But anyway, those are the breakouts and they show us, again, that as of the end of the 20^th Century there were roughly just over 13,000 congregations with about 1.2 million members. How accurate are they? Well, I think they’re generally accurate. They give us an idea of the numbers.

Now, the question is, “Where did a million go from the late 1960’s to the end of the century? Well, we lost numbers…we lost numbers. There were some who left our fellowship, no doubt; but we did not experience in the last 40 years of the 20^th Century the same kind of growth that we experienced in the first 60 years. And as congregations experience attrition, as sometimes people leave, but even more specifically as people die and people are not replaced, or as children grow up (and this became sort of a phenomenon in the latter part of the 20^th Century) and leave the church, then the numbers are going to dwindle. So, if you don’t replace those who die; if you don’t replace those who leave; if you’re not growing within (and that term is sometimes referred to as “swelling”—in other words you baptize your kids and so that keeps your growth rate up), then the numbers dwindle. Something began to happen in the latter part of the 20^th Century, and that is that a lot of kids who were born and raised in the church (an expression we use sometimes) were not being baptized, and many of those were leaving the church when they got out on their own. In fact, I’ve seen numbers as high—and I’m ready to believe that these numbers would be accurate—but I’ve seen numbers as high as 80% of the young people in the brotherhood of churches of Christ have been leaving the church. So, we see, then, that there has been a reduction in numbers.

But, numbers don’t tell the whole story of that dynamic growth that we saw in the churches of Christ in the first 60 years, or so, the first 70 years of the 20^th Century. As we’ve already alluded to, there were larger, more expensive buildings; there developed a more affluent middle class, as far as the membership went; the number of full-time ministers increased; there was the development of Bible class programs within congregations; Christian education; missionary outreach across the United States, but also around the globe. These were all things that contributed to the growth of the church.

Well, as the 20^th Century began, the church was a largely rural, largely agrarian-type of population, and so on; they had the small frame, one-room buildings where they would meet, and so on; they had a circuit rider, a preacher that came around and they’d get preaching maybe once a month. And that was sort of the characterization of the churches in the latter part of the 19^th Century and the early part of the 20^th Century. But then, as the century would go on, there would be this change that would take place.

By the 1940’s, many more congregations were beginning to appear in larger towns and cities. And after World War II, the church enjoyed a remarkable growth in the urban areas. And, of course, this primarily mirrored what was going on in our society, in our economy. It was, of course, after World War II that we got the boom in our economy, the greater industrialization, etc. And so, as Christians, as members of the church, climbed the economic and educational ladder, the church would also make those moves as well. There were, during this period of time, thousands of new church buildings that were erected, some costing many hundreds of thousands of dollars. They were built with adequate class facilities, etc.