CHURCHMAGGEDDON: When Are Half Your Members Going to be Dead? The tipping point for many denominations is not that far away.
While most major denominations have been experiencing decline for a while, their ship has remained seaworthy. Yeah, some water will lap over the sides every once in a while, but there are still enough buckets and enough laborers to toss it back into the ocean. That won’t be the case in a very short time horizon, and I don’t think many people realize just how quickly the buckets and the workers are going to disappear. . . .
This should come as a shock to no one who is vaguely aware of American religion — Episcopalians are old. In fact, two-thirds of their adult members have celebrated their 60th birthday. In contrast, just 6% are under the age of thirty. Put simply: for every young adult Episcopalian in the pews this Sunday, there will be about ten retirees. Oof.
And they aren’t alone in this. The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod is in almost exactly the same spot. So are the United Methodists, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the Evangelical Lutherans. You basically see a whole bunch of mainline Protestants clustered at the top of this graph.
But let me also point out that some big evangelical groups aren’t exactly swimming in young adults, either. For instance, just 6% of Southern Baptist adults are under the age of 30. That’s no different at all than the Episcopalians. Only about one in five are under the age of 45. The Assemblies of God is doing a bit better here, but their numbers are still pretty anemic — 11% in the 18–29 bucket and 19% in the 30–44 age group.
The future belongs to those who show up.
FLASHBACK: Is Methodism’s decline inevitable?
