Volume 3, # 1
VOTF
PERSPECTIVES October 22,
2006
Congregation
Size and Clergy Shortages: Both Good and Bad News
A review by Jack Rakosky of
Congregations
in
Mark Chaves is Professor of Sociology at the
and author of Ordaining Women,(1999)
which studied the 19th- and 20th-century
ordination policies and practices
of many Christian groups in the
He found that support for the ordination of women
is associated with gender equality in the
20th century,
that positions about women's ordination are not linked to
clergy shortages,
and that practice does not necessarily correspond to
policy:
women sometimes serve as unordained pastors when ordination is
prohibited.
–From a Review by Library Journal
This is a
ground-breaking study of congregations in
It is the first random sample study of
congregations.
All previous studies, no matter how extensive,
had relied
upon congregational or phone directories.
However many congregations are not
members of denominations.
This study found that 17.9% of congregations
containing 9.7% of
the church goers were unaffiliated.
Many congregations may be so small
that they do not have there own place for worship or a phone listing.
This study found many more very small congregations than had been expected.
This study also contains many other research innovations.
It measures
congregation size by actual participation rather than by membership statistics
and asks detailed questions about the most recent weekend worship service
providing essentially a random sample of those church
services.
The good news
on congregation size.
The vast majority of American congregations
are small and vibrant.
Fifty-nine percent of
including
children.
The median congregation,
i.e. the congregation halfway up or down
on the list if all congregations
when ordered by size
has about fifty
adults and twenty five children.
Yet 96% of all congregations have
congregational singing
and 95% had a speech or sermon at their last weekend
service
(done by 99% of all congregations).
Ninety percent of all
congregations
were able to provide some form of a religious education class
for their members.
Although larger congregations may do many more things,
Chaves found that worship and religious education
were the essential marks of a
congregation,
and these can and are being done well in very small
congregations.
Why don’t we
readily perceive how numerous small congregations are?
This is because the vast majority of Americans are
members of large congregations.
Half of Americans go to the ten percent of
congregations
that have 3000 or more adults and children as regular
participants.
The half of the congregations who have the smallest numbers of
participating members
contain only 17%
of all church goers.
If instead or ranking all congregations
according to size, one ranked all church goers
according to the size of the
congregation in which they worship,
the person at the center of that ranking
would go to a church of about 400 participants
rather than a church of 100
participants.
Since there are more church goers in large congregations,
church goers perceive congregations in general to be much larger than they
are.
As Chaves points out, this misperception of
congregations
based on our over familiarity with large congregations
has
caused some faulty policy thinking in the social arena.
Yes, many of the
larger congregations do have many social programs
that do make a significant
impact.
However the vast majority of congregations are of such small size
in terms of active members and budgets
that faith based programs in
local congregations
could never replace much of the activity of government
and large charitable organizations.
Chaves also argues that misperceptions based on
congregation size
have led us to overrate their contributions to political
life
and underrate their contributions to cultural life.
Like social
activity, political activity while significant
is concentrated in a few, mostly large,
congregations.
However because of the ubiquity of worship, choirs and
congregational singing,
the involvement of congregations in the arts, even
outside of worship,
is much more substantial
than is congregational
involvement either social or political action.
Denominational affiliation and congregational size
explain much about congregations.
Not surprisingly Catholic congregations are much larger
than Protestant congregations.
Catholics account for 29% of church goers in
the
but have only 6 percent of the congregations.
Baptists account for 21% of the church goers but have 30% of the
congregations.
Methodists account for 11% of church goers but have 16% of the
congregations.
Baptists and Methodists combined account for about a third of
church goers,
slightly more than Catholics,
however they account for
almost half of all congregations
in comparison to only 6% for
Catholics!
The bad news
on the “clergy shortage”
: it is greater among Protestants than among
Catholics!
According to Chaves, 7%
of Protestant congregations
(accounting for 5 percent of Protestant
churchgoers)
are without a clergyperson or religious leader (even
part-time)
in comparison to 1 percent of Catholic congregations
(accounting for 2 percent of Catholic churchgoers).
In terms of having a
full time staff member,
39% of Protestant congregations (accounting for 18
percent of Protestants) have none;
this compares to 33 percent of Catholic
congregations
(accounting for only 7% of Catholics church goers) that have
none.
Objectively, the shortage of church professionals is far greater
in Protestant congregations than in Catholic congregations
whether
measured in terms of part-time or full time professionals
Why then do
Catholics perceive themselves as having a clergy shortage
while Protestants
generally do not?
Chaves argues
that this is because the total number of ministers in Protestant
churches
generally exceeds the
total number of congregations.
For example in the
there were 35,609
congregations and 43,872 total clergy.
However, only 24,988 clergy were
serving in congregations.
The problem, in Chaves words, is that
“although there are sufficient qualified clergy
to meet the labor needs
of the congregations,
there are substantial numbers of congregations unable
to attract those clergy
–mainly, it is safe to say, because they are unable
to provide adequate compensation
or because they are located in places
where the clergy do not wish to live.”
However, the same is true for
Catholics.
We have substantial numbers of ordained priests (mostly in religious orders)
who
simply do not want to work in parishes.
Would ordaining married men and married women to the
priesthood
alleviate our growing clergy shortage of ministers in small
congregations?
Would married men and married women, especially with
children,
be willing to move to inner cities or rural areas with their
poorer school systems?
I doubt
it.
Would ordaining woman religious solve our growing clergy shortage?.
Would they be willing to live in inner cities or rural areas.
I think
the answer is yes. Many of them are already doing so as parish ministers.
Maybe we should cease ordaining male religious who are unwilling to serve
in parishes,
and begin ordaining
women religious who are willing to serve in parishes?
What a
controversial move that would be!
But it would be faithful to much of the
tradition of the early church!
Early monasteries discouraged priests from entering.
Benedict’s
rule says they are to be treated no differently
unless the abbot gives them
an office or clerical task to do.
On the other hand many monks were called to be bishops.
That is
the origin of the current practice of having celibate bishops
in the Eastern
Churches and celibate priests in the Roman Rite.
Why are
Protestants unconcerned about their clergy shortage,
even though they appear
to have a bigger problem than Catholics.
I think the answer is simple.
Protestants understand
that they are the Church and that the clergy are their employees.
While
professional employees are desirable they can continue to be Church without
them.
Catholics, despite Vatican II do not perceive themselves as the Church
and the clergy as their employees.
When we Catholics fully understand
ourselves as the Church,
we will not have a “clergy shortage” even if we
have far fewer priests than now.
For those who love tables, this book is full of them.
Many of them are very interesting.
Unfortunately Chaves has a rather dry
style
and tends not to draw out
the implications and speculate as I have done here.
You will have to do that
on your own and perhaps have fun doing so.
I have not read his book. Ordaining Women, but the review above
suggests
that he might have been criticized for overdoing interpretation in
that book.
On the other hand this book is just the beginning of a very
innovative research program
with more to come. He may be keeping his powder
dry.
For those who really love data, even more tables can be
generated
by going to his web site http://s6.library.arizona.edu/natcong/
However, you will be completely
on your own in attempting to understand those tables
unless you buy the book
to help you.