When Denominations Stop Mattering

Dr. John Hill, Editor & CEO

*Republished from Dr. Hill's September issue of "Ministry and Meaning" and also from his personal blog at www.jhillworks.com

For generations, the name on the church sign told people something. Baptist. Methodist. Lutheran. Presbyterian. Free Will Baptist. Those labels carried history, theology, relationships, and expectations. Increasingly, they do not carry the same weight.

Pew Research Center’s latest Religious Landscape Study found that 12% of American adults identify as Baptist, down from 17% in 2007. Methodists and Lutherans now account for about 3% each. Nondenominational Protestants, meanwhile, have grown to 7.1% of the population and are the only major Protestant denominational family larger today than in

Pew’s first landscape study.

That raises an uncomfortable question: If younger Christians do not care what is written on the church sign, what exactly is a denomination for?

I do not believe the answer is preserving an institution because our grandparents loved it.

Denominational loyalty is not a Christian virtue by itself. A denomination deserves loyalty only to the extent that it helps churches faithfully accomplish things they cannot accomplish as effectively alone. That is where I believe denominations still matter.

Doctrine matters. “Nondenominational” does not mean “nontheological.” Every church believes something about Scripture, salvation, baptism, communion, church government, sexuality, ministry, and Christian living. Denominations at their best preserve theological convictions and prevent every congregation from reinventing Christianity for itself.

Accountability matters. Complete congregational independence can become dangerous when there is no meaningful relationship beyond the local church. Pastors need colleagues. Churches need counsel. Leaders sometimes need correction. Healthy denominational relationships remind us that none of us ministers are alone.

Shared mission matters. Free Will Baptists can accomplish together what most individual congregations could never accomplish separately. Missions, theological education, curriculum publishing, camps, ministries to children and families, leadership development, and church planting require cooperation. But this is where denominations must become brutally honest. If our primary argument for denominational survival is history, we may not have much of an argument.

We cannot assume the next generation will support an institution simply because previous generations did. We must demonstrate its value.

Free Will Baptists should therefore be asking harder questions. Are we preserving our theological identity or merely our organizational structure? Are our institutions serving churches, or are churches increasingly expected to serve our institutions? Are we cooperating around mission, or maintaining machinery because no one knows how to shut it down?

I still believe denominations matter.

But perhaps the future belongs to denominations that become more theological, more relational, more cooperative, and less institutional for institution’s sake.

The name on the sign may matter less than it once did.

That means we had better give people a compelling reason why what stands behind that name still matters.