Causation vs. Correlation

 

Causation vs. Correlation 

 

You visit a church that has become known for its rapid growth.  You take down a number of observations, seeking the “key” to its “success.”

 

You note that the pastor is young, dynamic, and hip.  The music is loud and edgy.  It is situated in an affluent area of the city.  They “market” their “brand” unblushingly.

 

The temptation would be to do the following:  take note of the music, the sermon topics, the communication style, the outreach strategy, the type of facility it rents or has built, and deem yourself informed about what makes that particular church “work.”  Throw in a few designer tees and skinny jeans, and you think you’ve got this one covered.

 

There would be so much wrong with this it’s hard to even know where to begin.  First, it’s one of the poorest ways to study church growth.  Second, it assumes that whatever works in one situation will work in a different context under a different leader.  Third, it mistakes cosmetic issues – the kind gathered from a site visit – the most substantive ones to note.

 

But most of all, it runs the very high risk of confusing causation with correlation.

 

Seth Godin gives the example of noticing how, in most cities, every time you observe that lots of umbrellas are out and open, it's raining.  From this analysis, the obvious way to make it rain is to be sure that everyone has an umbrella, preferably a black one, since that seems to be the kind that's most visible during big storms.

 

But that would be confusing causation with correlation.  There is a correlation between umbrellas and rain, but not causation.  The umbrellas have nothing to do with whether or not it rains.

 

Let’s return to our church visit.

 

What if the deeper reality is that the church was actually the beneficiary of unprecedented transfer growth due to several large churches in its proximity going through some kind of split or internal dissension at the same time, and they just gathered the disaffected?  What if one church alone sent over 1,000 people its way, and another nearly 2,500?  And further, the high baptism rate was not true conversion growth, but Presbyterians getting dunked by Baptists, or rebaptisms for rededications?

 

Suddenly what might deserve to be studied is how to position a church for transfer growth, largely through the disgruntled and the disaffected, and to see the maximum value of that church’s education more in the realm of assimilation than outreach.

 

Countless other examples could be offered of fast-growing churches that beg to be examined for music or teaching or style or innovation, but in truth:

 

...the church reached out to Christian high school students, and then the parents followed in fear of becoming spiritually separated from their child (but in truth, didn’t really like the church at all).

 

…the church was planted in a small town, rural area with a large population base built by many nearby small towns.  They became the transfer growth magnet due to being the only contemporary church in the region, almost its only “entertainment.”

 

…the church has such a flaming evangelist for a pastor that the church would grow regardless of the style of worship or strategy.

 

…the church is benefiting from the fastest-growing edge of town and interstate access.

 

I know all of this is crass, and plays into some of the worst (read “secular”) reflections on church growth.  My apologies.  But the point is that whenever we study any model of church life, health or growth, or get ready to anoint the “next, next thing,” we must dig deep to make sure we are determining causes, and not just correlations.

 

Most of the time, the umbrella has nothing to do with the rain.

 

James Emery White

 

 

Sources

 

Seth Godin, “Getting confused about causation and correlation.” Read online.

 

 

Editor’s Note

 

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and the ranked adjunctive professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, which he also served as their fourth president.  His latest book is What They Didn’t Teach You in Seminary (Baker).  To enjoy a free subscription to the Church and Culture blog, log-on to www.churchandculture.org, where you can post your comments on this blog, view past blogs in our archive and read the latest church and culture news from around the world.  Follow Dr. White on twitter @JamesEmeryWhite.

Competition With Other Churches

A member of our staff struck up a conversation with a pharmacist. Things turned in such a way that she invited him to a “Family Night” hosted by Meck.

His initial response?

“I like competition with my sports, but not with church.”

Huh?

She soon learned that he wasn’t a Christian, but had started attending a church to explore faith for his life which, unfortunately, soon split, leading to a new church across town. 

From that point on, he felt nothing but competition seethe through the psyche of the originating church in the messages and almost every new venture.

He left in search of a new church, landing on one that showed promise. But within weeks, he picked up on it again. The mission of the church seemed to be being “better” than other churches. The story line was simple: “No other church in town is like us, as good as us, is doing what we’re doing, or loves Jesus like we do. Aren’t you glad you’re here, and not there?”

He stopped going to church.

Competition between churches is one of the most prevalent yet least- talked about issues in church-world. I’ve written about it in my latest book, Christ Among the Dragons, and also on this blog (The Largest and Fastest Growing and Why Don’t We Just Pick Up the Phone?). But I never imagined how strong a negative it was to those outside of the church.

I thought it was our dirty little secret.

It’s dirty, but it’s no secret.

As I recently tweeted, if you think the church across town is your competition, you need mission lessons.

Let’s unpack that a bit.

If you think the growth of your church is based on whether you are “beating” other churches, you need mission lessons.

If you think the heart of church growth for an Acts 2 biblically-functioning community is meant to be transfer growth (sheep swapping) from an existing pool of churched believers, you need mission lessons.

If you think a new church opening up in your area is a threat to your “mission field”, you need mission lessons.

If you think you need to match area churches brick for brick, event for event, staff for staff, program for program, gimmick for gimmick, you need mission lessons.

If you think you deserve to pat yourself on the back because you landed an article in the paper or a story on the six o’clock news about being a big, fast-growing church in town vs. those smaller, slow-growing churches in town, you need mission lessons.

If you think you need to keep up what the church across town is doing instead of the dynamics of a post-Christian culture, you need mission lessons.

If you can only learn from churches more than fifty miles away, or be generous in spirit toward the growth of churches in other cities, you need mission lessons.

Here are the realities:

*The mission of the church is to reach out to those who are far from God, divorced from a relationship with Christ, and develop them into fully-devoted followers of Christ. The Great Commission’s first-half is evangelism; its back-half is discipleship. But make no mistake: we begin with evangelism. 

And evangelism means reaching out to those who are not currently followers of Christ.

*Since conversion growth, as opposed to transfer growth, is the goal, it doesn’t matter whether a thousand new churches open their doors on your street. While you welcome and celebrate existing believers who need a church home, when it comes to outreach and primary growth, you are not after the person who is looking for a church!

Therefore…

Your real competition is a darkened world and the blindness of sin-stained lives.

Your strategy is for Believers to build relationships with non-Believers, share their faith, and invite them to experience the new community of the church.

Which means your challenge is the relational divorce that exists between Christians and non-Christians.

Sorry, but I don’t see other churches anywhere in that mix except, hopefully, as co-laborers in the effort.

Satan would love nothing more than for churches to see each other as the heart of the contest, and to fall prey to petty grievances and complaints, rivalry and strife, jockeying for position in the battle for existing sheep. He knew Jesus was right: “A kingdom divided against itself will collapse” (Mark 3:24, NIV).

So he seeks to divide.

If he can’t divide a church itself, he’ll divide the churches in an area.

This is not to say that there can’t be honest disagreements between churches, and sometimes the practices of one church or another in your city may force you to distance yourself a bit for the preservation of your integrity. But those kinds of qualifiers are a given, and don’t have anything to do with competition.

So whatever happened to our pharmacist? He came to “Family Night.” He then came the following weekend to one of our services.

What’s next?

My guess is he’s going to wait around just long enough to see if our competition is limited to Carolina and Duke.

James Emery White

From His blog, Church & Culture

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, North Carolina; President of Serious Times, a ministry which explores the intersection of faith and culture and hosts churchandculture.org; ranked adjunctive professor of theology and culture on the Charlotte campus of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, which he also served as their fourth president; and author of over a dozen books which have been translated into ten languages.