I was their church consultant in 2003. The church’s peak attendance was 750 in 1975. By the time I got there the attendance had fallen to an average of 83. The large sanctuary seemed to swallow the relatively small crowd on Sunday morning.
The reality was that most of the members did not want me there. They were not about to pay a consultant to tell them what was wrong with their church. Only when a benevolent member offered to foot my entire bill did the congregation grudgingly agree to retain me.
I worked with the church for three weeks. The problems were obvious; the solutions were difficult.
On my last day, the benefactor walked me to my rental car. “What do you think, Thom?” he asked. He could see the uncertainty in my expression, so he clarified. “How long can our church survive?” I paused for a moment, and then offered the bad news. “I believe the church will close its doors in five years.”
I was wrong. The church closed just a few weeks ago. Like many dying churches, it held on to life tenaciously. This church lasted ten years after my terminal diagnosis.
My friend from the church called to tell me the news. I took no pleasure in discovering that not only was my diagnosis correct, I had mostly gotten right all the signs of the impending death of the church. Together my friend and I reviewed the past ten years. I think we were able to piece together a fairly accurate autopsy. Here are eleven things I learned.
- The church refused to look like the community. The community began a transition toward a lower socioeconomic class thirty years ago, but the church members had no desire to reach the new residents. The congregation thus became an island of middle-class members in a sea of lower-class residents.
- The church had no community-focused ministries. This part of the autopsy may seem to be stating the obvious, but I wanted to be certain. My friend affirmed my suspicions. There was no attempt to reach the community.
- Members became more focused on memorials. Do not hear my statement as a criticism of memorials. Indeed, I recently funded a memorial in memory of my late grandson. The memorials at the church were chairs, tables, rooms, and other places where a neat plaque could be placed. The point is that the memorials became an obsession at the church. More and more emphasis was placed on the past.
- The percentage of the budget for members’ needs kept increasing. At the church’s death, the percentage was over 98 percent.
- There were no evangelistic emphases. When a church loses its passion to reach the lost, the congregation begins to die.
- The members had more and more arguments about what they wanted. As the church continued to decline toward death, the inward focus of the members turned caustic. Arguments were more frequent; business meetings became more acrimonious.
- With few exceptions, pastoral tenure grew shorter and shorter. The church had seven pastors in its final ten years. The last three pastors were bi-vocational. All of the seven pastors left discouraged.
- The church rarely prayed together. In its last eight years, the only time of corporate prayer was a three-minute period in the Sunday worship service. Prayers were always limited to members, their friends and families, and their physical needs.
- The church had no clarity as to why it existed. There was no vision, no mission, and no purpose.
- The members idolized another era. All of the active members were over the age of 67 the last six years of the church. And they all remembered fondly, to the point of idolatry, was the era of the 1970s. They saw their future to be returning to the past.
- The facilities continued to deteriorate. It wasn’t really a financial issue. Instead, the members failed to see the continuous deterioration of the church building. Simple stated, they no longer had “outsider eyes.”
Though this story is bleak and discouraging, we must learn from such examples. As many as 100,000 churches in America could be dying. Their time is short, perhaps less than ten years.
What do you think of the autopsy on this church? What can we do to reverse these trends?
Posted on April 24, 2013
With nearly 40 years of ministry experience, Thom Rainer has spent a lifetime committed to the growth and health of local churches across North America.
More from Thom
473 Comments
I’m an old Baptist Minister, 22 years a pastor, plus 36 years of medical ministry. Related to University of Oklahoma Medical School.
In 2007 Medical Students started an organization to put the students into free medical clinics around our city. Prior to that Medical Students were primarily taught to be scientists. Now they work with person in these clinics and as part of their education are discovering patients are people living often in desperate circumstances. Many illnesses result from lack of healthy living. They are discovering what it is like to not have a car that works without needing repairs weekly; to have no knowledge of how to parent; to be uninformed and under monied on how to have good food rather than bad food; to live in a group which devalues marriage and goodness.
Many of the things Dr. Rainer mentions are surface symptoms of how we view church today. Our ministry have been education and trained to do things “at the church” for people to attend. Bible teachers mimic this and become lecturers. Thus no one “at the church” actually knows what life is like for the people we seek to evangelize. We create in our churches social events for people to attend rather than knowing what stresses the participants in our “activities” have which create distracted church members.
