If the LCMS continues on its current demographic trajectory, it will cease to exist before the end of this century, but there is hope if we look at the young families.
Maybe hope for the future of the LCMS would be better placed in the living God, rather than young families. The theological assumptions that underlie this analysis seem deist: that “whatever happens is God’s will” so we have to figure out the best course of action ourselves, as if the Spirit of Christ has no interaction with our spirits to guide us in fulfilling the Lord Jesus’ express directions to disciple the unbelieving ethnicities and cultures of the world and not just our own children. But that is the viewpoint of one who would probably be labeled a “liberal” based on the prejudices of the author, despite his firm, self-professed biblical, confessional and missional convictions.
Thank you, this is an expected criticism and speaks to some of what ails our Synod. Deism requires fatalism. The article is not fatalistic in any sense. We have no part in our justification, but we must certainly collaborate in our sanctification and the things of this temporal life. If your church roof is old and dripping water on the people during the Divine Service, you do not shrug your shoulders and say God will provide a roofer if he wills it. It is your feet walking you to the Lord’s Supper. It it’s your arms carrying the baby to be baptized. It is your hand that carries the birth control pill to your mouth.
“unbelieving ethnicities” is a very weird term. Let’s just bring word and sacrament ministry to everyone, including our own descendants who have abandoned the faith.
We also need to recognize that missions are impossible without other people’s money. The LCMS has developed its capacities for outreach expressly because of the generous habits and immense organizational capacity of its founding stock. Without that core generosity of time, money, and effort, you have nothing.
To promote higher fertility is not taking God’s place, it is speaking what he has gifted us in Holy Scripture.
Thanks for the article. Its intent is to provide some measure of a pathway to the future for the LCMS. And it's honest in stating that the path will not be easy. It's also honest in opining that to reach a stabilized goal of 300,000 in attendance on Sunday through outreach evangelism would take a miracle. The LCMS record in that regard belies our stated belief that we are an "evangelical Lutheran" church body. The mystery is why and how such a church body falters on bringing in new adherents from the outside.
My own research leads me in a different direction. The "confessional cohort" at this time is listed in the article at between 65% and 55%. First, I think that's not the case. I believe it's lower - under 50%. Secondly, and more importantly, the lead indicator on attendance should be where the large attendance is located. That's easy enough to determine. And that number keeps going disproportionately toward the congregations with large worship numbers. Even after the debilitations of COVID which were across the board, Sunday worship attendance is skewed well toward the larger congregation, with over 50% of the Sunday attendees at 15% of the congregations. That's a standout statistic. And a healthy 80% of those congregations are specifically NOT in the "confessional cohort" as it's been described.
Those congregations exhibit first of all variety in worship forms, from "traditional" to "contemporary" on any given Sunday. Secondly, they have programing that is extensive and designed to include a broad variety of people, many of whom are from other or no religious background.
The most recent Concordia Journal speaks to the need for this diversity in form for all congregations. At the same time, the bloggers and professors have already joined the chorus which calls for that diversity of style to be avoided.
What that means to me is that the "confessional cohort" will continue to dwindle and congregations will continue to close. the confessional cohort's chief problem is that many of the congregations shepherded by men in that cohort are not sustainable financially or in compensation. I think you have already pointed that out.
So - why would there not be a strong movement to embrace the large congregations which are diversified in worship offerings as a way to build the strength of the mission and purpose of the LCMS? These are LCMS congregations, after all.
I don't have an answer to that question, but I do know that the confessional cohort is not going to embrace those large congregations at any time soon from anything I've read.
Finally (way too long a response), what we're experiencing hearkens back 475 years to the Adiaphoristic Controversy. The first time, Flacius was backed off from "winning," and the result was and remains the Formula of Concord and its Solid Declaration. This time, the official teaching of the denomination at one seminary and maybe both sides with Flacius. And an entire blog-wing filled with clergy has as its motto that the proper form of the liturgy is not an adiaphoron, in complete opposition to the very words of the Formula and Solid Declaration. If the Flacians have there way, the lower numbers you provide in your careful estimations will come to pass.
1. My distinction between the Confessionals and Liberals is not at the level of churches by name, but as a weighted average of all LCMS attendees nationwide. Your congregation probably has very few Confessionals/ Conservatives, but I can take you to dozens and dozens of Midwest churches outside the urban cores that have very few Liberals and have much larger and younger populations than saltwater district churches.
