Maximized Leadership: Does God Want Some Churches To Die?
“If God wants our church to live, it will live, and if He wants it to die, it will die!” A church leader in a dying congregation made that statement to a friend of mine. His sentiment was in essence; “we are not changing anything even if we have to close the doors.” Of course, he spiritualized the issue in an effort to forfeit his personal responsibility. Churches do close their doors sometimes but it does not have to be. There are alternatives. The problem is that the alternatives require sacrifice, require the relinquishing of power, and result in changes. Some people would actually rather the doors close than sacrifice, release power, or change. The irony is that after the doors close, change has taken place, the facilities have been sacrificed, and power has been relinquished. However, since the doors have closed, no ministry takes place, no disciples are being made, and the gospel is not being shared from that location.
I appreciate that there are several layers to this issue including the fact that the church is not a building but rather resides in people. But, a local church is a gathering point where people network and serve together to worship, serve, and touch lives. It is always sad when any of these local gathering points disappear. Fewer of these gathering points results in fewer opportunities to accomplish the aforementioned. That is why we plant churches, in order to establish more of these gathering points or perhaps mission points or service points might better make the point. What are the alternatives for the dying congregation?
- They could merge with another congregation.
- They could allow a strong, healthy church to adopt them and give the sponsoring church full authority to make changes needed to survive.
- They could turn the church over to a church planter and be absorbed by the new congregation.
- They could invite a healthy church to send several families as missionaries for a year to give a leadership boost.
- They could move services to 8:30am and give the 11:00 hour to a church plant to share their facilities.
None of these options is intended to eliminate the best possibility of all and that is for God to lead the congregation in a miraculous turn around. But, how often does that happen when the congregation falls well below twenty and into the single digits? The answer is “rarely.” Do not read too much into the numbers here because there is no wrong size church. But why let a congregation totally shut down when there are alternatives? If God wants a church to die, as the gentlemen suggested, that is not much of a compliment to that congregation or to its leaders. This is what I know; if the Lord tarries, I want my church serving and sharing Christ 100 years from now and beyond, even if I am no longer in control. If I am, that will be another miracle as I celebrate my 156th birthday. Can’t wait!