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The Church is Dead…
“Every year more than 4,000 churches close their doors compared to just over 1,000 new church starts… Christianity in America won’t survive another decade unless we do something now.”
There’s a tremendous disparity between the number of churches that are closing their doors and those that are starting up. As a church planter it seems the obvious answer is “we need to plant more churches!” and while I would agree with that statement I don’t believe it’s the complete answer to the problem–for several reasons. Christianity and the Church in America is plagued by a systemic problem that won’t be cured by simply planting more churches.
Now before you jump to conclusions, the systemic problem manifesting itself may not be what you think it is. It’s not based on style or substance, it’s not about leadership development or organizational structures, or any number of other challenges facing the Church in America–although many great cases could be made and have been made for them. I believe the systemic problem we have yet to identify as a major problem within the church is the lack/loss of a spirit of partnership and collaboration. Sure we’re seeing our Berlin Wall crumble (the denominational walls that once separated us) and the clearly defined lines become blurred, and there seems to be a greater sense of partnership now than we’ve ever seen in America, however we still have a long way to go.
Every year there is a net deficit of 3,000+ churches and according to Dave Olson, on any given weekend across the country only 18.7% of people attend church. In fact, because of the net deficit most states, counties and cities are not keeping up with population increase meaning there simply aren’t enough churches. Now before you read this as there simply aren’t enough McChurch’s out there to peddle their goods, let me state my bias–the church is the hope of the world because they are the proclaimers of the resurrection. If there aren’t enough churches there cannot be enough people proclaiming the resurrection, proclaiming hope, incarnating hope, incarnating the resurrection.
Therefore something must be done… but again, to think that we will be able to plant enough churches to keep with the extinction of so many in order to keep pace is simply a ridiculous notion. Sure new churches need to be planted, they must be planted but it cannot be the only solution. We need a two-front approach. We need to start looking outside of the box. And the problem isn’t that we’re not planting enough, the problem is that we’re not doing enough to save/resurrect those churches facing extinction.
Much of what causes a church to go extinct is based on two factors–not enough people which equals not enough giving which equals foreclosure or the inability to keep up with their budget which equals a dead church. But what if, in order to “save” the traditional mode of doing church the churches in a city banded together and covenanted with one another that they would not allow extinction. They created some sort of “resurrection fund” that was used to help the struggling church get back on its feet (a very Acts 2/4 sort of mentality). Many of these churches would then no longer have to live in survival mode, but would be freed up to once again rethink mission and vision, reinventing itself and moving forward towards vitality and a new Kingdom movement.
Imagine the testimony of that church, of those churches who were once on the brink of extinction saved by the generosity and compassion of their brothers and sisters throughout the rest of the city. Imagine the camaraderie, imagine the shared vision of helping people find their way back to God. Imagine what would be able to happen in a city, a region because the Church banded together to once again journey together and be on mission.
Of course this is an idealist stance… of course there are many different challenges and hurdles to overcome because of how fragmented and splintered the Church has become due to a spirit of senseless competition pitting one church against another and simply utilizing one another for our own gain as opposed to Kingdom gain. But imagine for a moment if a movement of generosity, a movement of anti-extinction were to actually take place. No longer would we see 4,000 churches close their doors every year… we could literally stem the tide beginning instead to make ground on the population increase instead of drowning in a sea of death. But it requires a sense of partnership, a sense of actually being honest and transparent with each other and working for the betterment of the Kingdom instead of our own little kingdoms.
And if none of that inspires you… imagine all the money we could save (it’s cheaper to resurrect a church than to start a new one). And imagine what we could do with all the savings… imagine all the good that could be done!
15 Responses to “The Church is Dead…”
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preach.
I tend to think the problem is that the majority of churches are going after the same 18.7% instead of the other 81.3%. In some cases, churches that are dying just need to die because they aren’t doing anything to try and reach out beyond their own walls.
I’m all for churches collaborating with other churches, but only if those churches are going broke because they are living missionally and being generous, not because they spent too much money on their state-of-the-art building or over-staffing themselves.
I’ve seen a church here in town about to go under and then be saved by their denomination, but they went bare bones and brought someone in that was willing to try new things. That church is in a much better place now because the pastor was willing to reach out and put all of his resources into reaching his community instead of playing it safe.
There must be a way a church can still be the light of the world without going millions of dollars into debt.
Anyway, I actually think having 4,000 churches fold vs. 1,000 new church start-ups may not be as bad as Stetzer thinks if the new churches are the right kind of church.
I don’t disagree with you that most churches are going after the 18.7%, and I also don’t disagree with you that there are some churches that simply need to die. But I’m not sure that all of them do and what we seem to be doing is letting them.