2. Many LCMS attendees are concentrated in the razzle-dazzle congregations (ironic for the Congregations Matter crowd!). Still, the attendance-to-membership ratio in those congregations has been falling off a cliff, especially after COVID-19.
3. CoWo attendees are not "sticky." Most have been poached from other congregations. They move along just as quickly when a better show opens up elsewhere.
4. Financial sustainability: when I survey the saltwater districts, the affordability crisis is huge, e.g. many California congregations cannot fill their pulpits. Your congregation bespeaks similar problems. With worship attendance at 71/week, the 69th percentile for the Atlantic District(!), the inferred mean for the whole district is perhaps 70 Sunday worshippers. Your confirmed member contributions were $954 per person 2023, close to the mean for the entire district, and the church had a considerable shortfall of 25% of the total expenditure, meaning it had to be subsidized by outside sources unless it is drawing from an endowment. The saltwater districts perform very poorly for the share of members under 18, and the attendance stats are probably worse because there is a permissive attitude toward Sunday sports.
5. Embracing the large Liberal congregations: It seems to me that the large congregations have reduced Lutheranism to infant baptism and the real presence in the Lord's Supper. That is where the division is, and it is made irreconcilable by the sacramental irreverence observable in nearly all the dominant large congregations. Confession and absolution are obscured (if they are even present). Holy Communion is very disordered. The other stuff orbits those key disagreements. The Liberals want to make it an argument about sacerdotalism, but that does not stand even mild examination. If anything, it is clear that the Liberals are building offramps from the Synod, e.g. CTX, weird Michigan District liturgies, churches signaling that they will commission and ordain ministers on their own terms, and continually pushing the boundaries on female preaching and teaching.
The question is not when the Confessionals will embrace the large Liberal congregations, but when the latter will return to our common historical confession.
Thanks for the links and the specific article linked in the second post, Erich. There's a lot to be said for the connection between contraception and religious thinking - as the author herself indicates, it's speculative thought and not based on measurement other than the eyeball test. Where I'm from the Hasidic Jewish population meets the eyeball test - rigorous orthodox Jewish practice and many, many children per family. This does not speak to the orthodoxy of their theology inside Judaism (the Messiah, for many Hasids, is buried in Queens right now, for instance). But it does speak to religiosity, and they have plenty of that.
Watching the heralded opening of Luther Classical College and some of the up-front ceremonies there, the connection to large families was readily apparent. It's not just a college for homeschoolers. It's for a particular type of homeschoolers, those with lots of kids per home. It's billed as a bastion of Lutheran orthodoxy in the making. What it is for sure is a bastion of Lutheran religiosity.
A bigger issue than procreation is retention. You assume very high retention rates, but from what I've seen our retention rates are closer to 30%, and I think that's the retention post-confirmation. Retention after baptism would be even lower. Growth has always been a result of natural growth, so we can't evangelize ourselves out of this mess, I agree. But just having more babies is only one step, and in many ways increasing our retention would be far more impactful. The Amish have an 85% retention rate along with a high birth rate of about 6 births per woman, and their numbers double every 20-30 years. So we've gotta shoot for improving the birthrate and the retention rate, and I suspect that both of those will go hand in hand.
No disagreement, but please note that I have confined the analysis to weekly attendees rather than membership. I agree that retention after baptism is pathetic at the generic membership level. Baptize the kid, disappear for 12 years, return for confirmation, disappear for 15 years and then demand to get married in that church, disappear for 60 years and family demands a "celebration of life" after death.
You hint in a few places about this, but in my opinion should be more forceful about it. The LCMS like every other Christian sect, save for one, fully embraced artificial contraception.
Synodally, I don’t think that ink can be put back in the bottle without massive disruption, but perhaps a grass roots style of change is doable.
Not just saying, “you shouldn’t take the pill” but to go back to calling it a sin.
The point of a synod is to do things that the individual congregations cannot. Things like educate pastors, do mission work, maintain colleges, etc. The problem is that the LCMS has become totally non-functional in these areas. Are we educating pastors? Kind of, but they famously can't preach to save their lives. Many also lack social skills. International missions is imploding and the cost of doing it through synod is much higher than doing it outside of synod. Colleges? Nope, they keep closing. So... what is the advantage of synod? Perhaps we should let it go and build something that works.
