CHAPTER 4

THE Church of Auckland: Cradle of Revival

Significant in both the growth of Pentecostalism and of the Evangelical church in Auckland has been a national revival movement, the charismatic renewal, which has touched most of New Zealand’s churches and denominations^[1] over the last thirty years.^[2] This revival has built on earlier revival movements^[3] and the Pentecostal denominations spawned by them.^[4] I contend that the agent for transformation in Auckland is the fruit of this revival. Thus, before expanding the theology of revival, I will examine the size of the committed core of the church in Auckland, diverse futures of the Auckland church, the significance of charismatic and Pentecostal growth and from these, the potential workforce for transformation.

The Size of the Committed Core

Assessing the impact of revival on the city requires comparison between Spirit-filled church and the size of the city. What is the size of the Christian community, which is the cradle of the charismatic Evangelical and Pentecostal sectors of the church? Over four years I collated statistics on the nature, and physical locations (photographing many and mapping them) of congregations in greater Auckland, significant at 1084 congregations,[5] including 297 separate ethnic congregations, (apart from ethnic fellowships  in existing Pakeha congregations,

bringing the total to 350+ ethnic fellowships and congregations, as of 1998 (Fig. 5)).

5: Denominational Distribution of Congregations in Auckland

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To examine commitment, I needed to consider two issues: the committed core and among them, the second commitment to be cultural change agents. Webster and Perry’s study (1989), showed a high correlation between weekly attendance and a frequent sense of spiritual presence, concluding that weekly attendance was the best indicator of “religiosity” or as others call it, “the committed core”, “those who are practising believers, not simply adherents”. As Bryan Wilson intimates in a critique on the use of attendance figures, “Church attendance is, at least in the Christian West, the most conspicuous indicator of the extent of persisting, voluntary, unconstrained, religious commitment among the public at large” (Wilson, 2004: xvi). There is a history of such attendance analysis globally, beginning with the extensive UK data analysed by Robin Gill (1999:59-93; 2003) and Peter Brierley of MARC (e.g. Brierley, 1991). In the US, Rodney Stark and Charles Glock developed an extensive array of analysis of Christian commitment, which became the basis of Stark and Finke’s theory on religious economies (Stark & Bainbridge, 1985; Stark & Finke, 2000; Stark & Glock, 1968). I have been in a research network on churches in cities globally that has included the global missions researchers, Patrick Johnstone (2001), David Barrett (2001), Global Mapping International (http://www.gmi.org/research/)[6]  In the process, I have realised the level of estimation needed for strategic missional thinking.  Often the data is not there, or half there. New Zealand is no exception. This is not a sociological study but in order to define the context of revival, in this chapter I have needed to bring together and in a few small ways improve on the statistical research that is available.

So how many Aucklanders attend church weekly? I became aware as I developed the above database that the commonly used figure of 10% of New Zealanders in church on Sunday was short of the reality in Auckland. Having sought to map the churches and photograph where they meet, I realised that almost every church had two, three or four congregations meeting in it, that new ethnic churches were mushrooming on a monthly basis, that a number of ethnic congregations had reached the 500+ level, that school halls were almost all being used, that each of the major city centres like Henderson had six to eight warehouse churches, – in fact there was a shortage of space for the church in Auckland. As I write, I have just preached to a thousand member Korean Assemblies of God in a converted TVNZ studio. The Auckland church is not in decline, it is bursting its seams.

I queried historian Peter Lineham, who sent me many of the polls taken by various news media, and by a marketing study group at Massey University and then I found the results of other polls.  These numerous phone polls and estimated figures[7] that compare the percentage of total NZ population of “high participation” Christians, over the years from 1983 to 2005.^[8] showed that:

·         Those who say they attend church weekly fall consistently between 10 - 16% in New Zealand every Sunday.

·         Those who attend 2-3 times per month, plus those attending weekly (the committed core for the purposes of this study) fall consistently between 17% and 19% throughout this period.

