The annual membership statistics for the Presbytery of Lake Huron for have been compiled for 2015, and once again, our churches have seen a collective loss. 2015 saw our membership drop 3.75% from 8208 to 7900. This reflects a fifty-year long decline in so-called "mainline denominations," although more recently, the trend has affected nearly every Christian denomination in the U.S. Despite these megatrends, individual results vary from church to church:  while 28 of the 49 churches in our presbytery reported a decline in membership, 9 reported gains and 12 showed no change.

I mentioned the decline of Protestant churches in the U.S. last month and described the "marginalization of the church" as an unwelcome change in our church life. This month, I want to delve more deeply into this trend. Hundreds of books and perhaps thousands of articles have been written about the decline of mainline Protestant churches. Some claim the decline is due to our lack of evangelism; others blame unfaithfulness in morality or doctrine; yet others say it is because we have not adapted to a changing religious market.  (That last category usually includes some magical formula for reversing the trend based on the model of some fast-growing megachurch.)

The most reliable studies, however, have pointed to two principal factors, which account for the vast majority of our membership loss. The first is demographic. Fifty years ago, the average Presbyterian family consisted of two parents and 3.7 children. Today, the norm is one church-attending parent with an average of less than 1.5 children. All other factors aside, this one statistic would account for a membership drop of nearly 50%. But there is another major factor too: changes in "joining" behavior and participation in organizations generally. We have increasingly become a nation of consumers, not joiners. Americans in 2015 are far less likely to join ANY group than they were fifty years ago. People prefer to "church shop" or simply do without. Denominational labels have lost their cachet if not their meaning altogether.

In 1965 there was a 2 in 3 chance that a child growing up Presbyterian would remain Presbyterian as an adult. Nowadays, the number is less than 1 in 3; perhaps as low as 1 in 4. Our children are no less spiritual; they just no longer express their spirituality through organizations, Presbyterian or other. The fastest growing religious group in America is the "nones" - those having no religious affiliation - consisting in relatively equal parts of the "nevers" - those who have never belonged to a church, and the "dones" - those who have left a former affiliation.

What does all of this mean for the Presbytery of Lake Huron and our individual churches? We will continue our discussion in future columns. As the billboards encourage us, "Watch This Space."