So true. Our church went from weekly "canned" sermons that came with slides and, I suspected, had "[INSERT PERSONAL REFERENCE HERE]" for the pastor to know when to say something personal about the town, congregation, or their own lives. Now, we have original sermons, but they often just talk about the subject for 10-15 minutes. So, there's no coherent takeaway for the listener. I've contemplated offering to edit and revise to help the pastors make sense and get their point across meaningfully.
How did you define the Confessional and Liberal Cohorts? I believe that this is a primary weakness in your article. Also, what is meant by "TFR"? You may have spelled it out but I missed it. My concern with the cohort labels is that one is "good" and the other "not good." I think different labels and clearly expressing how you got to those numbers and divisions in the LCMS. Thanks
I put this whole thing through Grok....it is an interesting analysis. In doing this I found some of the answers to my questions and realized that you were using the data from the Pew Research to define the Cohorts. I think that is misplaced. The opinions of many of those in that study would cross the lines of what some would consider "confessional." Take for instance the states of Minnesota and Michigan. They both have large LC-MS presence but politically what is taught in the church does not translate to the voting booth. Many who we would outwardly define as confessional hold these "liberal" opinions. I found this many times in a class I teach asking some hot-button issues like "Would Jesus attend a gay wedding?" In that discussion, many are struggling with the Biblical and Confessional position, especially in dealing with friends and close family. I'm not sure that the answer is hoping the "confessionals" get busy having kids.
The cohorts are informed by rather than based on Pew Research. As stated in the article, the cohort evidence is anecdotal.
Because of the retail business, Ad Crucem has become an incidental information clearinghouse. We interact with many LCMS people from both camps and have confidence that what we see, hear, read, interpret, and project is relevant within a reasonable margin of error.
The cohorts are elastic. For example, it is notable that Boomers will be pretty rigid about attending a traditional service but hold all the Liberal social views that surfaced in the Pew surveys. Many Gen-X will happily participate in a CoWo service but have opposite social and political views. The younger generations are not as fluid.
Ultimately, there are two clear camps in our Synod, and people will choose one or the other whether or not they like it. That is what the Conventions are about. The Liberal side is represented here: https://www.adcrucem.news/p/former-lc-ms-president-kieschniks
Our congregations' cohorts will follow a normal distribution with outliers on each tail. The "middle 66%" informs our simple modeling. That middle can also be observed in the change in Synod's power dynamics. The Liberals lost power in 2010 and do not have leadership with the youth, vigor, and leadership of the Confessionals, so we have all the exit kites being flown. The Convention results have steadily achieved more dominant margins favoring Confessionals, and it's not because the floor committees are being ruthlessly gerrymandered to shut out the opponents.
Jesus would not "attend" a "gay wedding". There should be no struggle with the Biblical and Confessional positions.
Thank you for your reply. I would then argue that sense the cohorts are "anecdotal" and not based on some statistical research then the conclusions are not particularly relevant. We must be strong in teaching of raising a godly family, teaching clearly Biblical morality and the value of having children, but we must be just as committed and strong in outreach and mission. Opening the door to making "large" families a mission priority will not achieve the results you think it will. In my time in the LCMS and growing up until my 20's in the SBC I never heard preaching on having more babies. You may be completely right about the need to have more children and focus on family life, but something seems off to me about the approach.
As to Jesus attending a gay wedding, I agree with you. It was just a hook to get people talking and wow did they talk. In the end I clearly stated the Biblical and Confessional truth about that topic. People take the event of Jesus eating with tax-collectors and sinners and almost make anything acceptable.
Thanks. This is the tell, "In the SBC I never heard preaching on having more babies." It is the same in Missouri and there has even been scoffing about birth rate concerns. The change is here though, and it does need to reach the pulpits: 1) Children are commanded 2) Children are a blessing 3) Children are the most potent evangelism tool we have 4) contraception is sinful/murderous 5)Abortion is sinful/murderous.
The people have very seldom heard it forthrightly. The culture has catechized them to believe the opposite.
