The recently released 2024 parochial report data tells the expected story: although many parishes in 2024 showed a small post-pandemic rebound, very few parishes rebounded to their previous 2019 ASA (average Sunday attendance). Fewer still grew beyond their 2019 ASA. Most dioceses show a 23-45 percent decline in the past 10 years. Recently at a diocesan meeting a colleague of mine expressed his concern and a nearby priest replied, “I don’t think God cares a bit about ASA.” My colleague firmly (and rightly) disagreed; Jesus’ parables often describe the growth of the kingdom, and Acts 2 testifies that the natural state of the Church is growth.
Progressives routinely explain that lower birth rates among Episcopalians (post-World War II) have caused the decline. Conservatives often point to liberal parish leadership as the cause. Yet perhaps there’s a third way to explain the spotty growth and widespread decline.
Last year’s parochial report asked: “What is one program or initiative at your Church that represents your hope for the future of your congregation or the greater Episcopal Church?” Out of 4,444 responses, the top reply (2,345 parishes) was: Social Justice Initiatives: Addressing social inequality through various programs/collaborations, like hosting food pantries, clothing exchanges, and recovery groups like AA, as well as offering meals, showers to the unhoused, and Narcan training.
The second-highest response (1,091) said that “youth and children’s ministry” is our future. The third-highest response (758) claimed “worship and music” as the key.
In fourth place, 548 parishes (out of 4,444) marked “Christian Education and Lifelong Discipleship” as the means by which the Church will grow. Put simply: Only 12 percent of responding parishes said that making disciples is how we’ll grow the Church.
No wonder spiritual lethargy spreads its ugly mantle over most of our parishes, with consequent systemic decline. While it is incontrovertible that the love of Jesus binds us to serve the poor and broken, it is also pellucid that the social gospel is a byproduct of the Great Commission. Put differently, Jesus did not say, “Go and make social workers” but rather “Go and make disciples.”
Yet 53 percent of parish leadership believes that stressing the social gospel (and Narcan training?) is how the Church will grow. Last Sunday on vacation I visited a church where a bishop said, “Young people don’t care what we believe; they care about the impact we’re having.” This is nonsense. In the past year at my parish, Galilee Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia, we have enjoyed a large influx of young people in their 20s, and every single one of them wants to know what we believe. They care that we say the Creeds. They long to grow and be challenged to walk the narrow way that leads to Christ. They thirst for sermons that exposit the Scriptures. They want to be discipled.
So what is discipleship? I don’t take for granted that everyone knows. A few years ago I was speaking with a search committee and said I was passionate about discipleship. They misunderstood and thought I was talking about conversion. (I am also passionate about conversion, but it’s different from discipleship.)
Translators know that the word we usually translate as disciple (mathetes) is better translated today as apprentice, someone who sits at the feet of a master, and whose goal is to become like the master. I often hear Christianity reduced to Micah 6:8. It’s a worthy verse, but not an adequate summary of the Christian journey. Twenty-one times on 12 different occasions Jesus said, “Follow me.” He called us to apprentice with him.
So, does your parish make apprentices who sit at our Master’s feet and then (quite naturally) go out and serve? Or does your parish stress the social gospel, and hope people will grow in faith? If your parish is the latter, it’s likely that the ASA is static or declining. If your parish is the former, with a clear vision for discipleship, I imagine it’s growing or at least stable.
I recently had coffee with a young parishioner home from college on Christmas break. Having learned she was worshipping at an Episcopal church near campus, I asked her, “What does that parish want their parishioners to do? What’s their goal?” She instantly replied, “They have a lot of service projects that they’re trying to get young people into.” The 2024 data show that particular parish’s ASA declined by 5 percent last year. This downturn, then, should come as no surprise.
The problem for many Episcopal parishes is not that they lack strategy—but they have the wrong priority. They have put the cart before the horse. Put the social gospel first and it sucks the oxygen out of the parish. Put apprenticeship to Jesus first, and a congregation will have an oxygen-rich environment for mercy ministries of all kinds.
Yet we should remember with some sobriety, even with the right priority a parish can still lack strategy. When I’m with a group of clergy, I like to ask, “Tell me how you plan adult education and spiritual formation in your parish. What’s your strategy for discipleship?”
Sometimes, but very rarely, I meet a rector who says: Well, our parish life is geared to make disciples, apprentices, of Jesus: People who over time begin to have the mind of Christ, and be his ambassadors in the world. Everything we do is geared toward helping them become like Jesus.
Usually I’m told about a “rector’s book club” on a favorite topic—or that the rector is leading an anti-racism course, or teaching a class on the Caroline Divines, Desert Fathers/Mothers, or Patristic theology, or what it means to be Episcopalian. Every one of these is worthwhile, and could help create disciples—but they are not strategic; they are patchwork efforts without a larger plan.
The widely read book The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People got at least one thing right: Begin with the end in mind. Clergy must first ask: “What does a fully formed apprentice of Jesus look like?” Then they should ask, “What programs and experiences should we offer to help people reach that goal?”
It’s not clear to me that conservative parishes grow and liberal parishes shrink. It’s even less clear that ASA decline is related to lower birth rates among Episcopalians. What is clear is that most parishes and most rectors are non-strategic about discipleship—and they tend to default either to having the “program of the month” or to the social gospel.
So, is your parish focused first on making disciples? Is there a year-long and even multiyear strategy for Christian formation? If not, your parish is likely in decline regardless of how it falls on the conservative/liberal, orthodox/progressive spectrum.
For the 12 percent of parishes that put “lifelong discipleship” as their top priority, I feel tremendous hope for the future of the Episcopal Church, and I encourage my fellow clergy (liberal or conservative) not only to put discipleship and spiritual formation first but also to develop parish programs strategically with the end in mind—the end being, as it always is, Jesus.
The Rev. Dr. Andrew D. Buchanan is rector of Galilee Episcopal Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
