Hard-Edged Churches and Mission Field Struggles

A hard-edged church is about context and expectations.

There might be variance, but for the most part, when you step inside on, you instantly know what you can expect. It might overlap depending on shared denominations, or theology, but for the most part...it's exactly the same.

The Pastor (and congregation) dresses the same, the songs are the same, and the different ministry models for kids and teenagers are the same.

Hard-edged churches work really well for people with "church-folk" expectations.

Let's look at this mission field.

It's like many I see in my work as a congregational developer.

The total missional saturation of the region is 16%. Outside of the larger, regional non-denominational church (like many rural areas), the largest missional saturation of a single local church is 2.6%. Post-Covid, this is pretty good. And usually, these regional churches behave pretty much like your average Baptist church and reach the same population of folks.

Even different churches, when part of the same tradition/model, tend to cluster together and reach similar segments of the population. Fishing in the same pool, people tend to made their decision of engagement/membership because of relationships or size desires. Hence, the large cluster of overlapping churches on the left side of the diagram.

On average, I see plenty of congregations below 1%.

Hard-edged churches, even when we plant more of them and help existing ones to be healthy, still leave gaps across the mission field with people who struggle with what is typical, and expected in a local church. Alan Hirsch, over 10 years ago, said only 40% of people in America can be reached by your typical (hard-edged) church.

Hirsch went on to say this.

"At any given point and time to resolve the missional challenges in which we face we only have a variation of one model."

We don't need to plant more hard-edged churches.

We dont need to focus 100% of efforts in increasing the size/influence of ministry of hard edged churches.

We need more soft-edged churches...but that is for another day.