Nobody is saying ignore evangelism, but it has nowhere near the potential that a recovering birth rate does. The "missional" crowd did not outperform the Confessionals in bringing in converts, and the evidence is starting to trickle in for a youth revival in the Confessionally coded congregations.
I want to thank you for all the research and putting all this together. I especially am grateful for the in your face honesty and comments regarding youth and armpit care. However, it seems that we are missing something very crucial here. While the practical information is incredibly important and while we need to continue to teach people that large families are good, we miss the point of the word "evangelical". That word is not about evangelism in the modern or post-modern sense of going out and "recruiting" people. It simply means that we are those that cling to the good news, the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is true that this organization known as the LCMS might collapse and disappear because we "have not done the right thing". The problem with that mentality is that we do not exist for the sake of the LCMS. Do not get me wrong here. I am not one of those anti-institution groupies. In fact, I subscribe to the word and the confessions and truly see that the LCMS, even with all of its problems, still proclaims the truth and holds to it. However, the main point is that the church exists where the Word is taught in its truth and purity and the sacraments rightly administered. The church exists where God brings his gifts of forgiveness of sins and therefore life and salvation.
God will always preserve His church. The Word of the Lord stands, remains forever.
I am not all about the numbers. In fact, if one looks at the number of people that came out of Egypt and crossed the Red Sea, one would think that they were an incredibly faithful group. And then you read through the Psalms, Acts, and Hebrews that that generation all died in the wilderness because of their unbelief. Many are called but few are chosen. Do not worry about size. Spread the Word like the parable of the Sower and the seed. Trust in God. God desires that all men will be saved and come to the Knowledge of the Truth. Yet, many will forsake His word and wag their heads like those at the foot of the cross and question whether Jesus is truly the Son of God.
Trust in God, share the Word, Pray. Conversion and retention only happens by the work of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God not our works, lest any man boast. Romans 10:17 and Ephesians 2:8-10.
Thank you, Pastor Ficken. I am not concerned about a census that can boast many people and fine horses. I am worried that our children and grandchildren might be equally yoked with believers who share our Confession. The purpose of writing about these things is to stir us to think about the consequences of just asking Jesus to take the wheel.
Justification by faith alone through the atoning sacrifice of Christ Jesus is an eternal gift that has gone throughout the world to remove works righteousness yokes imposed by the synergists and cults.
We encounter dozens of converts yearly, so I'm unclear why people think the LCMS does not evangelize. The greatest mission field is to recover the children of American Boomers who abandoned church and the faith in droves. However, there seems to be minimal fund-raising appeal for such a mundane and straightforward idea. I don't know of any congregation leading a concerted effort to develop those leads and re-establish contact. Ours has talked of doing so.
Sadly, the LCMS is dying. However, I believe the American Lutheranism that rises from its ashes will be purer, stronger, catholic, and more confessional, albeit much smaller. Almost as if someone is trimming the hedges. Sure, there is collateral damage, and that’s unfortunate. Would it be a sin, though, to say that this death is something we should embrace? Perhaps not encourage or facilitate, but nevertheless hopefully welcome? If I’m right, I only hope that my progeny will be members of the few and scattered congregations.
This essay hits a lot of really important topics for Lutheran churches. What truly encouraged me is your frank and humble confession (both synod-wide and personal) of accepting the world’s lies in contraception. I think it is the first admission of its kind that I have heard or read. I’m not sure you could ever understand how much that humility matters to a younger generation trying to pick up pieces and rebuild in faithfulness. Thank you.
From a WELS pastor’s wife, praying for purity, unity, and fellowship within and between synods.
My father was an only child because my grandmother almost died having him, and Grandpa did not want to risk losing her. I assume they used birth control after that. How dare you sit in judgment and call contraception "sinful"! If a pastor starts telling the congregation when to have children and how many to have, we are walking out. This isn't the Roman Catholic Church. Marriage and children are nobody's business except the couple's.
Maybe hope for the future of the LCMS would be better placed in the living God, rather than young families. The theological assumptions that underlie this analysis seem deist: that “whatever happens is God’s will” so we have to figure out the best course of action ourselves, as if the Spirit of Christ has no interaction with our spirits to guide us in fulfilling the Lord Jesus’ express directions to disciple the unbelieving ethnicities and cultures of the world and not just our own children. But that is the viewpoint of one who would probably be labeled a “liberal” based on the prejudices of the author, despite his firm, self-professed biblical, confessional and missional convictions.
