If you have an attrition rate of even 10% – 10% just bag it – ok, because they run into questions and you don’t teach them anything, and they just lose their faith. Every one of those 10% is going to have a circle of friends and family. And they’re going to relate why they are not Christians to those people.
Michael Heiser
I almost fell out of my chair watching this. It’s Michael Heiser, one of the theologians I follow, discussing the damage of even 10% attrition in the church caused by poor biblical teaching. My home congregation, and the fellowship of churches that I am a part of, the International Church of Christ, experiences about 75% attrition. I know, right? 75%. Of all the hard work done to bring someone into a relationship with Jesus, we lose 3 out of 4. From those who continue to stick around I hear the comment that it doesn’t matter what scripture is used, the sermon is the same every week. Week after week. Year after year. There really isn’t constructive biblical instruction happening. And you don’t have to look too far on, say, Facebook to see the ramifications of the damage done to former members. This ranges from meh to active hostility in public forums.
That 75% number hits hard. About 350 people currently identify my local congregation as their family and community of worship. When I was a young Christian in the late 1980s and early 1990s, this congregation numbered about 800. I’ve experienced the shedding of maybe 1,500 people in the intervening years. And these aren’t just flighty people with low levels of commitment; they are sons and daughters of my dear friends, and their friends who have become my friends. People who have grown up with my daughters and around my family.
This experience isn’t just anecdotal. Andy Fleming1 studied attrition in the ICOC in detail and published his findings in a 2018 paper entitled Let Each One Be Careful How He Builds: A study of the statistical narrative of the International Churches of Christ (ICOC) – the initial growth phase. Fleming identifies faulty strategic planning and decision making that did not account for the data in the underlying assumptions that led to ineffective approaches to structuring a church and ministry. Fleming interprets the data through a number of charts he developed that point over and over to faulty building practices. I’m guessing this is why he titles his paper as he does.
On page 21 Fleming comments on a tipping point where the number of people leaving the fellowship and the number of people staying resulted in a reduction of the growth rate eventually leading to a point of no growth in 2002. At the end of 2002 the absolute membership number was essentially the same as the start of 2002.
This article began by identifying a movement-wide tipping point in 1999 that seemed to come without warning. This “tipping point” corresponded to a strong decline in the number of annual “additions,” [baptisms] and a delayed and weaker decline in the number of “deletions” [people leaving] . . . We also noted that this same phenomenon was experienced almost simultaneously among the World Sectors and therefore no particular World Sector’s performance served as a warning to the others.
Andy Fleming
Fleming focuses on the data and provided some commentary on the inner workings of ICOC planning that played a part in this dynamic. What Fleming doesn’t address are external influences on the ICOC. External influences would be a different study. I suspect with the then recent attack on the World Trade Center buildings and the ensuing war and hunt for Sadaam Husein, a number of cultural dynamics fundamentally shifted, and our church structures, leadership, and worldview were not ready or able to address these.
Fleming does address in a footnote on p23 the continued success of God’s work in China:
Worthy of mention among these churches of over 2,000 members was the solid building done by God through Scott & Lynne Green. The Hong Kong church grew exponentially for its first 9 years (as compared to the 4.3 average for this church size) and had an “overall accumulative retention rate” of 59.5% after 10 years (as compared to the 38.1% average for this church size).
Andy Fleming
God will make himself known in a country that takes the position that God does not exist or denies that Jesus is the messiah. Quiet stories of growth and God making himself known surface regularly out of atheist and Muslim regions of the world.
Kyle Spears hosts the Truth, Trauma, and Theology podcast, YouTube channel, and paid membership Patreon site where he directly interacts with his audience. Spears’ interview with Fleming on Patreon introduced me to Andy Fleming and his work. The conversation was enlightening and led me to read Fleming’s findings. Spears hosts a number of conversations with ICOC leaders on his YouTube channel that I think are worth paying attention to. I’ll provide a list of these at the end of this post.
With a 75% attrition rate you would be justified asking why I’m still part of this fellowship. A similar question was raised in the Spacemakers community group recently: “Would people stay if it weren’t for the relationships?”
