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There's always been an almost impenetrable barrier to church health and growth. But innovators such as Charles Fuller, Billy Graham, Chuck Smith and David Fusco have been able to break it. What is this barrier and why is it so powerful?
For almost 40 years, researchers have found that the distance people will drive to a church is a main factor in their attendance and long-term commitment. Recent research from the Baylor University Religion Survey confirmed this. Baylor found that a majority (68%) of church attendees drive under 15 minutes to a church. While this pertains to the majority of attendees, some may drive longer in rural areas and shorter in congested areas.
Research continues to support that this four-decade thesis holds true: the majority of your attendees will always be coming from within a 15-minute drive.
How I learned about this barrier from my mega-church experience.
As I was studying church plants as the minister of evangelism and church growth at a megachurch, I found that the majority of people who stopped attending our church did so because they found a church closer to where they lived. I remember interviewing one person who said, "We liked the preaching. And the worship was outstanding. But we travel almost 40 minutes each way. And that's time we could spend as a family. And, as we got more involved, we traveled back and forth even more often. Now there's a church just 10 minutes from our house. It isn't as good, but it's good enough."
After interviewing dozens of people, I discovered that an initial factor in their attendance was the good preaching and excellent worship of our mega-congregation. But over time the tedium of a longer drive would wear upon the attendees. They would then find a church nearer home. It might not offer preaching or worship as professionally. But the shorter drive would promote more family time, as well as allow more trips back and forth in their volunteer efforts.
My thesis, in part, was that though initially attracted by high-quality preaching and music, over time people found a church nearby that was "similar enough" in theology, worship, volunteer opportunities and quality.
What causes this barrier? Access. Here are first two of three principles to overcome it.
I would soon be asked to help coach churches that were suffering from this barrier. I discovered the solution usually involves three principles.
1. As people are moving out of the neighborhood and into areas further than a 15-minute drive away, there are new cultures springing up around most churches.
Sometimes called suburban flight, more recently it's occurred in the reverse, with a gentrification of urban areas (i.e. young suburbanites moving back to the inner city). These forces bring constant change for churches in the distance that people will drive, because of where they prefer to live. Instead of going to the same church for many years, the fluidity of society means people are constantly looking for something more accessible.
At this juncture people always ask, "Why can't people just devote the extra time and drive the extra distance?" It has to do with the importance of family along with the rise of the two wage-earner family. Fifty years ago, when there was primarily one wage-earner, there seemed to be more time during the week for families without interfering with church activities. But now, with the proliferation of two wage-earner families, along with the acceleration of after school and evening activities, people seem to prefer to spend time with family rather than time in a car. While this cultural trend seems to be decreasing a bit due to the rise of working from home, the preference for people to spend less time traveling in a car and more time with others seems to be holding steady.
A mother church (a church that plants other churches) would often ask me to help reach these former attendees. And, I would interview them in focus groups. I found they didn't often leave the church because of a tension or disagreement … but because of access.
As they grew in their faith and became more involved in the church, they also were no longer traveling just once or twice a week to the church. Because of ministry opportunities, committee meetings, training, etc. they were now driving multiple times every week to a church. Their journey of discipleship was being impaired, because longer travel distances created a barrier to access.
As noted above, this may have been exacerbated by the rise of the two wage-earner family. With both parents working, they wanted to spend more time with their children and not drive long distances to church activities. I would often advise the mother church that there was little they could do to reach these people. Instead, I encouraged the mother church to increase their efforts to reach out to people in their neighborhoods. This serendipitously led to outreach across racial and cultural barriers. By letting those who leave because of access do so, it forced the mother church to become more welcoming to her non-traditional neighbors.
This phenomenon I began to call the "great barrier to church growth." It was prevalent among different denominations, theologies, methodologies and personalities. In fact, there was little you could do to reach people who lived over 15 minutes away. Because after you reach them and they start to grow in their discipleship, most will seek out discipleship nearer to where they live.
The megachurch I served flourished at the beginning of a renewal movement sometimes called the Jesus Movement. Initially, people would drive distances over 15 minutes, because there weren't any other similar contemporary church options en-route. But as the renewal movement matured, many new churches sprung up, offering discipleship nearby. People opted to go to them because they were similar, not maybe as professional as our mega-church, but similar and had greater access. Years later mega-churches would try to address access by offering venues nearer to the congregants they served. All of these are effective strategies, but they are the result of the "great barrier to church growth."
2. Solutions that increase access historically have included the radio, the television and now the Internet.
If the 15-minute access barrier of church growth affects all churches, what are the solutions? Initially, the solution was putting your church service on the radio. Then in the following decades putting your church services on TV became an option (albeit initially a costly one). These options were not viable solutions for the constrained budgets of the majority of churches.
But a democratization of access brought on by the Internet's ability to easily and cheaply stream services has allowed almost any church to render the 15-minute barrier obsolete. Now any church, even those on a limited budget, can stream their services to people around the world via Facebook, YouTube and a growing list of streaming platforms.
In the next article we will explore two more ways the Internet allows almost all churches to overcome the 15-minute drive barrier to church health and growth.
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Bob Whitesel (D.Min., Ph.D.) is a foresight coach, professor, and award-winning author of 14 books. For over 30 years, he has guided leaders and churches to pivot and engage what’s next. He holds two earned doctorates from Fuller Theological Seminary and teaches on leadership foresight, church health, and organizational change. His website is www.ChurchForesight.com. Learn More » |
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