I think when faced with the situation of change or die, most churches choose die because they simply don’t know how to change. There’s no one there to walk with them through the process, to help them get back up on their feet and move forward. If there are churches in a city that are succeeding and they offer a church not only financial help to stay afloat while they rethink what change looks like as well as guidance, strategy and challenge I think many churches would choose that option instead of death.
I think we need to recapture a vision for the whole church–established and new–if we ever hope to see a radical Kingdom movement. Allowing 4,000 churches to die year in and year out is a movement in the wrong direction… something has to be done… we shouldn’t be giving up on our brothers and sisters but rather reinvigorating them and allowing them to take hold of their role as essential parts of the Kingdom. We must reclaim and re-instill the belief in the priesthood of all believers.
Couple of disconnected thoughts: I think it would be very helpful if we trained our ministers to have the capability to work in the main work-force. In some (not all) cases it could be very helpful in a church dying for financial reasons if a minister was able forgo a salary temporarily.
For generous giving check out boldergiving.org and the testimony of Tom Hsieh. He’s my hero.
“Christianity in America won’t survive another decade unless we do something now” – Ed Stetzer
Talk about a ridiculous overstatement. He sounds like the paranoid VBS teachers of my youth who told us that it was important to know how the Christians drew the icthus in the sand because we would soon need secret ways to communicate with other persecuted American Christians.
I don’t mean to be too snarky though. American Christians do seem to be shifting more towards “ainstitutional” forms of worship. In some senses that’s a good thing and in other senses it’s challenging.
I agree that we need a multi-pronged approach to the revitalization of the church. I also think that vigorous church planting is crucial to that process. For that reason we need to do everything we can to keep start-up costs reasonable and regionally appropriate in order to get the largest return on investment for our philanthropic dollar.
Obviously plants in our area or yours are going to be much more expensive and will require substantially more resources than plants in other parts of the country. I think that leaders in more cost efficient areas should suppress their salaries in order to meet the needs of churches in expensive urban areas.
In general I think most Americans, including myself, are overcompensated for the amount of work that we produce. It appears that the market agrees and changes appear to be forthcoming.
Here’s how I see it…
The concept of the Protestant Reformation at it’s inception was good. There was a nessesity to move beyond the stranglehold of the Catholic church’s theology. In time, what has been created in the realm of protestantism is just an expansion of that same kind of control, just in each individual denomination or individualy governed church
99% of protestant churches have a declared list of what you need to believe in order to be a “member”
Then along came the hippe movement during the vietnam era and born out of that was the idea that you could rebel against parents/authoriy figures. This was the start of the churches undoing in my opinion.
But for the last 40-50 years not much traction was made until the explosion of the information age. Now, not only do poeple feel they have the power to stand against the grain, but are coupled with the information/knowlege that it’s probably the right thing to do.
That said, churchs may be dying, but are we sure that the Church is dying? Maybe what we are witnessing is the begining of the next reformation. If it’s anything like the first one, hold on to your hats.
Side Note – Churches don’t want to change. Each church operates under the idea that they are right, or else why have a list of what you need to believe in order to be a member?
Personaly, I think one of the major changes we’ll see in the coming years is a movement of faith groups congregating based on questioning rather than answering.
Aaron – Yes, that is the kicker. Are the churches willing to change? I guess that’s where you have more hope than I do (which is a good thing). I agree 100% that if a church is willing to change to advance the Kingdom then it should be given every opportunity to survive. But more often than not, a church would rather die off than change because they think they are doing it the right way.
This is a big reason why we are moving out of the south and to California. We desire to be in a place where the church must adapt to survive and stop relying on it’s old ways and traditions. The church still manages here because a higher percentage of folks attend church and the illusion is that everything is fine.
“Shaping” was very helpful for me on this topic. In their opinion, the church has lost its way and a lot of what’s happening now is forcing the church to go back to what we once were. I tend to agree.
ok, this is going to sound horrible to everyone who squirms when they think of churches being run like a business. but, have you guys ever seen the show “We Mean Business”? These small business gurus come in for a week, and transform small businesses just by giving them simple marketing/branding/promotional advice. Now, this obviously wouldn’t solve some larger problems we’ve been hitting on.
But, simple best practices could probably help a lot.
I agree with gentry13 about the overstatement of Stetzer’s prediction of the churches death. first of all. Let us remember that the Church is Christ ’s body anbd He is the head of the church, and he is the one “building the church” as He reminded us during Peters good confession. how can something that Christ is building die? especially if he is the head? I dont thing the church will ever die! it may be changed, or transformed, but not die or disapear. it seems that now and days we are to quick to bury the church, just because it is suffering. but its obvious that something needs to be done.