I would restructure this question a bit. My understanding of Christianity is that Jesus is the messiah that the Jewish people expected. As such, Christianity, in a real sense, is built on the foundation of Judaism and all that comes with it – its 4,000 years of tradition, the deep sense of community, the thorough understanding of their God, a well constructed and edited written scripture, and the compassion and generosity expected of them as God’s people tasked with drawing The Nations back to himself. With that as the backdrop, I’ve been a member of my home church, this specific congregation, since 1987. This is my family. I met my wife here. I raised my daughters here. My oldest was married here. My best friends are here. I’ve met nearly weekly for almost 20 years with two men in this fellowship. Together we’ve worked through the deaths of those close to us, difficulties in raising our children, struggles through our marriages, our own pride and behavior that has hurt others, mental health and counseling, and church and leadership issues. Like the Jewish people who simply are Jewish, I am a Christian and this is my family. It’s not even that I’m committed to this group of people I call family and I won’t give up on them. Like blood relations, I didn’t ask to enter this community. I’m just in it. Where else would I go?
While I don’t know the practices of other churches, the mindset of moving from church to church doesn’t make sense to me (seriously no judgement on those that don’t stay with one specific church body; my statement is about me). That isn’t to say that I won’t find myself in the proverbial Babylon at some point with God saying this was his doing so be content with it. In that case it won’t matter what mindset I have and I’ll find myself in another faith community. As it is, it’s the church leaders, the ministry staff, who come and go over time in my local congregation. The members are the ones who are consistent from year to year and decade to decade. At least the 25% who are able to accept the dysfunction, adapt, and stick around. So, for me, it’s not the relationships that keep me. This is my church, my family. If someone goes, pretty much no matter how bad it gets, it won’t be me. Perhaps I’ll eat these words at some point.
What might some underlying causes of the horrific ICOC attrition rate be? I’ll comment on one because it’s prevalent in the churches geographically close to me.
At the end of his paper, Fleming provides commentary on his findings. Among his conclusions is that after the first leaders essentially trained themselves up in the 1970s, the subsequent waves of leaders were not equipped for the task of effectively leading churches.
The evangelistic zeal that characterized most pre-2003 ICOC church plantings demonstrated the emphasis placed on mastering the “first principles” (KJV for “elementary teachings”) and the success of that training. Many church plantings grew quickly and experienced a “multiplication” effect as a direct result of this intentional equipping of every new disciple to study the Bible with another person. In strong contrast to this deliberate training, there was no corresponding “second principles” available to equip the disciples to responsibly train each other in the “constant use” of “the teaching about righteousness.” That is not to say, that such training never happened, but this second stage of “making disciples” was never granted the priority or clarity that learning to “baptize” a new person had been given. (It should be noted that since 2003, a small number of church families have seriously addressed this lacking and implemented training programs and even designated leadership roles for the sole purpose of ongoing discipleship.) Admittedly, the first part of making disciples is more straightforward and easier to master when compared with the lifelong challenge of living the Christian life every day and developing deeper relationships—discipleship can be a “messy” business. Consequently, this emphasis on the mandate “to baptize” unconsciously relegated “teaching them to obey everything” to a less important position.
Fleming, p33
Fleming goes on to communicate personally and vulnerably his own failure to train others. I can’t say how much I appreciate and respect his honesty.
All through these planting years my wife and I tried to serve in love and good conscience, and to this day have close relationships with many brothers and sisters and continue to receive warm and loving welcomes from these congregations. At the same time, as Paul said, “my conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent.” (1 Cor 4:4) The first year of the Moscow church witnessed 850 baptisms, and the planting of three new congregations. During that first year, the mission team met together for ministry training four mornings a week where we studied great quantities of scripture, focused on personal discipleship, and spent time in prayer. After one year, many of these ministry interns became the leadership of three new mission teams and were sent out to plant new churches. God blessed these efforts and all these new congregations got off to a great start and reached 500 in membership within their first 3 years. But unfortunately, reproducing that same training experience proved to be very difficult, and from that point forward the teams went out more poorly trained and were less capable of converting large numbers of people. In my zeal to plant more churches quickly, I know that I exposed under-prepared disciples to some very challenging situations—and for that I am sorry.
Fleming, p37
Today, we’re still in that space.
Most ministry staff in the ICOC has no formal training. At one time this was recognized as a positive characteristic of our leadership. After all, the Jewish leaders recognized Jesus’ disciples as unschooled ordinary men. This point of view didn’t take into account Jesus’ disciples knowing both what their scriptures said and what their scriptures meant because they learned from Jesus, their rabbi. It’s not that the disciples were ignorant that caused the Jewish leaders to take note. They took note because the disciples’ understanding of the scriptures was on par with their own – even though they were unschooled ordinary men.
