Thom Rainer on ministry growth:

Few people will argue that church attendance in many churches in America is declining. Our own research indicates that the majority of churches in our country are not growing.

Most of us have our own ideas why attendance is declining. Many have suggested that our nation is shifting away from its Christian roots, and thus the churches are declining as a smaller proportion of our country are believers in Christ.

I certainly will not argue with that premise. Certainly attendance declines are related to massive cultural shifts in our nation. But I would also suggest that one reason for declines has a greater impact than others.

The Frequency Issue

Stated simply, the number one reason for the decline in church attendance is that members attend with less frequency than they did just a few years ago. Allow me to explain.

If the frequency of attendance changes, then attendance will respond accordingly. For example, if 200 members attend every week the average attendance is, obviously, 200. But if one-half of those members miss only one out of four weeks, the attendance drops to 175.

Did you catch that? No members left the church. Everyone is still relatively active in the church. But attendance declined over 12 percent because half the members changed their attendance behavior slightly.

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The state of the contemporary church 2013: I wrote an article last week encouraging churches to use church music in church. This week I’m on a campaign to encourage churches to use Scripture in their worship.

I played for a few years at a local megachurch and my parents attended regularly. Recently, I asked my mother when was the last time she remembered hearing or seeing a Scripture verse during the worship. She laughed: “Never!”

One of the odd things about my visits to cutting edge contemporary churches is that I rarely see or hear any Scripture in their worship! Following are a two articles I’ve collected with some ideas for public reading of the Word of God:

Tips for Effective Public Scripture Reading in Worship

Ten Tips for Reading Scripture in Public Worship

A seminary student arguing for shorter, more viral sermons, in the area of 18-minutes long, claimed that pastors are not following Christ’s most famous example in the way they preach, pointing to the Sermon on the Mount. But three pastors remain unconvinced, and denounced the argument as unbiblical and misguided for the church.

Evangelist and seminary student Jeff Tatarchuck argued that pastors should keep their sermons below the 18-minute mark last week. When pastors weighed in, arguing that people’s natural attention spans are longer than that, and that it takes more than 18 minutes to develop disciples, Tatarchuck responded by citing the length of “the greatest sermon of all time,” Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which, he argued, “can be read in 12 minutes, 30 seconds.”

The student quoted Andy Stanley’s book Communicating for a Change, saying that “every sermon should have one main idea.” He argued that “many pastors (including myself) are guilty of trying to fulfill the 40-45 minute sermon expectation by filling their sermons with content not essential to the topic.” He also added that discipleship should be one-on-one, rather than from the pulpit.

To demonstrate the ability to be clear and communicate in a quick way, he cited many memorable speeches that all fit under 18 minutes: Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech (17:29), Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Address (14:45), Winston Churchill’s “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” (12:22), and Ashton Kutcher’s speech at the Teen Choice Awards (4:15).

“If your goal is to be impressive preach for 40-45 minutes,” Tatarchuck suggested, “but if you want to be memorable do it under 18.”

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Jamie Brown on letting your songs speak for themselves:

Good news for worship leaders all over the world: there’s no reason for you to do much talking. Seriously. You really don’t need to talk that much.

Ask yourself: how many times per month/per Sunday/per service do I interrupt the flow of songs to talk for more than 5 seconds? Like the game of golf, the lower your score, the better. If you get a high number when you ask that question, may I kindly suggest that you reconsider your approach?

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Here’s an excerpt from an article by John Flowers and Karen Vannoy that addresses an issue many worship leaders struggle with – why you shouldn’t let just anybody join the praise team.

I was taught to cook at twelve years old, and was allowed to “practice” on my family. Everyone accepted that I was young, and not very accomplished yet at cooking. On the nights I really flubbed, we could just make tuna sandwiches. I needed the practice, and that was how I learned. However, I was never asked to cook for company, just family.

I’m suggesting that we have this much regard for the music and liturgy of the church. Instead, too many churches have worship leadership that is ineffective and even hard to sit through for the uninitiated. For example, Joy is given a solo because she’s having a hard time right now and needs some attention or affirmation. She isn’t very good, but the whole church family knows what she’s been through and doesn’t mind. Or a child is asked to read who is so hesitant or soft spoken that he can’t be heard beyond the first row.

The reading of Scripture and the leading of worship are too important to give to any volunteer untrained or ungifted at public reading. A church doesn’t need master singers or musicians to lead in the worship of God. But being an outward-focused church means we don’t use worship to honor each other. We honor God with our worship, and want to reach others with the good news, so we offer up the best quality in whatever we do.

Kevin DeYoung on contemporary service orders:

Every church has a liturgy. Traditional congregations have a general order to worship. So do contemporary congregations. So do funky, artistic ones. Church leaders do not have time to reinvent their services every week. Congregations are not capable of learning new forms, new songs, and following a new order every week. Even the most spontaneous and creative church will flounder without some predictability and commonality from week to week. Even the most conscientious pastor or worship leader will eventually settle into a basic template for worship. Every church has a liturgy.

But not every liturgy is as good, or strong, or deep, or biblical, or gospel-centered as every other.

If I’m not mistaken, there is a New Evangelical Liturgy which is increasingly common in our churches. You find it in Baptist churches, Presbyterian churches, Reformed churches, free churches, and non-denominational churches. It’s familiar in rural churches and city churches. It can be found in tiny churches and megachurches. No one has written it down in a service book. No council or denomination is demanding that it be done. No pastor is taught this liturgy in seminary (um, probably not). But it has become the default liturgy nonetheless. It looks like this:

Casual welcome and announcements
Stand up for 4-5 songs
During the set, or at the very end, add a short prayer
Sermon
Closing song
Dismissal

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say this is the basic liturgy from which most evangelical churches operate. To be sure, there are slight variations. The announcement may go after the praise set. There may be an offering in there somewhere, possibly with a special music number. The service may be tweaked a bit when there is communion or a baptism. But overall, if I were to visit 50 different evangelical churches over the next year, this is what I expect to find most of the time.

The simple question I want to ask is this: Is this New Evangelical Liturgy really an improvement?

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