Home Worship Planning Planning Resources Economic Crisis and United Methodist Worship: Research Findings

Economic Crisis and United Methodist Worship: Research Findings

Everyone in the U.S. recognizes -- and to some degree feels -- the toll taken by the global economic crisis that began in full force at the end of 2008 and whose lingering effects, particularly in terms of tight credit and unemployment, may continue for several years to come.
economicmap
Dark Red: Countries in official recession (two consecutive quarters)
Bright Red: Countries in unofficial recession (one quarter)
Light Red: Countries with economic slowdown of more than 1.0%
Medium Pink: Countries with economic slowdown of more than 0.5%
Light Pink: Countries with economic slowdown of more than 0.1%
Blue: Countries with economic acceleration
2007-2009 World Financial Crisis.
Used by permission under a GNU Free Documentation License.

One significant casualty of the economic crisis for United Methodists was the recognition by The United Methodist Publishing House that it did not have sufficient revenue to allow for the Hymnal Revision Committee to carry out any of its assigned work during the 2009-2012 quadrennium. Although that work has ceased, a variety of smaller projects to provide new print, electronic, and online worship resources are ongoing, some of which will be realized as soon as 2011.

The crisis has affected the United Methodist Church in other substantial ways at the general agency level as well. Nearly every general agency has reduced staff substantially over the past 18 months, some by thirty percent or more. And more reductions may be on the way as part of a developing plan to restructure the entire general agency level of the denomination.

We wanted to know how you as worship leaders in local congregations were experiencing the impact of the economic crisis on your local finances and your decisions about staffing, programming, and resources for worship. To that end, toward the end of last summer, I developed an online survey and invited United Methodist worship leaders worldwide to share what was happening in your local settings.

In total, 646 people completed the survey. Another 554 arrived at the survey page but did not answer any questions. One person started but did not complete the survey. And while global participation was strongly invited through our bishops, we had only four respondents from all of Europe and Eurasia, five from The Philippines, and none from Africa.

Given the response rate, the findings of this survey cannot be said to be "scientifically valid." At the same time, the survey results do offer some data that may be at least indicative, if not definitive, of the perceived and actual impact on congregations of various sizes, locations, and styles of worship in the United States.

Overall Responses: Data and Trends

The survey asked four questions: (1) How would you assess the impact of the global economic crisis on local economics and the finances of your local congregation? (2) How has the recent global economic crisis affected your staffing for worship leadership?( 3) How has the recent global economic crisis affected your program expenses for worship? (4) How has the recent global economic crisis affected your resource expenses for worship?

Overall Local Impact
Across all those who responded, 65 percent indicated a moderate or serious impact on local economics and local church finances. An additional 24 percent indicated there was some effect. Six percent each indicated either a serious impact or almost no impact. In short, the vast majority of respondents believed the crisis was clearly affecting local economics and congregational finances, but very few described that affect as severe.

Local Impact on Worship Staffing
While 65 percent indicated moderate or serious impacts on church finances, 64 percent indicated almost no impact on staffing for worship. Another 18 percent indicated a moderate reduction in staff expenses. Eight percent indicated they laid off one staff person. Seven percent said the impact on worship staffing was significant (i.e., affected more than one staff person). And four percent added staff during this time.

Local Impact on Worship Programming
Similarly, 82 percent of survey respondents indicated almost no impact on worship programming (50 percent) or some reduction in budgets for programming (32 percent). The next largest category was "Other reductions" (14 percent) which, where narratives were provided, tended to be specified as reductions in educational or other programming rather than worship programming per se. Only two percent of respondents indicated that either a choir or a worship service had been discontinued.

Local Impact on Resource Expenses
Again, 63 percent of survey respondents indicated almost no (41 percent) or mild (22 percent) reductions in worship resources purchased as a result of the economic crisis. Thirty-two percent (16 percent each) indicated moderate or severe cuts in resource budgets. Four percent indicated some increase.

