In this issue—
Surveying Churches: The Changing Church System in Boston

Introduction

by Brian Corcoran, Research Associate, Emmanuel Gospel Center

How many new churches have emerged in Boston in the last five or six years? How has the system of churches changed, and what do those changes mean?

Churches are organic. Like any living system, churches—and the larger system of which individual churches are a part—continually change and grow. A church is planted, then change begins. As we look at the churches in our region, we see they are sometimes merging, sometimes waxing or waning, sometimes even dying. In this issue of the Emmanuel Research Review, we take another look at the Emmanuel Gospel Center’s church research in Boston to show the kinds of things that catch our eyes as we survey the ever-changing landscape, with the question always in the back of our minds, “What is God doing?”

In our first article, The Changing Shape of Boston’s Church Community, Rudy Mitchell provides a brief overview and analysis of the historical stages of Christianity and church development in Boston from 1630 to present. In his analysis, Rudy identifies five stages of the church in Boston, the latter (1965-present) being called “The Quiet Revival” stage. The next article, The Boston Church Directory Project History, provides an overview of EGC’s unique church research reports and findings beginning in 1970 when a baseline of church information in Boston was established, to our current church research activity and reports. Then in The Growing Edge of Boston’s Church Community, we will focus on the more recent activity of Christianity in Boston (2001-2006) especially with regard to the number and nature of churches planted during this timeframe. This includes a table of all the new churches planted in Boston and Cambridge from January of 2001 to July of 2006 with brief observations and analysis. This issue will be of interest to those in Boston who wish to see more of the context in which they serve, as well as those from other cities who may want to use this kind of research as a model to begin to take a closer look at the ebb and flow of churches in their region and to help them see how God is at work in their midst.

As always, your feedback is appreciated!

The Changing Shape of Boston’s Church Community

by Rudy Mitchell, Senior Researcher, Emmanuel Gospel Center

Chart: The Stages of Change in Boston’s Church Community

blue line: Boston population
red line: number of churches in Boston

The First Stage of Boston’s church history was the period beginning in 1630 during which the early Puritan church and governmental organizations were dominant. The zeal of the early Puritans maintained a tight control over religious life, especially from 1630 until 1665. The Puritans planted several churches including the First, Second and Old South Churches of Boston; the First Church of Dorchester; the First Church of Roxbury and the First Church of Charlestown. Even after the Baptists were able to gain a foothold by starting the First Baptist Church in 1665, and the Anglicans had started King’s Chapel in 1686, the Puritans were still the dominant group in the religious life of Boston. Although a small number of Boston residents were from various other countries and ethnic backgrounds, the majority were from England during this period. The first governor, John Winthrop, “informed the first settlers of Massachusetts Bay that they had taken out a divine ‘commission’ to make their New World society a godly ‘City upon a hill’ that would be a beacon for lost humanity. For that city to grow and enjoy God’s covenant protections, God’s Word would have to be pre-eminent.”[1]

The Second Stage in Boston’s religious development was characterized by the growth of the Unitarian movement and the theological and church planting response by traditional Christians. The Unitarian view took hold in Boston beginning in the later 1700s and continued to grow during the 1800s under the leadership of Rev. William Ellery Channing of the Arlington Street Church and numerous others. The first church to become Unitarian was King’s Chapel. Many of the Puritan “First” churches in and around Boston also became Unitarian by 1830. In 1805, Harvard College’s shift to Unitarianism was signaled by the choice of Henry Ware to become the new theology professor and the selection of liberal presidents (Webber and Kirkland) over the next few years. The Boston area was the epicenter of Unitarianism, and through Harvard and several popular literary authors, the movement had widespread influence. Rev. Jedidiah Morse of Charlestown and several of the faculty at the newly founded theological seminary at Andover, Massachusetts, led the opposition to Unitarianism. Morse and others founded the seminary in 1808 as a new center of orthodoxy. Andover Seminary exerted a great influence on Boston and the whole nation through the writings of professors like Moses Stuart and Leonard Woods, and through the ministry of its enthusiastic graduates in pastorates and on the mission field. The controversy had a major impact on local churches as well. In many cases the original Puritan churches became Unitarian. Either through church splits or through new church plants, many new churches were started during this period to affirm the traditional trinitarian view. For example, in Brighton the First Church split and Brighton Evangelical Congregational Church was started. In downtown Boston, a group of evangelical trintarians organized Park Street Church in 1809. Throughout the Boston area new churches emerged out of this controversy. While the Unitarian movement inspired the “Flowering of New England” literary culture, it left a lingering influence on the spiritual climate of Boston.

