https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6939-7072
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Abstract
Churches all over Europe are experiencing decline within a larger context of religious decline. One under-researched field concerns the consequences this decline has at a local organizational level. This article examines congregations experiencing growth in attendance at their regular Sunday worship services, and asks: What has caused growth in attendance among these congregations? What are the consequences of the attendance growth according to parish leadership, staff, committed volunteers and regular churchgoers? The empirical material for the study is interview and observation material from four congregations in the Church of Norway. These congregations have witnessed an increase in attendance of between 15.5% and 31.6% the last five years (2013–2017) compared to the previous five years (2008–2012). The ecclesial ideal in the Church of Norway, as in other national majority churches, has been to balance between “the core congregation” and “the folk church”. However, the Nordic pattern of “belonging without believing” or “believing in belonging” is not as strong as it used to be, and this has made “vicarious religion” more contested within congregations. A more polarized neither-nor understanding of the Sunday service can explain why the studied congregations have been able to grow within a context of decline.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Chaves, “Congregations in Europe.”
2 Monnot and Stolz, Congregations in Europe.
3 As Furseth et al. describe more in detail, the church-state relation in Norway has changed over a period of 30 years. A political agreement between all political parties represented in the Parliament was reached in 2008, with a final constitutional amendment in 2012 and a full implementation in 2017. Coordinated with the church leadership, the agreement includes a position of CoN as a legal entity and a definition of CoN as the “Established Church of Norway” in the constitution’s § 16 (Furseth, Religious Complexity, 87–90).
4 Statistics provided by Statistics Norway https://www.ssb.no/en/kirke_kostra. In comparison, the Church of Sweden has 57.7% of the population as members and 40.6% of new-borns are baptised (2018) (https://www.svenskakyrkan.se/statistik). In Denmark 75.3% of the population are members and 59.9% of all new-borns are baptised in the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Denmark in 2017 http://www.km.dk/folkekirken/kirkestatistik/. See Furseth for analysis of the developments within each of the Nordic majority churches (Furseth, Religious Complexity).
5 The anonymised names of the congregations indicate, very roughly, where they are located geographically.
6 Tveitereid, “Making Data Speak.”
7 Vejrup Nielsen and Helboe Johansen, “Transforming Churches.”
8 Taylor, A Secular Age.
9 Davie, “Studying Religion in the Nordic Countries.”
10 I have been the project leader of the project “Sted, rom og praksis: Gudstjenester folk vil ha”. The scholars involved are from different theological disciplines. Many of their articles are published in Teologisk tidsskrift (https://www.idunn.no/tt). See project description at https://www.tf.uio.no/forskning/prosjekter/sted-rom-praksis/index.html.
11 Vision document for the Church of Norway 2019–2021: https://kirken.no/nb-NO/om-kirken/slik-styres-kirken/plandokumenter/visjonsdokument/. Mobilising document for baptism: https://kirken.no/nb-NO/om-kirken/for-medarbeidere/dapsloftet---mobilisering-til-dap/. YouTube films about baptism: https://kirken.no/nb-NO/d%C3%A5p/. Commercial campaign for folk church: https://kirken.no/romfordeg.
12 Similar formulations in the national budgets from 2017–2020 state that the government demands attendance in order to support the church as folk church: https://kirken.no/globalassets/kirken.no/aktuelt/filer-2017/statsbudsjettet-2017---tilskudd-til-den-norske-kirke.pdf.
13 Compared to the other Nordic majority churches, CoN has the most extensive state support. The primary source of funding is direct state funding over the state and municipal budgets, via the general tax revenue (Furseth, Religious Complexity, 92).
14 The project received its assessment from NSD Norwegian Centre for Research Data 10 March 2019 (Notification Form 481198).
15 NSD's church database https://nsd.no/data/kirke/ (Accessed 2 December 2020).
16 Growth in terms of members is mainly a result of population growth in the area. Several parishes have merged during the last ten years, and this affects the participation statistics. We also considered newly erected church buildings as a factor that causes growth, and excluded these churches in order not to study this special phenomenon.