·         Those who attend at least monthly fall within a range of 20-24%.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fig.6: Weekly Attendances by Denomination

Actual participation is always lower than what polls identify (Ward, 2000: note 3). Peter Lineham, in correspondence^[12] concludes that in attendance, ‘probably we still sit at around 12-15% weekly (bad to good Sundays), 19-21% monthly or more, 40% at least annually, to regular services.’ That is about 150,000 people in church in Auckland on a Sunday.

Significance: Charismatic Evangelical / Pentecostal Growth

This formed a basis for the question, that given the overall persistence of this wider Christian church, what is the size of the whole group under study — the Evangelical/ Pentecostal movement within New Zealand? Is there the dynamism of an expanding movement? Is it significant in terms of internal strength?

Unlike my analysis of numbers of congregations and ethnic congregations, I could not work from primary data alone for all this, but also had to make sense of the existing surveys mentioned above. I next compared them with denominational studies of attendance, where they existed, and ferreted out the figures for some that did not exist,  in a process of triangulation to see if they were indeed comparable. There were some indications (as shown in Fig. 6a and b) that figures for Auckland would be higher because of the large number of ethnic churches.

My conclusion was that significant growth in attendance had occurred in four areas of Evangelicalism. Firstly there have been significant increases among evangelicals in the mainline denominations.  Evangelical Protestants can conservatively be rated as 40% and increasing of Anglican and Presbyterian denominations (or 60% and increasing of those who attend church regularly weekly),^[13] and 40% of the Methodist bloc.^[14] The evangelical Salvation Army, Church of Christ, Nazarene, Reformed, Baptist, and Brethren denominations have experienced small decline or some small increases, overall just keeping pace with population growth. There has been significant ethnic congregational growth both within these and in the emergence of new ethnic churches and denominations. Thirdly, Pentecostal growth in weekly attendance has grown from 1% to about 2.3% of the population.[15] After many iterations, juggling attendance figures from multiple sources, my personal estimate is that regular weekly church attendance of the charismatic, Evangelical and Pentecostal clustering has grown from about 4.5% to almost 6% of the population over the fifteen years from 1986 to 2001 (Grigg, 2005).[16] This growth is linked by most leaders to revival and the charismatic movement over these last forty years. 

This clustering of evangelicals and Pentecostals is now dramatically larger than the declining traditional liberal wing of the Protestant church. Catholic decrease is less rapid but significant, with an upturn in Auckland due to new ethnic congregations in the last eight years (3.2% regular attendance in 2001 in Auckland).[17] Thus some large sectors of society are being lost to Christianity and others are being gained, but the overall total percentage appears to be increasing from 1986 to 1996 and then slowing to 2001 and beyond.

Diverse Futures of the Auckland Church

So will these percentages increase or decrease? The expectation by mainline theologians and by secularist leaders is of decrease. The committed core of Christians has decreased from in the mid-20% ranges in the 19^th century, with the maximum attendance 29.8% in 1894[18] to various estimates of between  10-15% attending weekly (and higher in Auckland (See Heylen poll,  Richardson, 2004)). The anecdotal evidence, polls, and church attendance analysis that indicate overall gain up to 1996, is now being offset by post-revival plateauing and small decline.  This was predicted by Hugh Dickie when he documented the rapid loss of children in Sunday Schools. In 1986, there were 200,000 children in mainline church Sunday Schools every week. By 1998, it was down to 19,000 (Dickie, 1997).

But what if revival synergies continue to reoccur? The ministry of Whitefield at a time of great moral depravity in England swung similar decline around. Synergistic revival movements fed by migration streams in the US led to decadally increasing percentages.^[19] The Naga revival in a cohesive tribal people-movement led to over 90% conversion to Christianity, sustained until invasion by the Indian army in the last decades.  Greeley (2004) documents the post-communist revival of religion in Eastern Europe.

We can interpret these dynamics by utilising four future streams of religiosity among New Zealand Christians, identified by Webster and Perry (1989:52) as possible categories, with the addition of a non-Christian religious category.

For each of these streams there are both internal dynamics and external contextual factors affecting growth and decline.

A Secular Future?