I live outside of the USA and for decades I have been returning home and realizing the church has lost its identity. this is not something new. But we all know that unless we face a crisis we dont usually react and correct or problems. so I think I agree that we are on the verge of another awakening of the church. seriously just getting the denomiantions to work together, thats even bigger than news than the 4000 churches closing their doors. this might actually be the big news here. I think it will be easier to balance the death/new church ratio than to get the major denominations on the same boat. but I have seen a glipse of that. (a very small step – which is in factg a very large one considering the history). I think its the internet and the whole networking culture hype, that is uniting the world, and the churches. (God works in mysteries ways) maybe the death of some church locations, is part of Gods plan. Rom. 8 remind us that God works all the things for the good.
I just heard francis chan on a catalyst podcast interview say that he hope that his church would get smaller if it meant that only the committed people would stay. so they raised the bar hoping that people would leave, but they didnt.
in my church I dont have that problem, people are leaving all the time. haha. but the ones stay; the comitted ones always step up to the plate and our church grows stronger and deeper each time.
maybe the church is not dying, it just migrated to the megachurches and the small churches fueled the megachurches. I am not going to criticize the mega church, because in a way they have serve theri purpose of rescuing the believers from their sinking ships (their dying churches) apparently its time to rescue the believers from the mega churches. and from the denominations, may I add.
The real problem is not the church, but the culture that is changing so drastically in the last decades. its becoming more liberal, secular and inmoral. when our culture has no shame of coming out of the closet with their morality, then you know we are in difficult times (or the last days?) of course we also have to blame the internet, the networking, globalization and tecnology advances which has precipitated this shift in the culture. I think that the tecnology has hurt to precipitate the death of our planets global morality, and has stripped away its innocence (the little it had left) so the big issue is not so much that the church is dying, as much as that the world is dying. becoming more like sodom and gomorra from the bible. maybe the church hasnt helped in slowing down that process as it should have. but its aboivus biblically that the closer we get to the end, the farther appart the good and evil will be.
so if the world is getting worse, then its probably time that the church gets better.
So I guess I would appreciate the exageration of Ed Setzer’s dying church teory, as long as it achieves it purpose of awakening the church. I do the same thing, overeact and exagerate, to scare my audience to action. I love it. haha
finally we need to make sure we dont over correct in dealing with the church. because we tend to see a problem and over correct to much causing another problem. instead we need to keep the good things about our churches today, and just correct the bad things. easier said than done. or maybe just let go of the wheel and let the spirit lead us for once. can’t wait for francis chans new book on the spirit to come out this year. I also have ordered his book crazy love that sounds like its the directino the church needs to shift in this new era.
Those stats you cite are examples of bad research, as I explained at the conference where I gave them. They are unfounded stats that get spread around becuase people like to pass on bad news.
So, smiling at the great irony of this moment, I ask you to remove any reference to me since I was debunking those statements, not promoting them.
They are wrong.
Thanks,
Ed
Sorry Ed… I pulled the quotes from your powerpoint slides. I wasn’t at the conference to hear the context. I removed your name as the reference.
Wrong information or not, it was a good and important discussion, one that I can’t resist.
I think it is a given that most churches seem to target suburbanites in this country because they are the best church building material.
While your compassion for struggling churches is admirable, I personally think that most churches are too entrenched in their own preferences to be transformed into communities living out the Gospel. I wish and hope that it is not so!
My greatest concern with the post is that it seems to equate institutional expressions of the church with THE CHURCH. History seems to tell us that the worse times for “the church” are the best times for “THE CHURCH”. I know that information is upsetting to modern American Christendom, but I believe that the church (got tired of the all caps thing) marches on even if (or especially if) the cultural institution, structures, and system fall on hard times.
There is no way to prevent people from trying live life in the way of Jesus in community in ways that display his love to their greater community. It seems like if we can pull that off the rest is just some sort of fluff.
All good.
Keep up the good writing.
Ed
HAHAHAHAHA….lol…love it…
IT IS A “WORLD” CONSPIRACY SINCE 2006. LED AND ORGANIZED BY THE WORLD LEADERS AND HOLLIWOOD EXEC’s.
I totally agree that “THE CHURCH IS DEAD”
I BELIEVE THAT I AM THE HOLY SPIRIT because of what the CANADIAN ,AMERICAN AND IRANIAN GOV”T OFFICIALS have been involved in with me since the year 2006…
I HAVE BEEN , TESTED BY THE ARMY AND BY NASSA TO HAVE THE “PROOF IN THE POODING ” THAT I AM THE MESIA. SINCE MY COMING OUT TO MY LAWYER “PAUL AMEY” IN 2006.
Since then,the TOWN OF BRANTFORD ONTARIO where I live, has gotten very rich along with all the local 6 nations INDIANS.
THE GOVERNMEMT IS A FORMED GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACY SINCE THEY FOUND OUT WHO I AM. AND HAVE BEEN STALKING< HARASSING ME THREATENING ME WITH A BRICK BY THE LOCAL POLICE
do you believe that.