There is some much said by ministers about “being loyal to the church” but I find few ministers who are loyal to the individuals and families within their care. They spend more time polishing their oratory than in knowing the actual lives the people experience. Thus, the preacher totally misses the application of the Good News to people who need to know it. We have created churches which mistakenly can memorize great gobs of Holy Scripture but have never seen it is to be lived out in their lives.
Put the ministry into the homes of their parishioners and out of heading up things that makes people proud of their past. If dying churches (meaning people, I suppose) are dying, it is because the seeds of their death were sowed years ago in with only tiny portions of a true Biblical World View. Everything has a history.
We do not need to “save the church;” we do not need to “pump up their faith;” we need to have genuine koinonia in the lives of those individuals who are the body of Christ.
AUTOPSY OF A DECEASED CHURCH
I was a member of that church as well as a member of a church that barely escaped the fate of death. OUTREACH and strong leadership made the difference in the outcome of the church that survived. Race was an issue in the surviving church. The pastor was a White man, a Christian radical who went against the tides in order to service the community and save the church. Notice, his one action had 2 positive outcomes. I was amongst the 1st generation of Black members of a Presbyterian Church.
The church that died ALMOST was saved. There’s a scripture about almost being saved. I brought a sense of revival to that church as a newly relocated Black Presbyterian. The shoe was on the other foot; I was the only Black member of a White church. I had the support of the congregation but there were small pockets of dissention. I was doing the job all by myself and had no one to work with me and encourage me. I had the vision but as a single person I couldn’t transform ALL of the resistance to change and it was beginning to wear me down and undermine my spirit. But I must say, I GREW in that church, more than any other church I’ve ever been a member of. So you see I grew and the church grew (while I was there). I was told that if I would have stayed a member the church would NOT have died. This made me feel good and bad.
AUTOPSY OF A DECEASED CHURCH
I was a member of that church as well as a member of a church that barely escaped the fate of death. OUTREACH and strong leadership made the difference in the outcome of the church that survived. Race was an issue in the surviving church. The pastor was a White man, a Christian radical who went against the tides in order to service the community and save the church. Notice, his one action had 2 positive outcomes. I was amongst the 1st generation of Black members of a Presbyterian Church.
The church that died ALMOST was saved. There’s a scripture about almost being saved. I brought a sense of revival to that church as a newly relocated Black Presbyterian. The shoe was on the other foot; I was the only Black member of a White church. I had the support of the congregation but there were small pockets of dissention. I was doing the job all by myself and had no one to work with me and encourage me. I had the vision but as a single person I couldn’t transform ALL of the resistance to change and it was beginning to wear me down and undermine my spirit. But I must say, I GREW in that church, more than any other church I’ve ever been a member of. So you see I grew and the church grew (while I was there). I was told that if I would have stayed a member the church would NOT have died. This made me feel good and bad.
Dr. Rainer. I think your list of 11 consists of 10 symptoms of a dying church and 1 cause: No. 5.
Thanks for all you do. Charlie.
Thanks Charlie.
Wow…an eye opener. I happened to pastor a church with most of these descripctions.
By experience I can suggest a 12 reason: Not seeking youth or young adult families. While staying in the past, sometimes these churches cater themselves and forget about planning a future and that ultimately scare off the young couples and the children or grandchildren that dont feel included anymore.
Thom, I would like very much to know the name of the church you wrote your autopsy about. I just imagine how very interesting it would be to Google the name of the late church–and see if any of its former members have now realized their many mistakes. SO, exactly what church was it?
Daniel: The church was a consultation I did over a decade ago. I do not release the names of former clients; that would be a breach of ethics. But it’s relatively easy to find deceased churches. Just ask a local denominational leader or longer term pastors in a town.
Thom, I am very interested in learning exactly which church it was that you wrote your autopsy about. It would be fascinating to Google the name of that deceased church, seeing if any of its former members have realized their many mistakes. Very interesting.
Daniel M.
Daniel: See my response to you elsewhere.