How is it that most (if not all ) mainline denominations have lost members for four decades and the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC), has a record of four decades of continual growth? What are they doing?
The Evangelical Covenant Church was originally a Swedish immigrants' church, founded in 1888. Like Methodism it was first a movement growing out of a revival (in Sweden during the mid-1800s), then a denomination. It was influenced by Pietism.
Growing out of a state church (the Swedish Lutheran Church), the ECC believes in infant baptism. It ordains women (about 20% of its clergy are women).
Because it was basically an ethnic and immigrants' church the ECC was not caught up in the religious wars of the early 1900s. In other words it escaped the attempt to re-construct the nature of Christian faith in the name of modernism. By the same token it escaped the fundamentalist reaction by those resisting modernism. This helps to explain what is labeled on its website as the Evangelical Covenant's understanding of itself: Evangelical, but not exclusive; Biblical, but not doctrinaire; traditional, but not rigid; congregational, but not independent.
The ECC's theology is generic evangelicalism with an emphasis on the authority of Scripture and other Reformation truths such as the full atonement of Christ and Justification by Faith. This is combined with an emphasis on missions and reaching out to a needy world. An article in Faith and Leadership (Duke Seminary) of July 28, 2010 featured the ECC church under the title "Covenant Influence Larger Than Its Size."
In the mid-1950s the church changed its name from the Swedish Covenant Church to the Evangelical Covenant Church and sought to rebrand itself. It had been mono-racial (white), regional (wherever there had been Swedish immigrants, mainly in Minnesota, Washington state, and the Chicago area) and not very visible on the American Protestant scene. Aware of its lack of diversity and aware of the tremendous social upheaval taking place in the nation at the time, The ECC set out deliberately to become multi-ethnic and multi-cultural. The strategy was simple: start ministries and churches in inner cities, immigrant communities, and areas where people are hurting and the gospel needed to be proclaimed.
The results have been dramatic. From having almost no churches that were ethnic or multi-ethnic, the ECC reports that 22.8% of its churches are now ethnic or multi-ethnic. Ethnic and multi-ethnic churches are growing three times as fast as the denomination as a whole. In 40 years ECC membership has doubled, from 66,000 to over 130,000 with weekly attendance higher than the membership (during the same period the UM Church has decreased from 11 million to 7.7 million).
In the past two years 31 churches with an average attendance of 4,953 have become part of the ECC (during the same period 16 churches were closed or lost). Six of the 31 were church plants or multi-site or spin-offs from other ECC churches. Two are Asian (one "English-speaking for 2nd generation Asians"); one is an African immigrant church; two are Hispanic; two are inner city churches growing out of inner city ministries; four are African-American or "multi-racial"); one is "non-traditional;" one is for "post-moderns:" two left other denominations drawn by ECC evangelicalism and inclusivism. Very few of the 31 are meeting in their own buildings. Almost none of the churches are in the South, or America's Bible belt. They tend to be in places like California, Washington state, Chicago, the plains states, and New England, which are not the easiest places to grow churches. At the same time the ECC has an overseas missionary force of about 150. In 2010 the ECC general church funds reported a surplus.
Is there anything to be learned by other mainline denominations from the ECC? Yes!
1) When the ECC was talking about making new Christians the mainline denominations were talking about empowerment and justice. It is time to question the mainline strategy, past and present. For example, the United Methodist Church, a denomination that in the early 1820s could claim that 20% of its membership was African-American, now reports less than 6% are African-American and only about 8% are ethnic of any kind. After four decades of diversity talk, the United Methodist Church is less diverse.
2) Theology does matter. The ECC is hardly a fundamentalist church. It has a social ministry to rival that of any denomination. But it does emphasize that it is committed to the authority of Scripture and the essentials of the faith. It supports one denominational seminary, North Park in Chicago, but accepts graduates from other seminaries and especially welcomes those from places like Fuller and Gordon-Conwell that are training pastors to be church planters.
3) Denominations can grow, even in America. A lot is said about the church growth in America coming from mega-churches and independent churches. The ECC is evidence that moderate, socially-aware, rather traditional denominations still have a place in American church life.
4) A key to ECC growth is the sense of denominational unity around core beliefs and values and its leaders are committed to those values. At the same time the ECC emphasizes that it allows its pastors and churches tremendous freedom. Its last three presidents have be involved in some way with new church starts. In contrast most mainline denominational leaders have excelled in administration and manipulating the bureaucracy, but few have been involved in new church development.
ECC leaders today admit (somewhat sheepishly) that some of the best and most effective pastors in their denomination come from mainline denominations. They were either too evangelical or too independent of the "system" for their denominations; or they wanted a kind of ministry not available to them as United Methodists, and found a home in the ECCs.
