One church I know took root in a traditional middle class neighborhood and thrived throughout the 1950s. Then neighborhood changed and became a haven for artists, musicians, and New Agers. The church declined in membership and attendance throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
A new young pastor was called to lead a turnaround. He spent time in the coffee shops and storefronts, building relationships. He offered a Bible study in a pub that resulted in several people leaving lifestyles marked by witchcraft and sex and drugs to become Christians. A few of these people were invited into leadership roles in the church.
Some of the longtime members began organizing clandestine meetings to discuss grievances. Their primary concern was not doctrine but that if present trends continued, the church would lose its historic identity as a middle class congregation and become a hodge-podge of misfits who spoke and dressed oddly.
The behind-the-scenes meetings eventually led to open meetings in which the new pastor and new members were weighed and found wanting. The pastor was dismissed. The new Christians left soon after that.
Within a year the church disbanded and the building was sold.
I didn’t want that to happen to me, nor did I want my church to stagnate. In 1991 a congregation with 160 years of history called me as pastor. Five years later I began consulting with other congregations over forty years old, many much older. The issue of renewing older churches is both a personal and professional passion of mine.
Long-established churches can harbor some deadly attitudes and habits that distance them from their surrounding community and swat down fresh ideas like flies in the kitchen.
In his book, What Have We Learned? The Best Thinking on Congregational Life (Abingdon, 2001), Lyle Schaller writes, “While exceptions do exist, the general pattern is that congregations that have been meeting at the same address for more than forty years tend to give a higher priority to (a) perpetuating the past rather than creating the new, (b) taking care of today’s members rather than seeking to reach the unchurched, (c) maintaining the real estate rather than launching new ministries to reach new generations.” He concludes: “Never before in American church history have there been so many congregations that are vulnerable to this ‘forty year syndrome.'”
Research indicates that three-fourths of all U.S. congregations are at least forty years old. Daunting challenges await those of us who would transition long-established churches from decline to health. A few foundational principles are key.
Don’t dodge the real issues
Effective renewal leaders measure results in terms of changed lives. They are impatient with “playing church.” They know that some churches will be content to discuss change endlessly, if those discussions enable them to avoid taking action they deem risky.
Honest doubts and struggles are one thing; there must always be room to hear and respond to those. But when discussions are interminable and data requests insatiable, good leaders point out the pattern of work-avoidance and get people back on track.
One leader new to our church board spoke with me privately after attending his first meeting. He was dismayed by the time we took to make simple decisions, many of which seemed only tangentially related to the important work at hand.
He raised the issue at our next session and suggested the board begin evaluating each meeting by asking: “How did our use of time this evening relate to the most pressing challenges facing our congregation?”
The initial response was an uncomfortable silence. Then someone asked in mild irritation, “What do you mean by ‘the most pressing challenges’?” In the ensuing discussion, we identified several: the difficulty in securing committed lay leadership, the expense of maintaining/improving an aging facility, the persistent complacency of many members, tussles over worship styles, widespread ignorance of Scripture, an unacceptably high percentage of inactive church members.
The board then decided that, while it could not “fix” all these issues, it was empowered by the constitution to address several of them.
The next month, the chairman introduced a redesigned agenda. Now the board worked from item to item addressing the core responsibilities assigned by the church constitution, which were drawn from Scripture. We spent less time discussing trivia like where the pastor should stand to greet exiting worshipers and more time on our “most pressing” list. One result was the first systematic follow up on inactive members in decades.
Determining what matters is something persistent leaders must do continually.
Patiently keep the heat on
A congregation’s potential is like an egg. You can’t hatch an egg with a blowtorch. You must wait for the egg to mature. But it is also true that unless eggs are warmed continuously, they will never hatch. The process cannot be rushed; neither can it be neglected. Eggs either hatch or go bad. Those whom God uses to renew declining congregations will patiently keep the heat on.
I was preaching (another) sermon on the importance of outreach. Our drama team performed a sketch satirizing the contradiction of a “friendly” church that ignores newcomers. It drew some laughs. Then on Tuesday I got a letter from a visitor who’d witnessed the skit and been completely ignored by our congregation before and after that worship service.
“I won’t be returning,” she wrote. “I prefer to attend a church that practices what it preaches!”
I was devastated. At our next board meeting, I reflected on the letter with our leadership team. We realized that merely naming the issues in a transitioning congregation is a far cry from resolving them.
Instead of scolding the congregation for its inhospitality, we responded in two ways we hoped would be empowering.
First, we playfully instituted “The 15-Second Rule.” In the first 15 seconds after the benediction, members were told to speak with someone whose name they didn’t know.
Second, we guided our small group leaders through a Bible study on hospitality. We believed that small group members were the most likely people to reach out to newcomers. The group leaders were to encourage their members to look for new people and, when appropriate, to invite them to the group. An empty chair in every group meeting became an object lesson in evangelistic prayer. By praying for the empty chair, members took an important step toward welcoming people.
A new person’s presence was no longer seen as an intrusion but as God’s answer to their prayer.
Connect past to present
Sometimes the way forward is first a creative look back. Take time to research your congregation’s history. Your church’s heritage can be a gold mine with cobwebs strewn across the entrance. You can emerge with nuggets in the form of stories. When these stories are told and retold, corporate identity is enriched.
One congregation celebrated their sesquicentennial anniversary by bridging from past to present. Volunteers read page after page of historical records. Documents and artifacts related to the church’s red-letter days were put on display. Leaders ushered the oldest members of the congregation into the display room, where the senior saints recalled those events. Their reflections were videotaped for later use. Finally, the pastor preached a series of sermons connecting heritage to mission, using a bridge as the focal symbol.
Members of long-established congregations will pursue growth when they sense that what is being asked of them now is consistent with the ways God has been active among them in the past. That is what legitimizes a renewal process in an older congregation.
C. S. Lewis wrote, “Mere change is not growth. Growth is the synthesis of change and continuity, and where there is not continuity there is not growth.”
Farewells and fruitfulness
Starting a new worship service designed to reach unchurched people was one of the most difficult changes our church ever made. We lost some people over it. But new people joined us soon afterward. Some were new to Christian faith; others came to us as Christians who wanted to share in the outreach.
One man told me: “I am middle aged now, and I have been in church all my life. I want to invest the second half of my life in a church that is reaching lost people. Your church is doing that, and I believe that God wants me to be a part of it!”
He and his family joined our church and now he co-leads a sermon discussion group each week. He is using his teaching gift to help pre-Christian people grapple with biblical truth. He is doing his part to restore the fertility of our congregation’s soil.
Our job as leaders is to focus on one overriding concern: restoring the fruitfulness of our churches. Many long-established congregations have enjoyed wonderful seasons of productive ministry in times past. Renewal leaders are filled with anticipation that there are more such times to come. They respond hopefully to Kennon Callahan’s “watershed question” (from Twelve Keys to An Effective Church): Do you believe that your best years are behind you, or do you believe that your best years are yet before you?
They remember that Jesus said, “My true disciples produce much fruit” (John 15:8, NLT). And they will not rest until their congregations are producing disciples again.
Fred Oaks was pastor of Southport Baptist Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. He recently became coordinator of the pastoral ministry program for the Kern Family Foundation. He helps those leading renewal in older congregations through www.ChurchOver40.com
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