Is the future secularist? While modernist liberal theology among Presbyterians in New Zealand, influenced by Prof Lloyd Geering, foresaw primarily a secular future, based on early secularisation theory, others see it as temporary state of affairs. Secularity has limited resources and provides no raison d’être, which religious belief does (Stark & Bainbridge, 1985:421). Sociologists, along with these theologians, predicted the loss of religion, only to be surprised by its resurgence in both fundamentalist and experiential modes (Berger, 1999).[21] On the other hand, the general sceptical attitude of sociologists like Bryan Wilson, a sociologist of religion in the Weberian tradition, sees such modern religion as being unable to challenge the dominant ethos, but rather as providing an enclave of meaning and significance to individuals in a world of machines, managers and bureaucrats. They “are not so much the progenitors of a counterculture, as random anti-cultural assertions” (1976:110).

Crucial as the secularisation debate is,[22] clearly the New Zealand and in general Western secularisation of belief, has caused an exit from the institutional church. In terms of internal dynamics affecting decline, significant secularisation also exists in the committed core in the liberal sector of the Protestant church that has embraced modernist or secular theology, with concomitant loss of foundational beliefs, and consequently membership.[23] For example, in the significantly liberal-led Presbyterian denomination in Auckland, attendance reduced by 27% from 7900 to 5800 in ten years (Holland, 1996). That involved a lot of pain.

Secularisation, Urbanisation and Loss of Faith

Secularisation is usually considered a concommitant aspect to a wider phenomenon, urbanisation. But the relationships are much more complex. Hugh Jackson in his articles on church attendance 1860-1930, denies this correlation (1987:64-5). The differences in church attendance within New Zealand denominations graphed in this chapter indicate a significantly higher Auckland urban attendance than rural over the last 15 years.

These large theoretical constructs of urbanisation and secularisation need to be broken down into constituent parts to make sense. For example, we can examine just one aspect of urbanisation in the present urban context of high mobility. Unless they are in an older suburban context, urban pastors must replace about a fifth to a quarter of their flock each year just to maintain their present size. Churches fixed in older structures and rituals generally cannot cope with the speed and level of change needed. They tend to retrench into older ways, particularly as congregations age. On the other hand Pentecost’s (c1979) seminal research on receptivity to the gospel indicate that positive change in social, economic or political areas of life result in a responsiveness and receptivity to the gospel. The in-migration to Auckland involves such positive changes, so one would expect a greater responsiveness in Auckland than across New Zealand as a whole… provided the internal culture of a denomination affirms communication of the gospel to those responsive people.

Webster and Perry’s early analysis of the future of the church, was of an ageing church: “This remnant is ageing and the congregation diminishing” (1989:49). This is certainly true of the mainline denominations analyzed by the Church Life Survey (Brookes & Curnow, 1998). For internal denominational factors also effect the emptying of churches, regardless of the receptivity of context. These include terminal illness of denominational structures through traditionalism; theologies denying biblical authority;[24] some training models of pastoral leadership based primarily on academics and ignoring skills and spiritual gifting criteria; or failure to internally structure for ethnic change in the community among others. Christian Schwartz has identified eight quality characteristics and six biotic principles affecting growth of churches (see Natural Church Growth analyses in Shwartz, 1996). Lack of some of these factors contribute to the slow decline of Catholic Church attendance till 1996 (now reversed, at least in Auckland, by ethnic growth) and rapid decline of the liberal sector in mainline churches.

But the overall reality is much different to Webster and Perry’s and Brookes and Curnow’s “age and decline” opinions, so popular with the journalists. Unfortunately, most Pentecostal, fundamentalist and ethnic churches were not on the list of churches contacted for the Church Life Survey — at least 50% of the Auckland churches. Thus the research sustained the myth that the church is declining.^[25] More comprehensive statistics, which include these churches (Dickie, 1997, 1996), show reasonable consistency of sustained Christianity across ages. There are variations across denominations: fewer youth and increasing age in the mainline denominations; a loss of middle aged leadership in the Baptist denomination; large numbers of youth involved in Pentecostal and fundamentalist churches; significant numbers of migrant children in church; few Pakeha children in church. Webster and Perry's thesis of major church decline (Webster & Perry, 1989:49) into an age of secularism is not fully played out in terms of loss of a new generation. While there is gradual decline among Pakeha, it has been significantly offset by other urban phenomena into a shift to new styles of growing Christianity — Pentecostal, independent fundamentalist and ethnic. This is affirmed by Webster’s revised views: “it remains uncertain whether there is an age-effect as such” (2001:169).