What are the ramifications of this lack of training IRL? A lead pastor recently recommended the book The Bait of Satan to me. He told me another lead pastor recommended this book to him. This gave me pause after reading it. It’s not a terrible book, but it’s not at all the mature equipping that Jesus’ followers need to fulfill the mission of making disciples and building his church. And I fear our church leaders aren’t in a position of being equipped enough to notice that a book like this is more of a problem than it is part of the solution: They don’t know what they don’t know. Warren Buffett, arguably the world’s greatest investor, describes this as a difficult position to be in and to stay away from investments in this space because you can’t make good decisions. In the church context, as scary as that scenario is, even that isn’t an insurmountable problem. It’s when those ministers aim to undermine the people who are equipped and don’t understand their own blindness that we have a problem.2
Anyway, The Bait of Satan was recommended to me by a lead pastor. I know. With a title like that I didn’t expect much either. I read it. let’s just say the book met my expectations. It’s an ok enough personal devotional book. In a couple of places the author makes very good points about personal character development. You could categorize this as Christian Self-Help, similar to the secular titles like Awaken the Giant Within or the Mars-Venus book.
The author of The Bait of Satan makes liberal use of proof texting and bible versions (mostly KJV) that translate the Greek and Hebrew as “offense” as in “take offense” or “are offended” because it fits his preconceived ideas. You kind of know when an author is stretching to make a point when the KJV isn’t their primary translation. When they use 15th century English to make points in the 21st century, they generally need to equivocate over language because a modern translation doesn’t make the point they need to make. Take the idea that God has prepared a mansion in heaven for each one of us. I’m sure you’ve heard this before. And the statement brings to mind a beautiful home that I’ll call mine for all eternity. That concept originates in the KJV where in the 15th century the word mansion is nothing more than the common word for a house or apartment that we might use today.
Sure, I get it. “Andy, you’re just complaining.” Maybe you’re right.
Consider that every chapter of the book starts with a comment from a reader like this:
I thank God for your obedience in writing The Bait of Satan. This book is so anointed that the Spirit of the Lord dealt with me the entire time while I read it, which only took a couple of days. This book has changed my life completely. I have been freed from the chains of offenses and will continue to exercise my heart, mind, and emotions to remain free.
L.M., South Carolina. The Bait of Satan, Intro to Chapter 12
And what do I mean by self-help? Here’s an extended example from the author straight out of chapter 13:
An incident occurred in my life involving someone in the ministry. This extreme offense I experienced was not isolated but was one of several with this person that intensified over a year and a half.
Everyone around me knew what was going on. “Aren’t you hurt?” they asked me. “What are you going to do? Are you just going to stand back and take it?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “It hasn’t affected me. I’m going on with the call on my life.”
But my answer was nothing more than pride. I was extremely hurt but denied it, even to myself. I would spend hours trying to figure out how all this could happen to me. I was in shock, numb, and amazed. But I suppressed these thoughts and put on a strong front when in reality I was weak and deeply injured.
Months went by. Everything seemed dry, the ministry was stale, my prayer closet was lonely, and I was in torment. I fought devils daily. I thought all the resistance was because of the call on my life, but in actuality it was the torment from my unforgiveness. Every time I was around this man I came away feeling spiritually beat up.
Then came the morning I will never forget. I was sitting on the deck in my backyard praying. “Lord, am I hurt?” I asked.
No sooner had these words left my lips when I heard a shout deep in my spirit: Yes!
God wanted to make sure I knew I was hurt.
“God, please help me get out of this hurt and offense,” I pleaded. “It is too much for me to handle.”
This was exactly where the Lord wanted me — at the end of myself. Too often we try to do things in the strength of our souls. This does not cause us to grow spiritually. Instead, we become more susceptible to falling.
The first step to healing and freedom is to recognize you are hurt. Often pride does not want us to admit we are hurt and offended. Once I admitted my true condition, I sought the Lord and was open to His correction.
I sensed that the Lord wanted me to fast for a few days. Fasting would put me in a position of being sensitive to the voice of His Spirit and provide other benefits as well.
“Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke?” – Isaiah 58:6
I was ready for those bonds of wickedness to be broken and to be free from oppression.
John Bevere. The Bait of Satan, chapter 13
Yes, the author really published that reader comment about being freed from the chains of offense. And he actually recounted this story of interpersonal conflict. He called on God as his personal concierge with much success and decided to fast. Then he equated both of these to Isaiah 58:6. Yeah, he really did that.