Thank you, this is an expected criticism and speaks to some of what ails our Synod. Deism requires fatalism. The article is not fatalistic in any sense. We have no part in our justification, but we must certainly collaborate in our sanctification and the things of this temporal life. If your church roof is old and dripping water on the people during the Divine Service, you do not shrug your shoulders and say God will provide a roofer if he wills it. It is your feet walking you to the Lord’s Supper. It it’s your arms carrying the baby to be baptized. It is your hand that carries the birth control pill to your mouth.
“unbelieving ethnicities” is a very weird term. Let’s just bring word and sacrament ministry to everyone, including our own descendants who have abandoned the faith.
We also need to recognize that missions are impossible without other people’s money. The LCMS has developed its capacities for outreach expressly because of the generous habits and immense organizational capacity of its founding stock. Without that core generosity of time, money, and effort, you have nothing.
To promote higher fertility is not taking God’s place, it is speaking what he has gifted us in Holy Scripture.
Great article, keep up the good work!
Thanks for the article. Its intent is to provide some measure of a pathway to the future for the LCMS. And it's honest in stating that the path will not be easy. It's also honest in opining that to reach a stabilized goal of 300,000 in attendance on Sunday through outreach evangelism would take a miracle. The LCMS record in that regard belies our stated belief that we are an "evangelical Lutheran" church body. The mystery is why and how such a church body falters on bringing in new adherents from the outside.
My own research leads me in a different direction. The "confessional cohort" at this time is listed in the article at between 65% and 55%. First, I think that's not the case. I believe it's lower - under 50%. Secondly, and more importantly, the lead indicator on attendance should be where the large attendance is located. That's easy enough to determine. And that number keeps going disproportionately toward the congregations with large worship numbers. Even after the debilitations of COVID which were across the board, Sunday worship attendance is skewed well toward the larger congregation, with over 50% of the Sunday attendees at 15% of the congregations. That's a standout statistic. And a healthy 80% of those congregations are specifically NOT in the "confessional cohort" as it's been described.
Those congregations exhibit first of all variety in worship forms, from "traditional" to "contemporary" on any given Sunday. Secondly, they have programing that is extensive and designed to include a broad variety of people, many of whom are from other or no religious background.
The most recent Concordia Journal speaks to the need for this diversity in form for all congregations. At the same time, the bloggers and professors have already joined the chorus which calls for that diversity of style to be avoided.
What that means to me is that the "confessional cohort" will continue to dwindle and congregations will continue to close. the confessional cohort's chief problem is that many of the congregations shepherded by men in that cohort are not sustainable financially or in compensation. I think you have already pointed that out.
So - why would there not be a strong movement to embrace the large congregations which are diversified in worship offerings as a way to build the strength of the mission and purpose of the LCMS? These are LCMS congregations, after all.
I don't have an answer to that question, but I do know that the confessional cohort is not going to embrace those large congregations at any time soon from anything I've read.
Finally (way too long a response), what we're experiencing hearkens back 475 years to the Adiaphoristic Controversy. The first time, Flacius was backed off from "winning," and the result was and remains the Formula of Concord and its Solid Declaration. This time, the official teaching of the denomination at one seminary and maybe both sides with Flacius. And an entire blog-wing filled with clergy has as its motto that the proper form of the liturgy is not an adiaphoron, in complete opposition to the very words of the Formula and Solid Declaration. If the Flacians have there way, the lower numbers you provide in your careful estimations will come to pass.
Thank you, Rev. Dr. Benke. A few comments:
1. My distinction between the Confessionals and Liberals is not at the level of churches by name, but as a weighted average of all LCMS attendees nationwide. Your congregation probably has very few Confessionals/ Conservatives, but I can take you to dozens and dozens of Midwest churches outside the urban cores that have very few Liberals and have much larger and younger populations than saltwater district churches.
2. Many LCMS attendees are concentrated in the razzle-dazzle congregations (ironic for the Congregations Matter crowd!). Still, the attendance-to-membership ratio in those congregations has been falling off a cliff, especially after COVID-19.