The Third Stage in Boston’s church development stretched from about 1830 until 1930. This stage was characterized by the growth of immigrant churches, especially among the Catholics; the development of many new Baptist, Methodist, Congregational and Episcopal churches in growing neighborhoods; and the vibrant impact of urban revivalism. The development of the church during this period was influenced by a number of national and international factors. As American cities were growing and the Boston area was leading the way in the industrial revolution, people in various European countries were facing difficult times. For example, the Potato Famine in Ireland led to the immigration of a huge number of Irish to Boston. As these immigrants moved beyond the crowded North End, they became a major part of the growth of Boston’s working class neighborhoods of South Boston, Charlestown, Jamaica Plain, Dorchester, East Boston, Roxbury, and Brighton. Especially after streetcar lines reached these neighborhoods, there was a large influx of modest income, working class immigrants in areas formerly settled by wealthier, old Yankee families. This cultural and class change was also accompanied by religious change. Many of the new residents were either Catholic or Jewish. Other immigrant groups of this period included Germans, Italians, Canadians, Swedes, Norwegians, Finns, Armenians, Poles, and Russian or Eastern European Jews. Protestant churches in various languages multiplied in the immigrant neighborhoods to serve these groups. Many synagogues also sprang up in central Boston and then in East Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester and other areas. After the Civil War, many newly freed African Americans migrated to Boston, where they joined other former slaves and free Blacks at new churches like Ebenezer Baptist Church or swelled the ranks of older churches like Twelfth Baptist. This was a period of strong city growth and the accompanying vigorous growth in the number and size of Boston’s churches and their Sunday Schools. This was fed not only by immigration, but also by the urban revivalism characteristic of the period. Large evangelism campaigns were held for weeks in huge auditoriums and specially built halls. Although Dwight L. Moody was the most well known of these evangelists, many other revivalists, including Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, caught the attention of the whole city in their well-organized campaigns. This was also the period of the YMCA’s rise and of its central involvement in evangelistic efforts like Moody’s. This stage of development made Boston a much more Catholic city, but it was also characterized by a rapidly growing Protestant church, filled with a new variety of European immigrants.

The fourth stage in Boston’s church history began about the time the U.S. passed stricter immigration laws in the late 1920s, continued through the period of suburbanization, and ended with the 1965 Immigration Act, which opened the door to a new wave of immigration from Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa. The impact of immigration was an important influence on Boston’s churches, but other dynamics related to this timeframe were also significant. The foreign language churches, which grew by the dozens in the Boston area with the increasing immigration during the previous period, faced a cutoff in newly arriving people with the strict immigration law of the 1920s. Gradually the members of these churches had been assimilating into American society, moving to new homes farther from the neighborhood ethnic church, and eventually leaving the cultural haven that had attracted them as new immigrants. Many of these ethnic language churches began to die in the 1930s and 1940s. Some of the stronger churches, like the Swedish Covenant Congregational Church and Calvary Baptist, continued to survive, but eventually shed much of their original cultural and linguistic distinctives. From the late 1940s through the late 1960s, many of Boston’s mainline churches were greatly impacted by the new wave of suburbanization taking place in Boston and other American cities. Boston in particular was experiencing a general malaise. Many of the older neighborhood churches, which in their heyday had memberships of 300-700 members, went through major declines. In attempts to consolidate, several denominations asked these declining neighborhood churches to merge. This did little to halt the general decline. During this period evangelical fervor was not strong in the majority of the neighborhood churches. Although Billy Graham’s citywide crusade in 1950 had an impact on some congregations like Park Street Church, it didn’t reverse the general decline in neighborhood churches. After World War II, especially, there was significant growth in the city’s African American churches as Boston’s black population grew rapidly and spread out into new neighborhoods. In general, many of the city’s traditional mainline denominations reached a peak in the late 1920s and 1930s and went into a long decline through the rest of this period and into the 1970s.