Possible Findings from Overall Results
In well over half of the congregations represented by survey respondents, while the impact to local congregation finances was assessed as moderate or serious, the actual effects on the worship life of the congregation were generally zero to mild. Where those effects were most evident was in budgets for worship resources. If the general assessment of fiscal impact on the congregation as a whole is correct, it appears that staffing and programmatic expenses for worship, generally speaking, may have been "protected" relative to other areas of the congregation's life. What this may indicate is that, when push comes to shove, worship holds a high budgetary priority.

Drilling Down: Significant Differences that Emerge Regionally, by Size, and by Worship Style

Regional Variations: The survey was designed to track responses by Jurisdiction in the U.S., and by regions in the Central Conferences (Europe/Eurasia, The Philippines, Africa). Given that the datasets for the Central Conferences are very small (9 total), no legitimate observations about variations from the overall dataset (646) can be made. For the five U.S. Jurisdictions, however, a few significant variations do emerge. In the North Central Jurisdiction, for example, a smaller percentage of respondents reported almost no effect on spending for worship resources (34 percent vs. 41 percent in the overall sample). The South Central Jurisdictionhad a higher percentage of respondents indicating a moderate impact on the local congregation's finances (44% vs. 36% in the overall sample) and a lower percentage indicating a severe impact (two percent vs. six percent). At the same time, their other indicators were within a few percentage points of the overall data. TheNortheastern and Western Jurisdictionsappear to have had the highest relative impacts on staffing and resource reductions (22 percent laying off one or more people NE, 23 percent western vs. 15 percent overall, and 24 percent significantly reducing worship resources budgets; Northeastern vs. 16 ercent overall). The Southeastern Jurisdiction, representing 37 percent of the total sample size, tracked fairly closely with the overall results on all indicators.

Generally speaking, it appears that congregations in theSouth Central Jurisdiction seem to have experienced a relatively lower impact on worship than others, while Northeastern and Western Jurisdictions experienced the highest impacts.

Variations by Congregation Size
Eighty-two percent of survey respondents reported overall worship size (across all weekly service) at either less than 100 (50 percent) or 101-250 (32 percent). The overall dataset thus represents a slightly larger average congregation size than the current denominational averages (72 percent of UM congregations have an average worship attendance under 100 according to2007 GCFA data ). Small congregations(under 100) were more likely to indicate hardly any impact on worship staff (75 percent vs. 64 percent) and worship resources (41 percent vs 48 percent). Midsize congregations(101-250) were slightly less likely to indicate little impact on worship staff and slightly more likely to indicate a mild reduction in staffing costs (54 percent and 27 percent vs. 64 percent and 18percent overall).

Medium-large congregations (251-450)showed little significant variances.Large congregations (451-1000) were more likely to describe the effect of the crisis as "moderate" (49 percent vs. 36 percent), far less likely to describe the impact on worship staff as "hardly any" (38 percent vs. 60 percent), somewhat more likely to lay off a worship staff person (15 percent vs. 8 percent), far less likely to describe the impact on worship programming as "hardly any," and more likely to have reduced programming budgets (28 percent and 39 percent vs. 50 percent and 32 percent overall). They were also much less likely to describe the impact on worship resources as "hardly any," while far more likely to have taken either mild or moderate budget reductions (21 percent, 44 percent and 23 percent vs. 41 percent, 22 percent, and 16 percent). While there were only11 mega-churches (worship attendance larger than 1000) in the sample, these were also the most likely to report "serious" general economic impact (45 percent vs. 29 percent overall) and were more likely to lay off staff (28 percent vs. 8 percent) than any other church size.

Overall, it appears that large congregations (average worship attendance more than 451) in this sample experienced significantly greater impacts on local finances and worship staffing, programming, and resources than smaller ones did. Although the numbers of large and mega-churches in this sample were small relative to the overall sample size (six percent and two percent respectively), this actually is a substantial over-representation relative to the denomination overall (one percent and one percent based on 2007 GCFA data). We can be fairly confident in these results, then, even though the relative sample size is small. Against the "common wisdom" that larger organizations may be in a better stead to "weather" economic storms, these data indicate larger congregations may be more likely to perceive the threats to be more severe and respond in a more dramatic way than smaller ones, even in an area such as worship -- widely deemed to be a core ministry of the congregation's life.

