The death of the celebration style church? 

Something is shifting, writes Michael Shaw - people are migrating to small churches, where there is more space to be their authentic selves 

 
Talking to other smaller church leaders in Plymouth, some of us have started to see quite significant growth. While some of it is new believers, there are also more people moving from bigger, celebration style churches and finding their way to smaller community focused churches, like mine.
 
What do I mean be celebration style churches?

For me these are the churches and church networks that often have a huge focus on the big Sunday event. So they have a full band with guitars and drums, they have purple, back lit stages, their Instagram is full of beautiful young people with perfect teeth, they have a sound system that is worth more than the average minimum stipend, they have a welcome team in matching t-shirts, kids groups for all the age groups from creche to A-level, they have a big car park and apparently everyone is welcome!
 
But something is shifting. Yes they still have many people who attend these style of services, but more and more people are finding they are no longer meeting their needs.
 
Covid has definitely influenced this, with many of these churches quickly able to produce slick YouTube streamed services, with other churches more inclined to use Zoom due to it being far more interactive. But also people realised that they had just been attending a streamed service, with little of no actual community beyond the Sunday morning “experience”.
 
Also, people are looking to travel less, and engage with their locality far more, while other people have opted to move away from being near work, because they work from home most of the week, and only go into the office once or twice a week, so they have moved out of traditional commuter locations.
 
But also many people are prioritising their mental health, and while these larger churches may have big pastoral teams, it's a different level of support that a smaller, more community-focused church can give.
 
One example is a woman now at my church. She went to a Christmas service at one of the bigger celebration churches, which she had been attending for a few years. She went early, so she could talk to someone, sat down and started weeping; she wept throughout the whole service; and nobody spoke to her!  
 
While that story is probably an exception, most of these celebration churches are not equipped to deal with people who are not “up for it”. There is no space for lament, or mourning. They are much more designed to rejoice, and if that is not the space you are in, then they struggle to help you.
 
Meanwhile, younger people, who many of these churches are aimed at, are finding the deeper questions they are asking are simply not being met with answers, so they are often “deconstructing”. Many of these churches find that process hard to deal with, because they require certainty and are not good at dealing with uncomfortable questioning.
 
So how are people responding? Well that is what I am starting to see, with people gradually migrating to churches like mine. Many of my smaller church compatriots are also seeing new people walk through the doors. People in the past who may have found their way on an Alpha Course are now focusing on smaller communities led by integrity and authenticity. They are finding a great joy in smaller communities of faith.

I am being slightly provocative with the title the “death” of celebration churches, as think these churches will adapt. Maybe we will see these churches adapt by becoming networks of smaller, local churches that gather together once a month to celebrate what they do in their local communities the rest of the month.

These smaller communities will be far more missional and contextualised, and if that does happen we may be on the cusp of seeing the church move from terminal decline and heading in the other direction!


Image | Sebbi Strauch | Unsplash
 

Michael Shaw is the minister of Devonport Community Baptist Church, Plymouth

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