3. CoWo attendees are not "sticky." Most have been poached from other congregations. They move along just as quickly when a better show opens up elsewhere.
4. Financial sustainability: when I survey the saltwater districts, the affordability crisis is huge, e.g. many California congregations cannot fill their pulpits. Your congregation bespeaks similar problems. With worship attendance at 71/week, the 69th percentile for the Atlantic District(!), the inferred mean for the whole district is perhaps 70 Sunday worshippers. Your confirmed member contributions were $954 per person 2023, close to the mean for the entire district, and the church had a considerable shortfall of 25% of the total expenditure, meaning it had to be subsidized by outside sources unless it is drawing from an endowment. The saltwater districts perform very poorly for the share of members under 18, and the attendance stats are probably worse because there is a permissive attitude toward Sunday sports.
5. Embracing the large Liberal congregations: It seems to me that the large congregations have reduced Lutheranism to infant baptism and the real presence in the Lord's Supper. That is where the division is, and it is made irreconcilable by the sacramental irreverence observable in nearly all the dominant large congregations. Confession and absolution are obscured (if they are even present). Holy Communion is very disordered. The other stuff orbits those key disagreements. The Liberals want to make it an argument about sacerdotalism, but that does not stand even mild examination. If anything, it is clear that the Liberals are building offramps from the Synod, e.g. CTX, weird Michigan District liturgies, churches signaling that they will commission and ordain ministers on their own terms, and continually pushing the boundaries on female preaching and teaching.
The question is not when the Confessionals will embrace the large Liberal congregations, but when the latter will return to our common historical confession.
You might be interested in my blog. Here is a summary of its content:
http://lutheransandcontraception.blogspot.com/2014/09/resources-for-comprehensive-study.html
Regarding your post, see https://lutheransandcontraception.blogspot.com/2013/06/how-west-really-lost-god.html?m=1
Thanks for the links and the specific article linked in the second post, Erich. There's a lot to be said for the connection between contraception and religious thinking - as the author herself indicates, it's speculative thought and not based on measurement other than the eyeball test. Where I'm from the Hasidic Jewish population meets the eyeball test - rigorous orthodox Jewish practice and many, many children per family. This does not speak to the orthodoxy of their theology inside Judaism (the Messiah, for many Hasids, is buried in Queens right now, for instance). But it does speak to religiosity, and they have plenty of that.
Watching the heralded opening of Luther Classical College and some of the up-front ceremonies there, the connection to large families was readily apparent. It's not just a college for homeschoolers. It's for a particular type of homeschoolers, those with lots of kids per home. It's billed as a bastion of Lutheran orthodoxy in the making. What it is for sure is a bastion of Lutheran religiosity.
A bigger issue than procreation is retention. You assume very high retention rates, but from what I've seen our retention rates are closer to 30%, and I think that's the retention post-confirmation. Retention after baptism would be even lower. Growth has always been a result of natural growth, so we can't evangelize ourselves out of this mess, I agree. But just having more babies is only one step, and in many ways increasing our retention would be far more impactful. The Amish have an 85% retention rate along with a high birth rate of about 6 births per woman, and their numbers double every 20-30 years. So we've gotta shoot for improving the birthrate and the retention rate, and I suspect that both of those will go hand in hand.
No disagreement, but please note that I have confined the analysis to weekly attendees rather than membership. I agree that retention after baptism is pathetic at the generic membership level. Baptize the kid, disappear for 12 years, return for confirmation, disappear for 15 years and then demand to get married in that church, disappear for 60 years and family demands a "celebration of life" after death.
You hint in a few places about this, but in my opinion should be more forceful about it. The LCMS like every other Christian sect, save for one, fully embraced artificial contraception.
Synodally, I don’t think that ink can be put back in the bottle without massive disruption, but perhaps a grass roots style of change is doable.
Not just saying, “you shouldn’t take the pill” but to go back to calling it a sin.
We have written often about contraception being sinful, but it could certainly have been more strongly stated here.
The point of a synod is to do things that the individual congregations cannot. Things like educate pastors, do mission work, maintain colleges, etc. The problem is that the LCMS has become totally non-functional in these areas. Are we educating pastors? Kind of, but they famously can't preach to save their lives. Many also lack social skills. International missions is imploding and the cost of doing it through synod is much higher than doing it outside of synod. Colleges? Nope, they keep closing. So... what is the advantage of synod? Perhaps we should let it go and build something that works.
