It broke my heart.
Another church closed. This church had unbelievable potential. Indeed, it had its own “glory days,” but only for a season. But, 10 years ago, few would have predicted this church’s closure. Today, it is but another statistic in the ecclesiastical graveyard.
I know. We don’t compromise doctrine. I know. We must never say we will change God’s Word.
But many of our congregations must change. They must change or they will die.
I call these churches “the urgent church.” Time is of the essence. If changes do not happen soon, very soon, these churches will die. The pace of congregational death is accelerating.
What, then, are some of the key changes churches must make? Allow me to give you a fair warning. None of them are easy. Indeed, they are only possible in God’s power. Here are nine of them:
- We must stop bemoaning the death of cultural Christianity. Such whining does us no good. Easy growth is simply not a reality for many churches. People no longer come to a church because they believe they must do so to be culturally accepted. The next time a church member says, “They know where we are; they can come here if they want to,” rebuke him. Great Commission Christianity is about going; it’s not “y’all come.”
- We must cease seeing the church as a place of comfort and stability in the midst of rapid change. Certainly, God’s truth is unchanging. So we do find comfort and stability in that reality. But don’t look to your church not to change methods, approaches, and human-made traditions. Indeed, we must learn to be uncomfortable in the world if we are to make a difference. “We’ve never done it that way before,” is a death declaration.
- We must abandon the entitlement mentality. Your church is not a country club where you pay dues to get your perks and privileges. It is a gospel outpost where you are to put yourself last. Don’t seek to get your way with the music, temperature, and length of sermons. Here is a simple guideline: Be willing to die for the sake of the gospel. That’s the opposite of the entitlement mentality.
- We must start doing. Most of us like the idea of evangelism more than we like doing evangelism. Try a simple prayer and ask God to give you gospel opportunities. You may be surprised how He will use you.
- We must stop using biblical words in unbiblical ways. “Discipleship” does not mean caretaking. “Fellowship” does not mean entertainment.
- We must stop focusing on minors. Satan must delight when a church spends six months wrangling over a bylaw change. That’s six months of gospel negligence.
- We must stop shooting our own. This tragedy is related to the entitlement mentality. If we don’t get our way, we will go after the pastor, the staff member, or the church member who has a different perspective than our own. We will even go after their families. Don’t let bullies and perpetual critics control the church. Don’t shoot our own. It’s not friendly fire.
- We must stop wasting time in unproductive meetings, committees, and business sessions. Wouldn’t it be nice if every church member could only ask one question or make one comment in a meeting for every time he or she has shared his or her faith the past week?
- We must become houses of prayer. Stated simply, we are doing too much in our own power. We are really busy, but we are not doing the business of God.
Around 200 churches will close this week, maybe more. The pace will accelerate unless our congregations make some dramatic changes. The need is urgent.
Hear me well, church leaders and church members. For many of your churches the choice is simple: change or die.
Time is running out. Please, for the sake of the gospel, forsake yourself and make the changes in God’s power.
Posted on March 27, 2017
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.
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173 Comments
It’s a good list. But I think there needs to be a #10: Plant New Churches. It’s a lot easier to have a baby than it is to raise the dead. Like people, churches also have natural life cycles and are designed for multiplication. I suggest that we wouldn’t be nearly as worried about our churches dying if we were raising up multiple new ones to replace them through church planting. Church planting is the #1 way to execute the Great Commission in our world. And, having a daughter church often breathes new life into the mother church because there is fresh vision and enthusiasm for the Gospel. I don’t believe that it’s always appropriate to throw a lot of effort and resource into trying to revive a dead church. Sometimes, we need to let the 90-year old lady go and Rest In Peace as we seek God for fresh life in a new work.
You are spot on, Dr. Rainer. Churches and leaders that fail to awaken to this reality will continue to see their churches die. 1, 3, 5, and 8 are especially pertinent. Number 9 is part of the solution. God can still do the impossible. I take comfort in that truth.
Blessings,
Brian Chilton
BellatorChristi.com
To you as well, Brian.
I think it’s ok for these religious social places to close up. Most of them need to close. The mistake is to think God is only prepared to work though a certain denomination. It’s not all doom and gloom. Look up my friends from your denomination and God is doing amazing work in this world! He is not dead, boring, dying or in trouble only a denomination is. Pick where you want to invest your life! I choose the exciting life with The Creator not a certain flavor of religion.
Amen!
My two-cents takeaway:
What we see in the Organized Church of today is what Moses in his ascent to the mount experienced. See Moses in Exodus 20:18-21. People would rather listen to man than hear from GOD Himself. Our “Sunday show” happens to become the spectator sports entertainment of many church members. Instead of just being content as spectators, we have lost our mission to be the bearers and proclaimers of GOD’s truth inside and outside the confines of the church (building). When a leader is only content on “preaching at the pulpit” and expects the “hearers” to just get it, then, we are in for a big trouble! Let us all be ministers of the Word of GOD and not allow “professional” clergy to do alone with the job and mandate given to us, the church in JESUS’ manifesto before He left earth giving US all a mandate to DO and TEACH in Matthew 28:18-20 . GOD HELP US!