Ok Andy, if that’s not right, how should we understand Isaiah 58? Idunno. Maybe start at the beginning? Let’s take a quick look at say, Isaiah, uh . . . chapter one:
2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth;
for the Lord has spoken:
“Children have I reared and brought up,
but they have rebelled against me.
3 The ox knows its owner,
and the donkey its master’s crib,
but Israel does not know,
my people do not understand.”
4 Ah, sinful nation,
a people laden with iniquity,
offspring of evildoers,
children who deal corruptly!
They have forsaken the Lord,
they have despised the Holy One of Israel,
they are utterly estranged.
5 Why will you still be struck down?
Why will you continue to rebel?
The whole head is sick,
and the whole heart faint.
6 From the sole of the foot even to the head,
there is no soundness in it,
but bruises and sores
and raw wounds;
they are not pressed out or bound up
or softened with oil.
7 Your country lies desolate;
your cities are burned with fire;
in your very presence
foreigners devour your land;
it is desolate, as overthrown by foreigners.
8 And the daughter of Zion is left
like a booth in a vineyard,
like a lodge in a cucumber field,
like a besieged city.
9 If the Lord of hosts
had not left us a few survivors,
we should have been like Sodom,
and become like Gomorrah.
Isaiah 1:2-9 (ESV)
Isaiah opens with the nation of Israel is in utter shambles not knowing the God whose people they are. Foreign nations and foreign gods have devoured them. If God himself had not been merciful, they would have been completely destroyed as Sodom or Gomorrah. When you get to Isaiah 58, this is the kind of oppression and wickedness that God says you fast successfully in response to.
The author on the other hand reduces the God that created order out of chaos, who rules the gods of the nations from his throne, who directs the armies of the world and subdues all of their power towards his ends and purposes, to a cosmic concierge at his beck and call to help him feel better about an interpersonal conflict, and then equate his personal struggle with the affairs of Israel at the hands of the Assyrians in view of this God. That’s what I mean by self-help Christianity.
Not that you don’t take interpersonal conflict seriously among the people of God. And that conflict could require much prayer and fasting. But to drag Isaiah into a personal disagreement is a gross misunderstanding of the story of God and his people. This author has a warped view of the Old Testament and how the scriptures relate to our real lives. To this author, God is a farce, and the author doesn’t even realize it.
Back to Fleming’s comment on the ineffective equipping of church leaders: If content like The Bait of Satan is the kind of content our church leaders lean on, we have to get them access to mature biblical instruction.
Or even just good books.
CS Lewis writes in An Experiment in Criticism (p140) 3
Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom fully realize the enormous extension of our being which we owe to authors. We realize it best when we talk to an unliterary friend. He may be full of goodness and good sense but he inhabits a tiny world. In it, we should be suffocated. The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented . . . Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality. There are mass emotions which heal the wound; but they destroy the privilege. In them our separate selves are pooled and we sink back into sub-individuality. But in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.
CS Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism
Like the horse, though, we can lead them to the water. They’ll have to want to drink.
For those of you in ICOC congregations, you may want to listen in on these conversations with Kyle Spears and some of the influential folks in our fellowship. Some good thinking here.
- Wandering Exiles Why So Few Christians Find Their Way Home with Dave Pocta
- Trauma & The Bible with Dr. Douglas Jacoby
- Disenfranchised Grief with Marilyn Kriete
- What is Legalism with BEMA’s Marty Solomon
- Searching for the Pattern with John Mark Hicks
You’ll find additional ICOC content as a Patreon subscriber to Spears’ content. Access beings at $5/month. No, I don’t get any affiliate payment for this. I just respect his content enough to share the value of it with others.
1 Andy Fleming is a well-known and respected leader in the ICOC. He’s planted and led churches in Russia and Ukraine. His formal training included a bachelors in Christian Ministry and a masters in Christian Missions from Abilene Christian University. You can read the abstract of his paper on Disciples Today and get access to the full paper on academia.edu.
Fleming focused on the internal dynamics and decision-making that led to building failures. I suspect there are also external factors that were ignored such as the inability of leadership to understand culture shifts and the political climate that play a part.
2 Listen to the hot mic after the camera is turned off. And if you want to be horrified, feel free to listen to the entire message.
3 To access this free resource, create an Internet Archive account and borrow the book. You can borrow from the Internet Archive in intervals of an hour to multiple weeks. It’s a collection you should get used to accessing because of the availability of primary sources.