So true. Our church went from weekly "canned" sermons that came with slides and, I suspected, had "[INSERT PERSONAL REFERENCE HERE]" for the pastor to know when to say something personal about the town, congregation, or their own lives. Now, we have original sermons, but they often just talk about the subject for 10-15 minutes. So, there's no coherent takeaway for the listener. I've contemplated offering to edit and revise to help the pastors make sense and get their point across meaningfully.
How did you define the Confessional and Liberal Cohorts? I believe that this is a primary weakness in your article. Also, what is meant by "TFR"? You may have spelled it out but I missed it. My concern with the cohort labels is that one is "good" and the other "not good." I think different labels and clearly expressing how you got to those numbers and divisions in the LCMS. Thanks
I put this whole thing through Grok....it is an interesting analysis. In doing this I found some of the answers to my questions and realized that you were using the data from the Pew Research to define the Cohorts. I think that is misplaced. The opinions of many of those in that study would cross the lines of what some would consider "confessional." Take for instance the states of Minnesota and Michigan. They both have large LC-MS presence but politically what is taught in the church does not translate to the voting booth. Many who we would outwardly define as confessional hold these "liberal" opinions. I found this many times in a class I teach asking some hot-button issues like "Would Jesus attend a gay wedding?" In that discussion, many are struggling with the Biblical and Confessional position, especially in dealing with friends and close family. I'm not sure that the answer is hoping the "confessionals" get busy having kids.
The cohorts are informed by rather than based on Pew Research. As stated in the article, the cohort evidence is anecdotal.
Because of the retail business, Ad Crucem has become an incidental information clearinghouse. We interact with many LCMS people from both camps and have confidence that what we see, hear, read, interpret, and project is relevant within a reasonable margin of error.
The cohorts are elastic. For example, it is notable that Boomers will be pretty rigid about attending a traditional service but hold all the Liberal social views that surfaced in the Pew surveys. Many Gen-X will happily participate in a CoWo service but have opposite social and political views. The younger generations are not as fluid.
Ultimately, there are two clear camps in our Synod, and people will choose one or the other whether or not they like it. That is what the Conventions are about. The Liberal side is represented here: https://www.adcrucem.news/p/former-lc-ms-president-kieschniks
Our congregations' cohorts will follow a normal distribution with outliers on each tail. The "middle 66%" informs our simple modeling. That middle can also be observed in the change in Synod's power dynamics. The Liberals lost power in 2010 and do not have leadership with the youth, vigor, and leadership of the Confessionals, so we have all the exit kites being flown. The Convention results have steadily achieved more dominant margins favoring Confessionals, and it's not because the floor committees are being ruthlessly gerrymandered to shut out the opponents.
Jesus would not "attend" a "gay wedding". There should be no struggle with the Biblical and Confessional positions.
Thank you for your reply. I would then argue that sense the cohorts are "anecdotal" and not based on some statistical research then the conclusions are not particularly relevant. We must be strong in teaching of raising a godly family, teaching clearly Biblical morality and the value of having children, but we must be just as committed and strong in outreach and mission. Opening the door to making "large" families a mission priority will not achieve the results you think it will. In my time in the LCMS and growing up until my 20's in the SBC I never heard preaching on having more babies. You may be completely right about the need to have more children and focus on family life, but something seems off to me about the approach.
As to Jesus attending a gay wedding, I agree with you. It was just a hook to get people talking and wow did they talk. In the end I clearly stated the Biblical and Confessional truth about that topic. People take the event of Jesus eating with tax-collectors and sinners and almost make anything acceptable.
Peace
Thanks. This is the tell, "In the SBC I never heard preaching on having more babies." It is the same in Missouri and there has even been scoffing about birth rate concerns. The change is here though, and it does need to reach the pulpits: 1) Children are commanded 2) Children are a blessing 3) Children are the most potent evangelism tool we have 4) contraception is sinful/murderous 5)Abortion is sinful/murderous.
The people have very seldom heard it forthrightly. The culture has catechized them to believe the opposite.