Thom:
I read your book “Simple Church” and was very impressed with you ideas, your writing, and your overall philosophy as it pertains to that subject. I am curious (with regard to Items 3, 6, and 7) what you believe to be the correct approach a church member should take when the pastor is (for lack of a better word) a bully. (Not my current church, but one we attended almost 20 years ago, and left in a large hurry.) Please feel free to contact me by e-mail and even to remove this post if you’d rather answer in private. The Bible does caution us against airing our dirty laundry in public, but I didn’t see a way to contact you without posting here. Thanks.
Thank you. I was convicted and see views in myself that need to change; I didn’t realize I was being selfish. The article was wonderful, and motivating to me.
Thank you, Kate.
Thank you for this post . In seminary now and printed it off.
One thing I would add is that the church is where sinners are welcomed with open arms – all sinners- all kinds- kind of like how Jesus did ministry.
Stop asking people to look good. If you cannot welcome a gay person in your church, make friends with their family, hold their hand when their parent dies- than you can’t do it for the liar, the glutton; the unkind, the straight man who lusts after women or looks at porn, the proud, the arrogant- either. Your sin is not better or cleaner.
A humbleness and love for the lost because we know we were lost too and it was only Gods love that saved us.
Leadership classes taught as John Maxwell’s 21 laws say that a congregation never rises above it’s leader. Another has said, no fire in the pulpit, no fire in the pews. We can listen to a pastor on fire without end. ……Honesty must be from the top down. Not only speaking of generals, but the secretaries, etc. working under them.
………. Pastors need to treat Associates like they desire to be treated/loved as though they were in the same shoes. …..The doctrine of Holiness preached must be lived out in all things. Pastors must stop seeing their position as a job. When their view is changed, competition should change to kingdom work. ……Reporting every call, every time you preach, etc., promotes selfrighteousnessb- filthy rags in God’s eyes. …..Following a book of man-made rules overrides the Holy Spirits guidance.
GOD IS GRIEVED!!!
He cannot and will not bless these things. ……Holiness is preached more than ever, yet the ones preaching it need to live it. It’s not about them, their church, how large it is, or how long a service is. It’s all about Jesus, all about His Kingdom. It’s His church, His bride, His time, what He desires! The preacher must feed fresh bread, the Living Bread, not spoiled with the worms of their own opinions, but the Revelations that come from God that builds His church, from their bring on their knees & in His Holy Word!
Children have been put aside to color & snack. Sufger the little childten. Preachers no longer kneel where they can be seen before the services, which brings the fear of God into the heart of a child!
….Preachers need to quit fearing the ones paying their tithe, afraid of offending them, which brings a snare.
…Preach the TRUTH in LOVE.
Back to our knees!
Back to seeking God & His guidance!
Back to seeking Him, for Himself, instead of a title.
Make it Who it’s all about!
Delight ourselves in Him!
His fire will fall, instead of trying to figure it all out with committees, etc.!
Sadly, I believe you are correct and unless I am mistaken the rate of church closings has accelerated in the past two decades. It’s hard to do church for outsiders rather than for insiders. Most churches do it for outsiders. Also, I’m not sure the evangelical community can recover from the debacle it inflicted on itself in the last presidential election.
Most churches are dead churches walking. Their lampstand has long been snuffed. However, we serve a resurrected savior! Church culture has no biblical basis. Its foolish to believe the world should come to Christ so it can resemble the culture or church. JESUS didnt die for church people He died for dead people. The church was given power and responsibility and we deny the power and shirk the responsibility. But, we serve a resurrected savior. Thanks for shedding light on this touchy subject sir. May we never look like church people again and start looking like resurrected people from this day forth.
Amendt!
For many churches, time is running out. I wonder how much time the Church has? Christians ignore the fact that we could be called up at any moment and so many ppl will face awful hardship BC country club churches neglected them. If Christian leaders feel time is short, they need to sound the alarm even if it sounds a little nutty.
I appreciate that you challenge leaders in our churches to think. I’m curious if emphasizing a return to strong expository Bible preaching and teaching would make your list? Where are the expositor-theologian-preachers who rightly divide the Word of truth? How does 2 Timothy 4:1-5 fit in the “change or die” dialogue? Thank you.
Dave: “…a return to strong expository Bible preaching and teaching…” Are you slamming a large percentage of Bible lecturers (whose churches are declining) for being weak in their exposition? I can’t figure out how you “exposit” “…preach the word in season and out…” into strictly one man talking in strict one way communication for the whole time of truth expression in perpetual dependency so that no one in a fellowship ever grows up to speak truth for even 5 minutes. Zero mutuality, zero reproduction, zero participation by other gifted believers, zero priesthood function by the priests, etc. Is “strong expository…” this way because the Bible says so or because tradition by all the Bible experts claim it to be true? I am asking this with zero sarcasm. I can’t figure out how you get this routine from the Bible with actual exposition. There are at least 58 very specific “one another” instructions that are shut down completely from this time for the strict lecture routine. Exposition does not ignore that many texts.