The fifth stage in Boston’s church development beginning in 1965 can be seen as a Quiet Revival spurred by the vitality of a new wave of global Christianity which has returned to Boston through new immigrants from Latin America, Brazil, the Caribbean, Asia, and Africa. This has been accompanied by the continued healthy growth of Christianity among African-Americans and some Euro-Americans in Boston. One significant aspect of this new movement of growth and church planting is the dynamic spread of Pentecostalism around the world and in Boston over the last century. Growth has also been strong among Baptists and groups that did not have strong denominational ties. For example the number of Boston’s Protestant churches grew from about 200 in 1970 to 412 in 2000. Most of this growth was in new Pentecostal, Baptist and independent churches. The number of Pentecostal and Pentecostal-Holiness churches grew from 35 to 143, while the number of Baptist churches grew from 35 to 83. In the last 24 years Jubilee Christian Church (formerly called New Covenant Christian Church), an independent church, has grown to become the city’s largest Protestant church. During this fifth stage more new churches have been planted than in any other comparable time period in Boston’s history. Immigrants or African Americans started the vast majority of these new churches. Since the first churches were started in the 1960s, more than 100 Spanish language congregations have been started in Boston. Beginning in 1969 the Haitian Christians began planting churches. More than 50 Haitian churches now serve the large Haitian population in greater Boston. These are just examples of the new global diversity of the Boston church community, where services are regularly conducted in over 30 languages. Christians representing more than 100 nations are represented in Boston churches. While many of the new congregations are quite small and share building space or rent storefronts, other congregations have grown to a thousand members or more. The growth of these churches has been aided by educational programs like the Center For Urban Ministerial Education, the urban Boston extension program of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, which has its roots in Boston. In light of the global context, this Quiet Revival can be seen as partly the result of the strong growth of Christianity in parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. As Christians from those areas have come to Boston, they have brought a new spiritual zeal to once again make Boston a “City Upon a Hill.”

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The Boston Church Directory Project History

The Emmanuel Gospel Center first documented Boston’s churches in 1970 when Judy Hall and Chet Young drove down every street in the city and made a list of 300 churches they found. We did not publish a directory a that time, but established a baseline for the number of churches in Boston. In 1975, Jordan Greeley and Steve Daman did another survey, placing 320 churches on a map and creating a corresponding file card index system of church information.

The first Directory, printed in 1989 as part of EGC’s 50th Anniversary celebration, listed 406 Christian churches in Boston. The Directory was unique in that all churches, from big cathedrals to small storefronts, were given equal space, all the city’s churches were included at no charge, and photos were included.

The Boston Church Directory, Second Edition, printed in 1993, followed the format of the first Directory, but expanded the listing to include Cambridge and contained a separate partial listing of ethnic churches in New England. The Second Edition listed 532 churches: 459 in Boston, and 73 in Cambridge. This information was used as part of the basis for EGC’s Christianity in Boston report, which discussed the 50% growth in the number of churches in Boston in the previous 25 years.

The 1995 Update was based on our normal, routine efforts at keeping track of church information, rather than on a research initiative involving the hundreds of hours of specialized staff time given to other editions. The Update included information on 561 churches: 483 in Boston and 78 in Cambridge.

The Millennium Edition of the Boston Church Directory was the result of another effort to contact all the churches in Boston. The Millennium Edition contained data on 585 churches: 84 in Cambridge and 501 in Boston. Starting in 1999, we went sent surveys to the churches we knew of, made hundreds of phone calls, and conducted site visits. We took digital photos of all the churches, discovering new churches as we traveled throughout the city, including a few we missed in previous editions. These changes are catalogued in Appendices 3 and 4. This Edition reflects what we knew as of January 1, 2001.