Nobody is saying ignore evangelism, but it has nowhere near the potential that a recovering birth rate does. The "missional" crowd did not outperform the Confessionals in bringing in converts, and the evidence is starting to trickle in for a youth revival in the Confessionally coded congregations.
Contraception is sinful?
TFR = Total Fertility Rate: the average number of children born to a women in her lifetime.
I want to thank you for all the research and putting all this together. I especially am grateful for the in your face honesty and comments regarding youth and armpit care. However, it seems that we are missing something very crucial here. While the practical information is incredibly important and while we need to continue to teach people that large families are good, we miss the point of the word "evangelical". That word is not about evangelism in the modern or post-modern sense of going out and "recruiting" people. It simply means that we are those that cling to the good news, the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is true that this organization known as the LCMS might collapse and disappear because we "have not done the right thing". The problem with that mentality is that we do not exist for the sake of the LCMS. Do not get me wrong here. I am not one of those anti-institution groupies. In fact, I subscribe to the word and the confessions and truly see that the LCMS, even with all of its problems, still proclaims the truth and holds to it. However, the main point is that the church exists where the Word is taught in its truth and purity and the sacraments rightly administered. The church exists where God brings his gifts of forgiveness of sins and therefore life and salvation.
God will always preserve His church. The Word of the Lord stands, remains forever.
I am not all about the numbers. In fact, if one looks at the number of people that came out of Egypt and crossed the Red Sea, one would think that they were an incredibly faithful group. And then you read through the Psalms, Acts, and Hebrews that that generation all died in the wilderness because of their unbelief. Many are called but few are chosen. Do not worry about size. Spread the Word like the parable of the Sower and the seed. Trust in God. God desires that all men will be saved and come to the Knowledge of the Truth. Yet, many will forsake His word and wag their heads like those at the foot of the cross and question whether Jesus is truly the Son of God.
Trust in God, share the Word, Pray. Conversion and retention only happens by the work of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God not our works, lest any man boast. Romans 10:17 and Ephesians 2:8-10.
Thank you, Pastor Ficken. I am not concerned about a census that can boast many people and fine horses. I am worried that our children and grandchildren might be equally yoked with believers who share our Confession. The purpose of writing about these things is to stir us to think about the consequences of just asking Jesus to take the wheel.
Justification by faith alone through the atoning sacrifice of Christ Jesus is an eternal gift that has gone throughout the world to remove works righteousness yokes imposed by the synergists and cults.
We encounter dozens of converts yearly, so I'm unclear why people think the LCMS does not evangelize. The greatest mission field is to recover the children of American Boomers who abandoned church and the faith in droves. However, there seems to be minimal fund-raising appeal for such a mundane and straightforward idea. I don't know of any congregation leading a concerted effort to develop those leads and re-establish contact. Ours has talked of doing so.
Larry and Nordis Christianson were correct all those years ago about contraception. Glad it’s finally becoming obvious now.
Sadly, the LCMS is dying. However, I believe the American Lutheranism that rises from its ashes will be purer, stronger, catholic, and more confessional, albeit much smaller. Almost as if someone is trimming the hedges. Sure, there is collateral damage, and that’s unfortunate. Would it be a sin, though, to say that this death is something we should embrace? Perhaps not encourage or facilitate, but nevertheless hopefully welcome? If I’m right, I only hope that my progeny will be members of the few and scattered congregations.
This essay hits a lot of really important topics for Lutheran churches. What truly encouraged me is your frank and humble confession (both synod-wide and personal) of accepting the world’s lies in contraception. I think it is the first admission of its kind that I have heard or read. I’m not sure you could ever understand how much that humility matters to a younger generation trying to pick up pieces and rebuild in faithfulness. Thank you.
From a WELS pastor’s wife, praying for purity, unity, and fellowship within and between synods.
Thank you, we appreciate it. The young families are a great inspiration!
Amen to us achieving fellowship. It’s been too long.
My father was an only child because my grandmother almost died having him, and Grandpa did not want to risk losing her. I assume they used birth control after that. How dare you sit in judgment and call contraception "sinful"! If a pastor starts telling the congregation when to have children and how many to have, we are walking out. This isn't the Roman Catholic Church. Marriage and children are nobody's business except the couple's.
https://lutheransandcontraception.blogspot.com/2011/10/church-is-fruitful-for-christ.html