How much of a decline are we really in?

I was visiting with a clergy colleague a few weeks ago when the conversation turned to the "decline" of the mainline church. He said we're not really in decline. I thought he'd lost his mind. But I listened anyway and found that his point intersects with a project I'm sorta kinda working on already.

When we say that the mainline churches are in decline, we point to the loss in membership and attendance. There can be no doubt that according to these measurements we are continuing in a multi decade slide. But is a decline in membership and attendance necessarily the same thing as a decline in the church? If the measure of a church is whether we are making and teaching Disicples, maybe not. The question of whether we are declining should really be answered based on whether we are making and growing more or fewer disciples than in earlier times. I think most people understand that membership is not a good statistice to measure disicpleship by. Maybe the apparent decline of the church is due to bloated membership numbers of people who were cultural Christians, not "real" Christians. Perhpas attendance is the same way - maybe we were bloated in the past by people attending worship who weren't really giving their lives to Christ.

I think those are good questions. I still think we're in decline, but I'm beginning to think that even if the numbers decline for several more years to come (as I would expect them to) that we're nearing the bottom. At least in the United Methodist Church I find more people talking about faith, living out their faith, and being excited about faith than ever before. I see a new generation of Christian leaders that have energy and vision. I wonder if the "discipleship decline" is not as steep as we perceive and if we are about to get it turned back around. What do you think?