? Well, not quite.

Even if the numbers of this particular survey don’t mean much, I do want to share a little bit of optimism that is a bit more tangible.

First, there are thriving congregations

When I posted about the survey, a number of Christians commented or messaged me to say that, while they couldn’t speak for everyone, their congregations reflected the even demographic distribution. And, they all reported positive signs of all kinds, showing that their local situation makes them very optimistic for the future.

In that, we should all rejoice. Strong congregations anywhere can lead to strong congregations everywhere. It also makes sense that parents of children are coming together in congregations with other kids, rather than staying scattered with one or two families per congregation.

From that foundation, we should pray for a strong retention rate that is well-placed to help the church move forward into a stronger future.

(Of course, this doesn’t mean older people don’t matter. We want them saved, too, and our congregations are richer for having them. But it’s also a measure of their faithfulness when they build churches that will be sustained long after their deaths, which is why the youth percentages matter.)

Second, the churches of Christ are making waves

One of my complaints has been that we have been so cloistered and focused on our intramural debates that when some major event happens and people are sent looking for religious answers, the churches of Christ aren’t on anyone’s radar at all. We often seem to be off the beaten path as our own little sect that they don’t want to engage.

But that may be changing.

We live in a time in which people will go online and look for answers on what the Bible teaches long before they wander into a church building. That being the case, I think exciting things are happening in that realm. People from the denominational world are interacting with our teachings in new ways all the time.

Aaron Gallagher took on a couple of Eastern Orthodox men in two discussions and held his own so well that his opponents deleted the second video. He has another debate with an EO coming up Thursday night, 2/19.

And, that debate is happening on Marco Arroyo’s channel. Marco does reaction videos to various religious videos and gets regular interaction with Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and others of various denominational stripes.

He hosted a few of us for a livestream last week in which we had numerous people from outside the church in the comments, asking questions about the churches of Christ and challenging our views. Mike and Jake Hisaw do similar work, reaching thousands of people.

There are also popular YouTubers who are taking aim at us, trying to debunk our doctrines. That’s noteworthy in itself, that we’re on their radar enough to make them feel that we’re worth of their engagement.

Outside of the debate circuit, Luke Taylor has nearly 150,000 subscribers for his Bible study channel, 2BeLikeChrist. Guys like Caleb Robertson are getting constant engagement from outsiders. In the last couple of days I’ve come across others I didn’t even know about who are teaching tens of thousands of followers. There are plenty more I haven’t named who are doing great work in their own right. I’m not on TikTok, but I know we have brethren who are reaching large crowds on there, too.

This isn’t to leave anyone out, but rather just to say that folks in the churches of Christ are making inroads in ways that haven’t always been the case.

And, I believe our Scriptural arguments hold up very, very well. The more exposure we can get in the public square of social media, the more we can help people see the plain teaching of the Word.

The fields are white

So, whether the charts are right are not, there are certainly good things happening in the churches of Christ. We can rejoice in that, pray for even more growth, and excel still more.

Within and without, there is plenty of work to do. What a blessing it is that we get to do it.

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Notes

• I have a debate of my own coming up on March 19th and 20th! More info to come, but please pray for me as I prepare.

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