(By Thom S. Rainer, Growing Healthy Churches Together). 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. …
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The 50 or so year narrative of the death of older mainline Protestant Christianity in Europe and North America is an old saw. And the general metrics and math of the PCUSA ,ECUSA, RCA, CC (DC) all point to death spirals which will not be reversed. All will or have moved into the theological and cultural space of now occupied by the Quakers and UU. Iconoclastic and insular sects consumed by their own drama and narrative.
Immigrant churches in the urban core, primarily Pentecostal. Evangelical groups in the suburbs. Catholics globally, LDS must not have gotten the memos of their demise. There are more Christian Baptisms done in India, Nigeria, the southern cone in a monthly basis than the reported membership of the PCUSA. God is on the move, Christ is on the move. The Gospel power of Jesus Christ is irresistible and unstoppable. The Church continues to bless and be a blessing to others. As to the dying religious denominations of the left. Sometimes death is a choice. Sometimes groups of people, denominations choose to engage in destructive behaviors on a habitual basis. The results are clear to see, give people an overall compelling reason to go to church, surprise they go to church. Engage in self defeating behaviors, waste time and energies on Visions 20/20, way forwards, and other institutional, bureaucratic exercises. You richly deserve your fate.
When I read this article I was reminded of the phrase “the tyranny of the urgent.” It is a commonplace these days to be told that all will be lost unless we Christians do this or that or the other, and do it right now. This is neither true nor helpful. As our friend from New Jersey has pointed out, Jesus Christ is building his church, right now, all around the world. And he is doing so quite without regard for what we in this country are doing or are not doing. Like Christians everywhere, we Presbyterians are called to be faithful in the simple daily responsibilities that our Lord has given to us, and having done that, to leave the outcome of that faithfulness to him. As the late, great Presbyterian lay theologian Thomas Jonathan Jackson was fond of saying, “Duty is ours. Consequences are God’s.”