Most of our Small Congregations are Going to Close

Most of our small congregations are going to close in the coming decades.  Many of them already are.  Our numbers are declining.  They have been for decades, and the pandemic has only sped up the trend. 

(I know this most clearly from within the perspective of white mainline congregations in the US.  I get the feeling it applies elsewhere, but let me know if that isn’t true.)

Most people simply aren't interested in coming to church with us.  Either they are already in other churches, have other faiths, or they are uninterested in church in general.  They find us irrelevant at best, and harmful at our worst. They have good reasons for those feelings.

We cannot simply advertise our way out of this problem.  There is no one to advertise too.  No one who is going to show up just because they saw us in the newspaper. We cannot simply adopt the programs of the church down the road, because they’re closing too.  

We have choices here.  We can choose to do church the way we have done it, with shrinking numbers and aging members.   If we do this, we will need to learn to live within our means, and adjust to the slow grief of seeing what we have loved die.  This is a valid decision. I am not going to criticize anyone for it.

Or we can choose to give up everything we love to be one of the few churches that might grow.  That will take immense faithfulness, courage, creativity, and luck. Some congregations will do everything right, and will still close.  This also has to be ok.  

If we choose to do this, we will need to love the people who *might* come to our churches more than we love anything that we have done in church before.  We will have to be willing to make *everything* about them. 

This means we will need to listen to them, very deeply, believe them, and pray about what we hear. We can read what books they are publishing, follow them on social media, and listen to the ones in our personal lives.  When someone visits our church, we need to receive every tiny opinion they drop as a gift, a gem, to be held forever and turned over and over to see every facet. 

We need to study the sociology of people who don’t come to church.  (Sociologists call them the “nones” and “dones”.) Why do they not come?  What do they think of us? What are they interested in? What is relevant to their lives?  What language do they use? What media do they read? What influences their decisions? 

We need to pay attention to the big national trends, and what is our own local culture. What do the people who don’t go to church *right here* need and think? 

And this isn’t a one time task, but an ongoing attitude of openness and learning.  And we simply cannot think we are better than them, or have more truth than they do. We will need to approach what we hear with great humility. 

Then every single decision we make in church needs to be about what potential visitors want and need.  What worship time? What happens in worship? How do we make building decisions with them in mind? Policy decisions?  How transparent is our decision making? What projects do we engage in? What language do we use? How do we communicate? In what mediums? What about our culture needs to change? How do I, personally, need to change? 

This can’t be done by only a small group of people.  Every single person in the congregation needs to be on board with it.  Members need to wholeheartedly approve of leadership putting the needs of potential members before their own wants.  

This is *hard.* This is *uncomfortable.* This takes so much faith.  And it should only be tried by congregations that truly, deeply believe God is calling them to this.  It is ok if that is not every congregation.  And it’s much better to be honest about this than to pretend because it’s what we think we are supposed to be doing. 

If you can’t do it, that’s ok.  Stop trying to bring people in just to prop up your budgets and volunteer for your projects.  That only causes harm. 

The paradox is: any group of people who truly commits to doing this together is going to become a community that loves and cares for each other too, in a deeply Christian way.  And it’s likely that they will find deep fulfillment and joy in trying together.  If they truly believe it.

Maybe a congregation that commits to this work will still die.  There are no guarantees.  But I suspect they will find new life, even in their dying.

God is still working.  In both the congregations that are dying, and the ones that are finding new life.  And God is still working to bring new congregations into existence, and to meet people in new ways outside of the church.  Always. 

In our life and in our death, we are God’s.  Held in love, invited to live in love with each other. 

Let us live in that love, together.