Kevin Ward (2004a:2-4) analysing the secularisation debate, concludes there is both declining religious authority and privatisation of religion, yet a persistence of religious faith, though a persistence whose content is morphing,[26] with declining involvement, yet sustained religiosity. This chapter supports the persistence thesis and the morphing thesis. The indications are that until 1996, the charismatic revival prevented overall declining involvement, but that with the waning of revival from around 1989, another phase of national decline is probable (though with the expansion of ethnic churches in Auckland, may not occur in this city). However, his study of the disestablishment of rugby institutions as a parallel to the disestablishment of the church as institution (Ward, 2002), plus the figures above for loss of children in churches and the loss of revival dynamics, leaves one with grave concerns as to the future, even in Auckland.

Fundamentalism: Secure Haven in a Chaotic World

We now examine this morphing phenomenon. Harvey Cox’s premise is that in the postmodern post-secular context, religions (whether Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism) have all re-emerged in two forms, fundamentalism and experientialism. Both provide coherence where secularism has failed to provide a “culturally plausible response” (Cox, 1995:300-301).

Fundamentalism provides certainty in cultures that are increasingly incoherent mosaics of unconnected values, ideas and relationships (Ammerman, 1987: 192). It includes claims of absolute religious truth in the face of the societal disintegration inherent in secularism. On the negative side:

In Auckland, fundamentalist groups have been increasing in numbers, providing a safe haven for those seeking a clear system of belief in a chaotic postmodern world. Noticeable among these, are imported Calvinist churches from Holland (Dutch Reformed) and South Africa, descendants of fundamentalist missionary movements in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea, reinforced by traditionalist cultural tendencies and churches planted by missionaries directly sent to Auckland by fundamentalist US denominations. The Salvation Army, Churches of Christ, a significant percentage of the Brethren movement and a handful of Baptist churches have continued to sustain their fundamentalism, partly in reaction to the charismatic movement. This, in most cases involves decline, although there is growing openness to diversity and significant Brethren chapels have moved to pastor-led post-charismatic styles.

Expanding Experiential Religion

The alternative experiential, storytelling, mystical style of religion requires less defined boundaries (i.e., works with centred sets rather than bounded sets). It can pull component truths from multiple sources, integrating and reintegrating them into new formulations. With their emphasis on the God who breaks in and on listening to the voice of that God, the charismatic movement and Pentecostalism place great emphasis on intuitive thinking. This leads to significant development of worship, music and creative arts. It also stimulates highly adaptive leadership styles — an essential element in modern urban church leadership (Hall, c1985).

Paralleling the cultural shift from rationalist anti-supernaturalism to informal supernaturalism, the religious shift appears to be from rational systematic theology and formal religion of the mainline churches to the informal supernatural religion of the charismatics and Pentecostals. Some term it a third reformation, focusing on the move from formal religion to the relational small group experience of much charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity (Neighbour, 1988; 1995). Significant differences appear in the underlying assumptions of these two movements however. Pentecostalism perceives an abrupt break with past Christian tradition. Charismatic Evangelicalism affirms the history of the church. The difference is highlighted by Smidt and leads to one of the dynamics of renewal.

