Sustainable Churches: Peeking at the numbers

Do your kids go to church? What about your grandchildren? Most Canadians don’t attend religious services on a regular basis, if at all. 35% of Canadians identify as “nones,” as in “none of the above” when choosing a religious affiliation from a list.

This blog looks at the finances of a randomly selected church, to see how/if it matches the trends.

Rise of the “nones”

Canadians who grew up going to church don’t always continue to do so. There’s a demographic shift happening from identifying as a specific type of Christian (Anglican, Baptist etc.), then identifying as Christian generically, and then moving to “none.” This nonversion (as opposed to conversion) can happen over generations, or within one lifetime.

Peeking into church finances for a random church

How are churches doing? I chose randomly from a list of churches in an Ontario city to look at one church’s finances. I can do this with Canadian charities because each one needs to file annual statement with the government. These numbers are publicly available. [See my blog post on how to look up a charity’s T3010 data.]

Disclaimer: It’s hard to know how accurate their information really is. Mistakes and omissions on T3010 are quite common.

Here are the highlights for the church I found:

 Giving to church

The church reports 100% of their income from giving, mostly receipted giving. Kudos to them! I have seen many churches which rely on reserve funds and/or endowments (plus rental income) to support the local congregation. In terms of member giving, I’d say this church is healthier than most.

However, the data shows that giving has been declining or stagnant since 2018. The church has fewer paid staff positions than it did five years ago.

Declining giving doesn’t mean attendance is down - losing a few generous seniors would be enough to make a big difference in annual giving.

Building

This church does not report owning a building, but I see one on their website. I’d guess the building is paid for because it looks like a semi-rural church which has existed since 1967 or before. There situation would be quite different if they wanted to buy a building now.

Giving beyond the church

My hope is that people at this church support community causes directly, as their church does not.

2019 is the last year the church reported giving to the denomination or other charities. As giving dropped, the church seems to have stopped supporting its denomination. This is a familiar, yet sad, story. To me, it’s indicative of a lack of trust and not just a lack of finances.

Summary

This random church is doing alright. It’s still supported by member giving. They’ve had to cut staff as giving slumped but still have a full-time pastor.

The church is not directly supporting any other charities. I trust that members are doing this directly, but I lament the loss of communal giving, which can be a unifying force in a congregation.

As they have reduced staff positions, they also stopped giving to their denomination. The denominational consequences of this will be multiplied many times over as other churches do exactly the same thing.

Now they belong to a denomination in name only. If this church follows individual demographic trends of moving from a specific type of Christian to generically Christian, will they soon rename themselves and cut ties with the denomination altogether?

What are your thoughts on the future of the church in Canada?

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you’d like to discuss, or if you’d like me to analyze data for a church or group of churches.