Why Some Churches Are Growing & Why the LCMS Isn’t

Jack Kalleberg
Feb 1
5 min read

There’s a chart making the rounds that shows membership trends across major U.S. denominations since 2000. It’s not a pretty picture. Most churches are shrinking, some rapidly. But three denominations stand out in green: the PCA, the ACNA, and the Assemblies of God. They’re not just surviving. They’re growing. Meanwhile, the LCMS is down roughly 34%.

So the questions are obvious: What do those growing churches have in common? &

What might the LCMS be missing?

What the Growing Churches Are Doing Right

Across all three growing denominations, four traits stand out:

Clarity of Doctrine: They aren’t trying to be all things to all people. They know what they believe, and they don’t flinch. Their theology may differ from ours, but what they’re doing effectively is worth noticing. Each of these growing denominations demonstrates clarity in what they believe and how they apply it. That clarity is deeply empowering for their mission. That attracts people looking for theological stability in a chaotic world.

Bold Evangelism: These churches still talk openly about reaching the lost. They emphasize conversion. They equip people to invite, witness, and plant new churches.

Church Planting and Multiplication: Growth isn’t just about filling bigger sanctuaries. It’s about launching new congregations, multiplying leadership, and expanding the footprint of the Gospel.

Young, Diverse, Alive: These churches aren’t just theologically conservative, they’re culturally engaged. They’re reaching younger generations and more ethnically diverse communities.

The LCMS: Right Theology, Wrong Engine

Let’s be clear: the LCMS has rock-solid doctrine. That’s not up for debate. Across the board, our people and pastors affirm the inerrancy of Scripture and hold to the Confessions. That kind of theological unity is rare, and we should be thankful for it.

But clarity alone doesn’t create growth. What we’re missing is engine. Mission urgency. Outreach systems. Leadership pipelines. Multiplication strategy.

The result? Decades of decline.

What’s Actually Missing in the LCMS

Let’s tie it directly to the three key drivers of growth seen in other denominations:

1. Evangelism Deficit

Evangelism isn’t intentional or visible: We’ve got faithful preaching, but we don’t always have a clear path for conversions. More than that, we lack accountability. There are no expectations placed on pastors or congregations to reach the lost. We hold pastors to disciplinary procedures if they teach false doctrine, but we don’t hold them accountable if they fail to reach new people, baptize them, and raise up new disciples. Evangelism is seen as optional rather than essential.
Neglect of the priesthood of all believers: Too many LCMS members think the Great Commission is the pastor’s job. Some even believe it was only given to clergy. That’s not just unbiblical. It’s toxic. It disempowers the very people God has placed in neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces to be His witnesses. Let’s also remember: part of the pastoral vocation, alongside preaching and administering the sacraments, is to equip the saints for good works. And there is no greater good work than sharing the Gospel with your neighbor and inviting them into a church community.
Worship inflexibility: When pastors are only trained in traditional models, it creates a cultural disconnect in communities where contemporary forms might better serve outreach. This wasn’t always the case. In past decades, pastors received more diverse training in worship styles. But recent years have seen a retrenchment—a doubling down on traditional-only models. That shift reflects more than just a liturgical preference. It reveals a narrowing vision of who we believe we are sent to reach.

2. Multiplication Paralysis

Low multiplication: Church planting exists, but it’s not normalized. Our systems are cautious and slow. Most of our energy goes into maintaining what we already have. Given the size of our denomination, we should be aiming to plant at least 1,000 churches a year. Anything less is falling short of our potential.
System preservation over mission expansion: We’ve invested heavily in protecting legacy systems, especially our seminary pipeline. But when preserving the system becomes the goal, mission gets sidelined. Our near-exclusive emphasis on residential seminaries as the preferred or only means of forming pastors has created a linear pathway instead of a multiplying one. To truly multiply, we need a model that engages local congregations in raising up future pastors and planting churches. That responsibility must become part of the job description of every congregation, and that job description needs to be empowered, not throttled, by our LCMS institutions. And if we want to plant 1,000 churches a year, we need to be raising up 1,200 pastors annually: 200 to fill current vacancies and 1,000 to serve new plants. That kind of scale requires grassroots multiplication, not centralized bottlenecks.
SMP restrictions that hurt growing churches: Limiting SMP candidates to those over 40, and considering restrictions on churches with over 1,000 members, is the opposite of multiplication logic. These are exactly the contexts where new leaders should be empowered. Multi-site churches exist because of growth. Campus pastors are a multiplying role.

3. Cultural Narrowness and Missional Blind Spots

Demographic narrowness: Let’s name it: our church body is overwhelmingly older, white, and Midwest-heavy. That’s not a sin, but it is a mission risk. Communities are changing, and we’re not keeping up.
Worship culture reinforces Eurocentric norms: When everything from our hymnody to our formation environments reflects a narrow cultural past, we unintentionally signal, “This isn't for you.” Readers should ask themselves: How well are we reaching the community and welcoming people into the church so that the church actually resembles the community we’re trying to reach?

What We Can Still Learn and Recover

We don’t need to mimic other denominations. But we do need to get serious about:

Reclaiming evangelistic urgency
Making church planting a norm, not an exception
Building leadership pipelines beyond one rigid track
Equipping and releasing the priesthood of all believers
Allowing contextual flexibility in worship and outreach
Learning from what’s already bearing fruit (like Every One His Witness and re:Vitality)

Bottom Line

Churches that grow hold fast to the Word and run hard after the lost. They don’t settle for maintenance; they hunger for mission. They act like the Gospel actually changes lives and that the church is here to multiply, not just survive.

The LCMS already has the theological depth, the confessional clarity, and the Gospel itself. But the question is: Do we have the urgency?

We cannot keep doing what we’ve been doing and expect different results. Every congregation, every pastor, every district leader needs to ask hard, honest questions:

What are we willing to change to reach the people we’re currently not reaching?
Where are we failing to multiply, and what will we do about it?
How well are we reaching the community and welcoming people into the church so that the church actually resembles the community we’re trying to reach?

This moment calls for a bold unleashing of our theology with no retreat into caution.

The time for casual course correction is over. The time for courageous, Spirit-led action is now.

Because if we really care about faithfulness, then we must care deeply, urgently, and sacrificially about fruitfulness too.

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