In other words, we are expected to frame our planning in response to the ominous tale of the S-curve. The question is whether or not we are learning the right lesson.

The first page of the proposed 2010 PCA Strategic Plan features a “modified S-curve” giving a representation of the PCA’s numerical growth over time. The curve shows steady growth in the diagonal line of the extended S, leveling off at the apex of the curve, and finally dipping slightly downwards. This is the centerpiece of the introductory section entitled “creating a perspective for planning.” In other words, we are expected to frame our planning in response to the ominous tale of the S-curve. The question is whether or not we are learning the right lesson.

The PCA is no longer growing, and is possibly trended toward decline. How should we respond to this reality? Discounting for a moment the possibility that there is nothing to learn from this trend one way or another, there are essentially two remaining possibilities. The first is the one adopted by the document. Like any other business or organization—and at times the Strategic Plan reads like a business school project paper—the PCA needs to recalibrate in order to stay competitive:

“Organizations that best fulfill their mission determine how to maintain their values while honestly facing challenges that could lead to long term decline (anticipating needed change before a decline in the S-curve becomes precipitous)” (1) The market (the culture) has changed significantly in the last decades and we haven’t, or at least not enough to remain competitive. The obvious response is that we need to get better organizationally, rally around a common vision, and put out a product that is more in tune with current market conditions.

The second possibility is one that the paper does not dwell on; indeed, it considers debates about theological faithfulness thus far to have “clouded understanding of our mission and inhibited cooperative participation in it.”(3) However, could it be that the southward end of the S-curve actually correlates with decreasing fidelity to Scripture? This is the sort of reaction to downturns usually adopted by leaders of God’s people: they know that the outcomes of their ministry result from supernatural blessing or cursing, assume that God is displeased with them for departing from his Word, and they repent.

Now, stepping away from ourselves for a moment, is this not the perspective we would assume in relation to some other denominations in decline? Take the PC USA for example. According to their official statistician, the PC USA lost about a million members between 1983 and 2008, from 3,131,228 to 2,140,165. That is a serious S-curve. I do not think, however, that our advice to the PC USA would be that they need to provide “more seats at the table” for women, set up “safe places” for people to talk about new ideas without fear of getting disciplined, or that they needed to withdraw from orthodox fellowships like NAPARC. They implemented similar strategies a long time ago. Hopefully, we would tell them that they are under the curse of God for their theological unfaithfulness, and they should repent.

Yet when it comes to ourselves in the PCA, such thinking is not given serious consideration. Rather, the plan relativizes those who would think in such categories as one among several competing special-interest groups that detract from the denomination’s bureaucratic efficiency.

Brethren, before we make any precipitous moves at the General Assembly, should we not ask how we might have already stepped beyond the bounds of biblical fidelity in our practiced theology and mission? Should we not discuss the possibility that God is not pleased with our current level of pragmatism before adopting a sweeping agenda of pragmatic strategies? No doubt, it would be mistaken for us not to learn from the S-curve. However, it would be a tragedy to change in ways that are opposite to God’s intended message (Jeremiah 44).

William M. Schweitzer
MTW Church Planting Minister
Gateshead, England