The Catholic Archdiocese of Metro Detroit is facing a situation that is too familiar among church bodies.  They are looking at declining numbers, combined with increasing costs to maintain decaying urban cathedrals.  The situation was recently the focus in an article by sociologist Ryan Burge.

For clarification, that Archdiocese includes six counties in the Detroit Metro area.  Four of those counties are experiencing growth, while the other two, including Wayne County, which includes the city itself, are in decline.  When you look at the numbers, the church should be poised for growth, but that is not the case.

In 2011, 238,000 Catholics attended mass on a regular basis.  By 2024 that number had declined to 138.000.  The report also notes that since 2000 the number of infant baptisms has shrunk from 18,300 to 5,300 in 2024.  At the same time the number of funerals has declined from 9,700 to 6,000.  Did you catch that, at the current rate, the number of births is not keeping up with the number of deaths. 

From a business perspective, this is not sustainable.  Too much money is being spent to prop up aging urban cathedrals and not enough to invest in growth in the suburbs.  Additionally, there are fewer parishioners to support the ministry. 

My own church body, The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, is facing a similar situation.  Today, the LCMS is half the size of what it was at its almost three million members in 1979.  Across the board, most urban congregations are struggling.  So are most rural and small-town churches.  The average congregation has less than a hundred people in worship on a typical Sunday.

In my opinion, too much attention, time and money is being spent to maintain what we have and not enough on growth.

In our case, the church’s leadership has shown through recent decisions, it is more interested in preserving tradition than it is on growth.  Notice I said traditions and not doctrine.  From my perspective, Lutheran theology is not the issue.  It is more an issue of practice, and how the Gospel message is presented. 

One reality is common among both the Catholics, the LCMS and other mainline denomination.  While maintaining our doctrine, we must become more focused on equipping the people we have to reach the lost around us.