17 The criterion of 3000 members was not part of the initial research design. We contacted the congregations at the top of the list (after excluding parishes with population growth, merged parishes and new church buildings). These congregations had a low number of members, and small changes in participation rates had a large impact on the statistics. The church personnel in these congregations had not noticed increased participation at their Sunday worship services. This information led us to expand the inclusion criteria to 3000. We asked two other congregations to participate, but they declined to take part in the study.
18 “Festive days” include Christmas Eve, confirmations and other Festive days in the liturgical calendar. “Other services” include evening services, services in institutions and for schools and day cares.
19 The observation material also includes participant observation of activities taking place in the days prior to or after the Sunday service.
20 Roest, “The Focus Group Method in Practical Ecclesiology.”
21 Information about gender and age is not included in order to maintain the anonymity of the informants. The questions from the interview guide particularly addressing my research interest: What makes you interested in the services in this congregation? How would you describe this service in relation to other services in this congregation? What would make you attend more services? What could keep you from attending? Why do you think this congregation has seen an increase in the number of participants? (Interview guide, my translation). The management were given the same questions, but we included additional questions: How would you describe this congregation? What do you experience as the most rewarding and most challenging aspect of working in this congregation? How is the cooperation between employed staff and volunteers? How do you recruit volunteers? What kind of activities do you prioritise financially? What kind of activities do you regard as competition? Do you experience other Christian congregations or organisations as competitors? (Interview guide, my translation).
22 These informants were recruited in advance through the pastor in each congregation.
23 Lundby, Troskollektivet.
24 Hegstad, Folkekirke og trosfellesskap.
25 Furseth, Religious Complexity, 45–6.
26 Hegstad, Folkekirke og trosfellesskap.
27 Iversen, “Gudstro i den danske religionspark.”
28 Davie, “Vicarious Religion,” 22.
29 Pettersson, “Kvalitet i livslånga tjänsterelationer.”
30 Pettersson, “Kvalitet i livslånga tjänsterelationer,” 350–51.
31 Pettersson, “Kvalitet i livslånga tjänsterelationer,” 150.
32 Johansen, “Does Generation Matter?”
33 Furseth, Religious Complexity, 47.
34 Niemelä, “‘No Longer Believing in Belonging’.”
35 Pettersson, “From Standardised Offer.”
36 Rasmussen, “The Marketization of Church Closures.”
37 Moberg, Church, Market, and Media, 76.
38 Furseth, Religious Complexity, 224–5.
39 Moberg, Church, Market, and Media, 154.
40 Nielsen, “Changing Patterns?”
41 Schlamelcher, “The Decline.”
42 Ibid.
43 Nielsen and Johansen, “Transforming Churches.”
44 Ibid. 522–3.
45 Other services not taking place on Sunday morning in North had a negative growth of –13.1%. The total number of services has increased by 16.8% in the last five years (291 vs. 340). Their number of other services was also quite high (158 vs. 153), but the total number has reduced a little (3.6%).
46 The congregation had reported a high number of worship services other than on Sundays in the last five years. The increase at 353% was so high that we asked the parish leadership how they completed the statistics. The services registered as “other” should have been registered as “Sunday- and Festive days.”
47 Ellingson, “Packaging Religious Experience.”
48 Hegstad, Folkekirke og trosfellesskap.
49 Davie, “Vicarious Religion,” 22.
50 Nielsen, “Changing Patterns?”
51 Schlamelcher, “Decline of the Parishes.”
52 Pettersson, “From Standardised Offer.”
53 Moberg, Church, Market, and Media.
54 Brekke, Faithonomics, 50–51.
55 Davie, “Vicarious Religion.”
56 Davie, “Studying Religion.”
57 Engaard, “Højmessen set fra kirkebænken.”
58 Schlamelcher, “Decline of the Mainline.”
59 Moberg and Martikainen, “Religious Change.”
60 Moberg, Church, Market, and Media.
61 Several have responded to drafts of this article. Words of thanks go to the members of the research group, the empirical research group at Aarhus University led by Kirstine Helboe Johansen, as well as Marie Vejrup Nielsen, Per Pettersson, Nete Helene Engaard, Jens Schlamelcher, Marcus Moberg and the two anonymous reviewers.