The overall research for The Millennium Edition of the Boston Church Directory indicated that the number of churches in Boston and Cambridge had continued to grow. We had discovered 97 churches which were not in our last edition, The Boston Church Directory, 1995 Update. However, at least 10 of these churches already existed before 1995, but were missed or they were not meeting in Boston or Cambridge at that time. The large number of new churches indicated that the trend of rapid growth in numbers of churches continued during 1995-2000, averaging 17 new churches planted per year. The figures suggest that the rate of new church development was as high or higher than most years during the last two decades. Furthermore, new church development in Boston during 1995-2000 was at a strong pace, and reflected the continued growth of many international immigrant communities in Cambridge and Boston’s increasing multi-ethnic neighborhoods.

The Current Edition of the Boston Church Directory

Over the last year EGC has been compiling and analyzing data from our current church survey research. This information has been used to produce The Online Edition of The Boston Church Directory with searchable information on Boston, Cambridge and new information on Brookline. The Online Edition of The Boston Church Directory can be viewed by going to http://www.egc.org/ and clicking “Church Directory” in the left column.

The Online Edition of the Boston Church Directory makes our most current, basic church information on approximately 700 churches of Boston, Cambridge and Brookline available from anywhere people have internet access. A significant technological threshold has been crossed since The Millennium Edition of The Boston Church Directory, as such EGC is currently upgrading it’s website and The Online Edition of the Boston Cambridge Church Directory to include more information from our database, and improved search and reporting features to enable us to keep up with the pace of changes in the churches and the way people are using computers and technology in ministry and church development. These updates are slated for launch in late 2006 or early 2007.

In addition to the basic church information of The Online Edition, our recent church survey content includes more data being compiled and analyzed. Our recent survey provided the opportunity to expand the range and depth of questions asked of churches in the earlier directory editions. (Click here to see survey sample, pdf, 12 pp.) This additional survey information has required modification and expansion our current database and compounded some aspects of our research. Regardless of the challenge handling this additional information, the results from our recent survey are very encouraging with regard to church growth and development.

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The Growing Edge of Boston’s Church Community

by Brian Corcoran

As our recent survey results are compiled, we begin to see a picture of the activity of Christianity in Boston (2001-2006) emerging. The Growing Edge of Boston’s Church Community is coming into view. Furthermore, we can now begin to ask some of the more particular questions regarding the vitality of the church in Boston, such as, “Is the Quiet Revival stage which begun in 1965 continuing?” “What is the number of new churches planted in Boston?” “Is the rate of church planting consistent with what has been observed in the past decades of the Quiet Revival?” “Where in Boston are these new churches being planted?” “Who is planting them?” and, “What populations are being engaged in the process?” With this current survey information we can begin to see the number and nature of the churches in The Growing Edge of Boston’s Church Community.

Based on our recent church survey research we have encouraging news with regard to the “Quiet Revival”and the vitality of the church in Boston. The “Quiet Revival” stage of recent decades appears to be continuing and perhaps even increasing! This can be seen by the chart above which combines historic research findings of the church from 1630 with EGC’s church survey research data from 1970 to present along with population data. In our previous directory, The Millennium Edition, we identified a total of 501 active Boston churches and 84 active churches in Cambridge. In our current research we have identified 98 new churches planted in Boston between January of 2001 and July of 2006. Similarly, across the river in Cambridge, we have identified 16 churches planted. However, in order to determine the number of active churches we have to deduct the number of churches which have moved out of the area, closed or merged. Making this adjustment, the combined total for the number of active churches in Boston and Cambridge is approximately 675. As the information for the number of active Boston churches is plotted on the chart above, we can see the line of “Number of Churches in Boston” is continuing to climb!

In the large table below we have attempted to provide a “snapshot” of the new churches planted in Boston and Cambridge between January of 2001 and July of 2006. In this “snapshot” we can see the name, neighborhood, language and ethnic groups as reported by these new churches. Also included are links to the church websites if available, or a link to the EGC Online Edition Church Directory. As we bring this information together in one place, a picture of the young urban churches in Boston begins to emerge.

