Claim. C. Kirk Hadaway’s 2005 “Faith Communities Today” survey of 14,301 American congregations identifies 19 features that distinguish growing from dying churches — features clustering around innovation-readiness, lay-empowerment, spiritual vitality, outreach orientation, and contemporary cultural fit rather than around denominational labels.
Elaboration. Per table-1-characteristics-of-growing-versus-dying-churches. The 19 features include congregation age (dying: 35+ years old; growing: <10 years), ethnic mix (homogeneous Anglo vs multi-racial), willingness to change, mission clarity, perceived spiritual vitality (“we encounter God”), worship character (reverent vs joyful/exciting), use of percussion and drums, presence of non-member-attracting programs, growth planning, support groups (bereavement, marriage, 12-step), and follow-up with visitors.
Two features Hendricks specifically underlines:
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Counter-intuitive on community feel. Dying churches report being “close-knit family” more than growing churches do. Growing churches emphasize supportive ministry, joyful worship, and willingness to change. The intuition “we are like family, therefore we will grow” is empirically wrong — the close-knit-family feel is a marker of closed church.
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Direction over breadth. Growing churches are “narrow, whether on the right (large majority) or on the left (in other words, if you are going to the left, go all the way and be clear about it).” Middle-of-the-road accommodation is empirically a marker of dying.
For UC application: directly relevant diagnostic. UC congregations evaluating themselves against the 19 features will find immediate, falsifiable indicators of their growth trajectory.
See also. populist-church