Since 2011, I have been fighting for the comeback church, which has seen decades of decline in membership, income, and evangelism. From my first church of eight people to the 93-year-old legacy church I lead today, my heartbeat is for the established church to rise from the ashes of decline. Sure, I have dabbled in church planting, becoming an online trainer for churches worldwide through Dynamic Church Planting International, sponsoring ethnic churches, planting eight care campuses in senior living centers, and even coauthoring a book (Revitalize to Plant: Reshaping the Established Church to Plant Churches) on the church planting. Still, my heart has always been drawn back to the declining church.
In the decade-plus of helping churches, I have never seen the crisis we face today. The churches in North America and many parts of the world are dying. Why? Because the local church has failed to adapt to the changing realities of the community in which they were planted decades before.
In the last several weeks, I have seen posts on social media mourning the losses of local churches and a denominational college closing and even a headline from the New York Times that said: “As Hundreds of Churches Sit Empty, Some Become Malls and Restaurants.” Denominational statisticians will tell you we have entered a post-Christian America, joining the tide of Europe. The question to ponder is, does a church have to die?’
Prepare a New Way Forward.
The heartbeat of any church is not the Sunday morning service but the connections built in service. While Sunday mornings are a highlight for any Christian, the interactions that develop from a service make a last impression and impact a person’s life. For the church to live, it must share a connection to something greater than themselves. Putting God back in the center of a convert’s life reconnects the Christian with the Christ they have been called to serve. For a church to live, it must replace rituals with prayers that connect the person in the pew with the one they came to serve.
Ellen Rosen, in the headline-grabbing article I referenced earlier, writes, “The closings stem largely from a drop in church attendance during the COVID-19 pandemic, and fewer people, especially younger adults, are affiliated with religious organizations than in the past.” With change, the local church has to adapt to the new reality. The year 2020 shifted the religious text throughout the globe, and the repercussions are now just being felt in America. Our European and down under churches say, welcome to the post-Christian society we’ve been dealing with for several decades.
If the local church is going to prepare the way forward, established church leaders must draw their people back to prayer. I am not talking about just two to three minutes per service. I mean a dedicated prayer time, at least bi-weekly, if not weekly. Leaders must help their people draw their eyes not to their own needs but to what God calls them to gather in the shadows of their communities to help those in need. The people’s eyes must be narrowed from a broad view of organized religion to a deeper, more personal relationship with Jesus Christ as their Savior.
Prepare Now, Not Later.
The clock is ticking for many established churches with decadal declines; there is no time to waste. Church leaders must move from talking about ‘what has changed’ and embrace that the church will close if they do not change. It’s a sober thought when the reality of closure comes into view. For every church that closes, they will say they fought hard at the end. If an honest autopsy had been completed on the last decade of the closed churches life, there would have been tell-tale signs that decay had begun from the inside out.
It’s crucial to understand that there’s no easy way out of a death spiral of decline. Blame often surfaces, as it’s human nature to find a scapegoat. However, blaming others won’t propel a ministry forward. Instead, an honest evaluation of the past can lay the truth on the table for examination, learning, and moving forward. Past mistakes don’t have to weigh the church down, but they can serve as a roadmap of what not to do. Remember, every mistake is an opportunity for growth and improvement.
Allow conversations and prayers to be about finding out where God is and leading the church there. If the writing is already on the wall that the church is heading for closure, then it has little time to lose in disagreeing over pews or chairs, music styles, and who the church should help. Encourage everyone to stop talking and start doing, or members will be talking about how the church closed rather than lived.
Prepare to Follow God.
The idea of following God is the simplest and most straightforward task a Christ follower and the local church should do. However, the idea of fully committing to God’s plan for the local church has been fraught with landmines that have destroyed pastors, hurt members, and made a bad name for the church in the community. Instead of fighting each other or personal desires, the church must turn to develop a plan, a team and move into action. Developing a strategy built on the way forward, reaching neighbors, redesigning the building footprint to offer more than just a church service, enables the church to become a community center that provides security for the neighborhood. The goal should not be winning new members but mirroring Christ’s likeness to others, which enables members to share the faith.
Members must move from closed small groups to building diverse teams, reaching into each member’s sphere of influence in their community to first live like Christ, share like Christ, and then love like Christ. When the member has built trust with the stranger, an authentic relationship can happen, and an invitation can be given to the local church. The idea is to move from planning, working as a team, and moving into action. The inaction of the church members is accelerating the dreaded closure. So, slow the move to closure by moving into action and trying to reach a neighbor. It might be awkward and painful, but it will be fruitful over time.
Sociologist Eileen Lindner expects as many as 100,000 Protestant church properties to close by 2030. That figure may come close to 20% of all existing Protestant churches. So, does a church have to die? The simple answer is no. The complicated answer is that it will take much spiritual and relational work to slow and stop the decline. The real question is, will you stay in the fight to stop the decline in your local church?