Not only is the number of new churches encouraging, we can also begin to see the geographic and cultural diversity of the “Quiet Revival” stage appears to be continuing also. Where are the new churches? In our past research, we located Boston churches within 1 of 16 neighborhoods: Allston-Brighton, Back Bay/Beacon Hill, Central, Charlestown, East Boston, Fenway/Kenmore, Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain, Mattapan, North Dorchester, Roslindale, Roxbury, South Boston, South Dorchester, South End, or West Roxbury. Our results for the city of Cambridge were grouped together and not identified by neighborhood. As depicted in the list below, we can see that new churches of 2001-2006 have been planted in every one of the 16 Boston neighborhoods and the city of Cambridge.

In a general sense, the Boston neighborhoods which experienced the higher number of new churches planted: East Boston, Hyde Park, Roxbury and Dorchester, align with the neighborhoods which also have the greater projected population increases as determined by the 2000 U.S. Census data and the “2008 Projected Populations” by the Boston Dept. of Neighborhood Development. In East Boston, the projected population increase from 2000-2008 is 2,502, similarly for Roxbury the projection is 1,904. In the case of Dorchester, the results for North and South Dorchester are combined for a total projected increase of 2,067. The only exception to the relationship between population projections and number of new churches planted in this group is Hyde Park where the projected population increase was only 791. However, Hyde Park has 11 new churches planted. For basis of comparison, Hyde Park has the same number of new churches planted as East Boston with less than one-third the projected population increase.

But why were churches then being planted in neighborhoods with projected population decreases, such as, Jamaica Plain (1,017), Back Bay/Beacon Hill (833), and Roslindale (with a decrease of 279)? Jamaica Plain had five churches planted between 2001-2006, Back Bay/Beacon Hill reported one, and in Roslindale two new churches were identified. It appears that the real and projected population shifts may be a factor in the location of new churches when populations are increasing. However, the opposite doesn’t appear to apply to decreasing neighborhood populations. (For more information regarding population projections for Boston by neighborhood, visit the City of Boston website Department of Neighborhood Development).

Instead, this information seems to trigger more questions rather than easy explanations. For example, “To what extent does the geographic proximity of churches to the homes of its members impact church development as congregants are just as likely to live outside the neighborhood (or even Boston) in some of these churches?” Is it possible that geography on a neighborhood scale is becoming less of a factor in The growing Edge of Boston’s Church Community? Or perhaps there is something to be learned regarding the unique ability of vital church plants to thrive in a location which is experiencing a downward population shift and the numerous challenges which may explain the exodus.

Regarding the nature of the populations being engaged in the new churches, we can consider the languages and ethnic groups reported by the churches as an indicator. Within the 98 new churches in Boston, 76 of them reported the language used for worship. Of these 76 churches, almost half of them, 36 are non-English or bi-lingual, 19 worship in Spanish, 8 in Haitian Creole and 9 in Portuguese. Greek, Korean and Russian languages also were reported; one new church for each of these languages. In the 16 new Cambridge churches, 15 reported their languages as follows: English 4, Portuguese 4, Korean 2, Amharic 1, Bengali 1, Creole 1, French 1, and 1 church which offers bi-lingual Taiwanese-English worship services. Within the new churches of Boston and Cambridge, ethnicities reported included: African, African American, Anglo, Asian, Brazilian, Eritrean, Ethiopian, Greek, Haitian, Hispanic, Indian, Korean, Korean-American, Latvian, Multi-ethnic, Nigerian, Taiwanese, Vietnamese and West Indian. As mentioned in The Millennium Edition, “new church development in Boston during 1995-2000… reflected the continued growth of many international immigrant communities in Cambridge and Boston’s increasing multi-ethnic neighborhoods.” The same appears to apply to the current 2001-2006 research results and a glimpse of the vision of the church in Rev. 7:9.

• If you would like to see a table of new church data from which this report was written, this link opens a new web page with that table: New Churches In Boston and Cambridge 1/1/2001 - 8/15/2006.
• For a complete and up-to-date directory of churches in Boston, Cambridge and Brookline, go to http://egc.org/churches/.

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