Variations by Worship Style
First, a word needs to be said about worship styles in The United Methodist Church represented by this sample and more generally. The vast majority of United Methodist congregations represented here (73 percent) offer what they call "traditional" worship. Forty percent of this sample described at least one of their services as"blended." Twenty-two percent described at least one of their services as"contemporary." Fourteen percent described at least one of their services as "Praise and Worship." About six percent described any of their services as either "emergent," Taizé, or "indigenous."

The larger the church, the less likely it is to describe its worship primarily as "traditional," though even here, 9 of the 11 "mega-churches" and 36 of the 39 very large churches include at least one "traditional" service in their "mix" (nearly all of these offer at least three services per week). Blended services, where they occur, are found most frequently in the Southeast and North Central Jurisdictions and in congregations 250 or fewer in average attendance. Eighty percent of congregations in this sample offering a contemporary service were larger than 100 in average attendance. In the2004-2007 Music and Worship Study conducted by Discipleship Ministries, covering more than 1500 congregations, "contemporary" was listed as the primary description of worship service only for the third service in congregations offering three or more weekly services. These data seem congruent with that finding. Praise and worship style services, where they occurred in this sample, were found mostly in the Southeast and Western Jurisdictions, and equally less often in the South Central and North Central Jurisdictions. The most frequent size of these congregation was small or midsize (fewer than 250 in average worship attendance).

Not surprising given the high relative percentage of traditional and blended worship patterns, there is no significant variation from the overall data for those who identify themselves as traditional or blended in worship. Those offering contemporary worship had no significant variance from the overall data in their perception of the impact of the economic crisis on local church finances, but did have a markedly lower likelihood to say the impact on staff, program, and worship resources was "hardly any" (51 percent, 43 percent and 31 percent vs. 64 percent, 50 percent and 41 percent). These congregations were also more likely to made budget cuts in programming and resources (41 percent and 32 percent vs. 32 percent and 22 percent), but not significantly different in the rate of cutting staff (10 percent vs. 8 percent). The only significant variance notable by those offering "Praise and Worship" style services is a lower percentage of those calling the impact on staffing "hardly any" (55 percent vs. 64 percent). Among those offering either Taizé, emergent or indigenous worship, there was a higher likelihood of cutting worship staff (14 percent vs. 8 percent), a higher likelihood of expanding worship programming (19 percent vs. 9 percent), and at the same time a greater likelihood of reducing expenses for worship resources somewhat (30 percent vs. 22 percent).

Overall, these data indicate that congregations offering contemporary worship were more likely to make cuts in programming and resources in response to economic crisis, even while they perceived the financial impact of the crisis about the same as most others in the sample. This appears to be generally consistent with the findings of the 2004-2007 Music and Worship study and this survey that "contemporary" worship was most likely to be found in larger congregations and there often as an "additional option" and the finding in this study that these larger congregations were also more likely to perceive the crisis as worse than smaller congregations and respond accordingly.

So What? Discipleship Ministries Worship and the Economy Survey was a "point in time" snapshot conducted during the summer of 2009. As such, it does not identify trends (changes in response patterns over time) as much as it identifies characteristics of the congregations that participated in the study at the time. As we noted earlier, since the overall sample size was insufficient to consider this a "scientific study," no definitive conclusions can be drawn.

However, several possible findings can be offered as hypotheses to test in subsequent studies that may have greater participation.

  1. That worship in United Methodist congregations is one of the last areas to be cut in hard economic times.
  2. That worship styles in all United Methodist congregations still tend to "norm" around "traditional," however a given congregation may define that term, especially in the South Central Jurisdiction.
  3. That "contemporary" forms of worship tend to be offered primarily in larger congregations with three or more services.
  4. That smaller congregations may be less likely to perceive financial threats or respond to them by cuts in worship staffing, programming or resources than larger congregations.

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