Charismatic renewal seeking to renew, in many ways looks back. This ultimately diffuses its strength as a movement. Pentecostalism, emphasizing discontinuity with the past, can only look forward. It is not surprising, that 30 years after the birthing of the charismatic renewal in New Zealand, it has become diffuse and many of its beneficiaries who sought and failed to renew their older traditions, have eventually migrated into Pentecostal structures. It implies a possible future of Pentecostal growth.^[27]

But there has been a levelling off of this growth.  Robin Gill, from 20 years of analysis of church attendances in the UK, examining the growth of these groups there, concludes that for these groups “the historical data showed a persistent pattern… of only short term growth in newer/smaller Free Church denominations. Secondly, one of the reasons why newer/smaller groups seemed to find growth difficult to sustain was that their initial growth typically depended, at least in part, upon transfers from other denominations.  And thirdly, newer/smaller groups tend to expand to the point of collapse” (Gill, 2003: 163). Each of these comments seem applicable to the emergent Pentecostal denominations in New Zealand in their growth by transfer from the charismatic renewal.  For example, David Allis, national administrator for the Apostolics comments about this Pentecostal denomination:

But the backdoor is also significant for these newer churches:

Apostolic Mega-Churches

Church growth expert Wagner, speaks of the necessity of new wineskins as an outgrowth of charismatic experientialism, viewing new apostolic-led mega-churches as the probable post-denominational future (1999). These relate more to each other than to their own denominations (often being as large as their denomination). His definition of apostolic-led is problematic,[28] but identifies the essential evangelising value of these churches. I have little doubt about their expansion as a reflection on the sociology of institutionalising religion, when I travel as a participant-observer from city to city. On the other hand, while such churches provide excellent structure, affirming and marketing revival as a significant theme, I suggest that this style of church violates many aspects of revival discussed in the following chapters. The centralising of human power and control, the emphasis on success and prosperity as against brokenness, confession and servanthood that mark revival, would indicate that their growth^[29] is not necessarily a sign of ongoing revival, but of social change and at times of post-revival control structures.[30] Peter Wagner and the church growth school believe that such centralised growth is a sign of God’s blessing. German church growth expert, Christian Schwartz has combated this in the genesis of the natural church growth movement (1996).

7: Ethnic Congregation Explosion in Auckland

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ethnic Churches: Wave of the Future

Another urban factor feeding into revival dynamics, follows the adage that the church follows population flows (Hitchcock, 1996: 26). Thus, growth in ethnic churches (see Fig. 7), will continue naturally, as the ethnic communities grow across the city. These figures (Sept. 98) are rapidly increasing. My estimate is of 500+ by 2005. The same figure from 20 years before this one, would have shown only a score of ethnic churches.

This represents the vigorous evangelical faith of most of these imported churches, which are often people from missionary churches in anti-Christian societies. I suspect analysis of numbers of churches vs. percentage of population that are migrant in Auckland would show a very close correlation. The extent of their growth, however, is limited by the size of their ethnic communities and their capacity to influence the English-speaking second generation children. Whether they are new Protestant or Catholic or Syrian Orthodox congregations, they tend to be culturally fundamentalist, in their retreat into cultural tradition. This is a survival strategy in a perceived unfriendly environment. From experience, I know that the period of responsiveness is within the first 18 months of migration, so growth may not be sustained.[31]

Mysticism and Anti-Structuralism: The Non-Church Movement

We are also seeing non-structuralist groupings of Christians across the city, who reject formal church structures and doctrinal definitions but seek to maintain a vibrant faith (those who discuss this tend to be Pakeha).[32] Troelsch defined mysticism as one of his three categories of Christian structures that recur throughout history (1911/1960). Ward analyses debate that shows exit from formal religion is not the end of belief (2004a: 2-3). However, Webster indicates that such non-institutional belief evolves away from orthodoxy (2001: 168).

We do not know what percentage of committed Christians are non-institutional, nor how long they can sustain their commitments without the structure of a faith community. The nearest attempt has been Alan Jamieson’s A Churchless Faith, where he indicates that 27% of 108 Evangelical and Pentecostal church leavers that he interviewed, developed an “integrated faith” outside of the church (2000: 103). Thus, while in this study, I am exploring Christianity beyond the cloisters, I cannot analyse statistically the influence of this grouping as a source of agents for transformative change. I suspect it is significant, as this group are often thinkers who have risen to societal leadership and their “emergent church” structures indicate their entrepreneurial bent.

