The population trends that will affect your ministry for the next 17 years are significant. Census data shows the sizes of the generations now living and how they are proportioned to each other. Looking at the data, it is apparent that the following things are true.
- The Silent Generation (born 1925-1945) is the smallest generation with 52 million people.
- The Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) are a huge cohort of people with 78 million people.
- Generation-X (born 1965-1984) are significantly smaller than the Boomers with 69 million people.
- The Millennial Generation (born 1985-2005) is a very large generation with 86 million people.
Each generation has characteristics that will impact future ministry in for the next 17 years.
Silent Generation
The group named “Silent Generation” is the group of people who were in their teens in the 50’s. They were too young to serve in WWII. This generation is contributing to the increase in the median age as life expectancy in the USA is on the rise.
They are the smallest generation now living. As they enter the age traditionally considered “dependent elderly” these senior adults will create less demand for traditional assisted living. They may still have the same health issues as the WWII generation who are now at their most frail, but because of their size, there will be far fewer of them in need of traditional assisted living.
Consequently, they also will reduce demand for the kinds of ministry that is normally associated with the elderly. Churches will find a reduction in the demand for SR adult ministry right at a time when there will be a sharp increase in the demand for a renovation of what older adult ministry means.
The new focus in the United States will be on issues dealing with aging. Median and older adults will demand a greater amount of attention for the next seven years.
Baby Boomers
The Baby Boomer Generation has and continues to be the most significant group to impact how Evangelicals do ministry. The Boomers are a large driver for what happens in these churches, just look at their history:
- 1950’s-70’s they were the reason for explosive Sunday school growth. In the SBC the “Million More in 54 Campaign” changed the face of the denomination. It wasn’t the slogan that made it work…it was the huge numbers of school age children “out there” that needed to be in church. The SBC went out and enrolled them door-to-door and they came to church. We didn’t have children’s ministers in substantial numbers until the Boomers.
- 1960’s-70’s they caused the church to focus on youth and college (they fueled the growth of youth camps, youth musicals, campus ministries, “Jesus Freaks”, etc. We didn’t have youth and campus ministers in substantial numbers until the Boomers.
- 1980’s-90’s they moved en masse to mega churches and brought their contemporary Christian pop music to the worship service and caused the “worship wars”. More analysis could be done to show how they fueled the mission volunteer movement, made seminaries grow, and more. We didn’t have cool church seminar leaders (or goatees) until the Boomers.
- 2000-Now Boomers are the drivers, thinkers, and writers behind the missional church and emerging church movement really. You can’t go to a “emerging/relevant church” conference without there being a Boomer within spitting distance.
Moving-Forward
Boomers will transform the church again. At every stage of life the Boomers transformed the church drastically. Today the Boomers are in their Mid 40s-Early 60s. It’s easier to assume life in the church and our institutions will stay the same and not spend time thinking about the coming transformation to the Evangelical church. We will have Senior Adult Ministers in substantial numbers I predict, but they will be called something really cool and young sounding.
The years 2010, 2016, 2020 will see surges as successive groupings of Boomers will hit age 65. The impact of the changes coming to Evangelical churches due to this generational issue would be hard to overstate.
The graphic below from the US Census shows the comparative size of the various age group markets. The Boomer Generation will continue to have significant influence on churches in the future. That to say not everything will be passed to a younger “emerging” generation.
Generation-X
Evangelicals are now working to become more relevant to younger generations. But looking at the statistics, it is not clear that church leaders understand the implications of the changes in ethnicity that are going to be strong drivers for ministry planning too. Also the segment of the younger audience that receives the focus (young families in their 30’s) seems to be mismatched with the bulk of the attention being placed on the smaller population group.
A lot of attention is being paid to the “Emerging Church” as ministry conferences and books are being written about how to minister in a relevant way to younger families.
The US Census shows (in the graphic below) the market segment represented in age by the Generation-X (born 1965-1978 right now they are aged 30-43 by the end of the period in 2012 will be aged 34-47) is expected to decrease between now and 2015.
Generation-Y
The next wave of population growth is the generation born from 1985-2005. This generation is larger than the Baby Boomer generation, but is more diverse. The Boomers are 74% white while the Millennials are only 61% white. (The same is true for Generation-X which is 61% white.) The trend is that the “white share” of the population is in decline. While the ethnic segments of the population are increasing. This is significant because Evangelicals tend to skew toward Anglos in their ministry outreach.
Racial diversity is a large trend within the younger generations. It could be said, given the trends, that the real “emerging” generations are more strongly ethnic than the trend of Anglo White (middle class) emerging leaders.
Evangelicals need to understand that their churches are becoming like the church located downtown that is filled with older white members from the church’s heyday. Meanwhile the demographics have shifted as new races have moved into the neighborhood. We need to become relevant not only to whites, but also the emerging generations of other races.
Here are a few facts about ethnic population:
- The growth of the white population is much slower than other groups. Whites are growing at the rate of 3%. (Black 13%, Hispanic 26%, Asian 27%)
- There are more white people age 65+ than there are white children under 5 years old.
- Ethnic churches also comprise a large percentage of growth in new churches. (For example, fifty-five percent of all new church starts in the SBC are of ethnic congregations and ethnics now comprise 20% of Southern Baptist churches. Graph below from LifeWay research.)
A major feature of the Millennial generation seems to be unattended. The ethnicity of the next generation is a major factor in determining what ministry will look like to future generations.
Looking Toward the Future
Evangelicals should consider the major trends that will impact ministry and begin to take steps to prepare for relevant ministry. Here are a few observations to consider.
- Aging is a major trend that will impact ministry for the next 17 years. Evangelicals need to help churches update their concept of what it means to minister to SR adults.
- Racial diversity is changing the make-up of the USA and ethnic groups will have increasingly more influence for the next 17 years. This diversity needs to be reflected in ministry staff.
- The Anglo population is in decline in influence, is broken up by generational issues, and is aging.
- The next seven years young families aged 30-45 will be in decline. Churches will need to learn to minister better to people of all ages.
- The 65+ age cohort will increase 54% in the next seven years. If your church is ineffective in ministering to older people, you will not be positioned well for ministry in the future.
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