Theologically, I am working from the presuppositions, born of some years of establishing churches based on themes from the early church in Jerusalem, that connectedness to the body is essential to sustaining faith and that connectedness requires three structural elements: small group relationships, large group celebration and effective leadership that includes significant levels of each of the five leadership gifts of Ephesians 4:11,12. Unless those who move from institutions find new institutional patterns that include each of the above, my experience is that faith is generally not sustainable long-term, nor generationally (important for families).  For the same conclusion from a sociological perspective, Steve Bruce in The Social Organization of Diffuse Beliefs and the Future of Cultic Religion (Bruce, 2004), extends his work on secularisation theory, to address cults and new age religion.  I believe his arguments can be applied to the non-structured churches or anti-structured churches. He argues that the social significance of the New Age movement is inevitably limited by its inherent relativism, individualism, eclecticism and anti-authority ethos, leading to a lack of commitment and consensus necessary to transmit the religion inter-generationally. I am arguing that some of these latter elements – anti-authoritarianism, commitment and consensus beyond local groupings, and hence failure to transmit faith inter-generationally also lead to a limited lifespan for independent non-church groups.

The exceptions are where this search for a non-institutional spirituality has resulted in movements independent of church structures, yet with clear non-church structures with defined patterns authority, commitment, and inter-group linkages. There are precursors to these on the edges of historical revivals, such as the Salvation Army and an institutionalisation of this anti-structuralism in the Brethren movement. The Navigators, Renovare movement, YWAM, Youth for Christ and Spiritual Growth Ministries are all nondenominational movements bringing small group structures, accountable leadership and theological structure to their non-establishment modus operandi.

There are voices that this is the way of the future , including discussions on emerging “Western” postmodern church structures (see http://www.opensourcetheology.net/) (Riddell, 1998; Ward, 2004a). The lack of attention to apostolic leadership, the fivefold leadership gifts mix and necessities of structured local leadership in the discussions within, for example, e~mergent kiwi ::steve taylor finding God/self/other in new spaces. (Taylor, 2005), leaves one with a skepticism as to sustainability. My own work has included the formation of apostolic orders of committed communities, living incarnationally among the poor – expressed initially in New Zealand through Servants to Asia’s Urban Poor, where strong elements of anti-authoritarianism plagued the early work. I learned from this, the necessity of clear definitions of apostolic and prophetic authority structures between communities as I catalysed the next couple of apostolic orders in the US and Brazil (Grigg, 1986).

Potential Workforce of Cultural Change Agents

I have discussed the extent, significance, commitment and missional relevance of Evangelical, charismatic, ethnic and Pentecostal congregations within the Auckland context. The significant expansion of a committed core up to the mid 1990’s, supplies a potential workforce for transformation. While social factors have been examined, these cannot obscure what many identify as the cause of their expansion, the work of the Holy Spirit in revival and/or the preaching of the Scriptures.

But this study is not of church growth. It is a study of Evangelicalism, Pentecostalism and transformation. The second part of the question of significance needs to be the evaluation of the potential number and commitment levels of change agents in the public arena, towards the possibilities of developing a creative minority to catalyse major paradigm shifts within the culture. While deriving percentages of active churchgoers among Evangelicals and Pentecostals, one needs to remember, that those bold and gifted enough to stand in the public arena will be a minority of these, less than say 10% of more than 240,000 active churchgoers (in 2001) (Grigg, 2005). Thus, there is a national pool of manpower and woman-power of perhaps 24,000 who could become publicly active in societal transformation.

These people are already active in many spheres. For many the local church consumes their energies. For others, the drumbeat of evangelism that marks the movement requires a total commitment of time and energy. As believers, they sustain a high commitment to family and to education. Perhaps, we could justify half nationally (12,000) and a third of that in Auckland (4,000), who are bold, gifted and able to be motivated into public action. This is a large force in terms of the history of societal change. (On social issues, they join an already active, theologically informed Catholic and mainline Protestant grouping of perhaps equivalent size).

What theologies will motivate and sustain these 4,000 into effective transformation and equip them theologically to utilize their technical and leadership skills? How can this prophetic nucleus be positioned to move the wider church into a transformative revival?

First, we need to examine the nature of the revival in the nation. Then we need to extend our understanding into transformative revival.           

 

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