Autopsy of a Deceased Church

     "I'll let this church die before I let that happen!"  A church member declared angrily in a very heated meeting.  

     Eight years later, he would get his wish.  

     What was this heated meeting about, and how did it end up leading to the death of a church that seemed to be growing and thriving at the time of this meeting?  That is the subject of a fascinating book I just finished, entitled, Autopsy of a Deceased Church, by Thom S. Rainer.  I will put a link to order this book at the end.  

     The topic of struggling and dying churches is fascinating to me.  The church I loved as a little girl died.  It went from a happy place, complete with a school, and family involvement almost every day of the week, to an empty building, which has now been demolished, and is the site of a grocery store today.  Newer residents of that community (meaning residents that weren't there in the 20th century) have no idea of the hopes, dreams, friendships and heartbreak that happened at that spot.  They don't know about the Christmas caroling parties, the Easter plays, the closeness, the mission trips, the truths committed to hearts.  I learned how to look up verses in the Bible at that church.  In fact, the teacher who taught me how has recently been in touch with our ministry, and is a prayer partner.  

AWANA awards night 1990.  I am walking down after getting my award.  Everyone you could see were important to me, and some are still dear friends today.  Less than ten years after this picture was taken, the church closed down for good (though no one in 1990 would have believed that).  We were all part of something wonderful and life-changing together, and then it was gone.

     As an older teen and young adult, we went to another church--one that still exists, but is really small now.  I referred to that church in the previous post, about my friend Shelba.  That church had existed since 1927 (and was 70 years old when we joined in 1997).  A few months earlier, it had been about to die, but the handful of members left called a very enthusiastic man to pastor.  He was a visionary, and an evangelist.  He had a gift, and under his ministry, the church did so much outreach.  So many were saved, and the church grew to about 120 people.  It was an active church, always doing ministry, sending out missionaries.  The core members who had joined were very outreach-oriented.  Sadly, when this pastor retired in the 2000's, there was some manipulation and foul play about selecting the next pastor.  Many of the people who really wanted what was right and wanted to do outreach felt they couldn't succeed against the tactics being used, and they all quietly left, and went to different churches.  Without as many of these ministry-minded people there, the church shrunk drastically.  They called a kind but very complacent man to be their pastor (one the manipulative types could control).  Many were content with mediocrity.  There was no vision for more.  No more concern for the lost.  They cut their missions giving from the budget.  I was a missionary by that time, and I was cut.  I remember the new pastor leading a study about the differences between Mormonism and Christianity.  Almost no one came for it, and even for those who did, there was no follow-up plan to actually witness to any Mormons.  

     I had remained friendly with this church, but was actually attending another church in town.  In my late 20's, I felt led to return and try to really revamp the children's ministry.  I acted on a deeply-rooted passion.  Perhaps it was seeing my childhood church die.  Or perhaps it was seeing this other church I had loved at the brink of death.  But I believe the Holy Spirit led.  I worked hard.  Rachel (who is my cousin, and was also my roommate at the time), helped me.  We got about 15 kids coming to the church (which doubled the attendance, because that's roughtly how many adults we had).  We did Sunday school, children's church, fun outreaches to families.  We had a dinner theater while the kids performed the play of A Charlie Brown Christmas.  We did evangelism in the nearby neighborhoods.  We went Christmas caroling in the community.  We took the older kids on mini-mission trips.  We shared the Gospel at the county fair.  We had Sunday school picnics and other outings.  Deep discipleship happened over those years. 

Children in our VBS during that time--the certificates they're holding are for scripture memorization.

     And yet when I got married and moved away, no one was carrying on with this ministry (Rachel also moved away), and it dwindled again.  Today, that church is very, very small.  I don't know what the future holds.  Their current pastor is an excellent Bible teacher.  If he had come as the next pastor right after the visionary from the 90's, I think that church would never have lost all those ministry-minded people.  

     Now, in our ministry here in Arkansas, God is leading my husband and me to do ministry with struggling little churches.  The church we have joined was a dying church when we met them, with seven members, all senior citizens.  Through partnering with them, we have seen the membership grow to about 40, all ages.  We've seen whole families baptized together in that church.  That church is now full of outreach-minded people.  

Some of the kids at our church, in line at a recent potluck (adults hadn't come in yet).

     Other small churches we partner with are seeing growth, and we are feeling our passion ignited.  We feel this is our calling right now.  With all of this being shared, you can understand why this book, Autopsy of a Deceased Church was such a powerful read to me.  

     So why did my childhood church die?  Why did my young adult church decline?  Why have some of the churches we now work with come so close to death?  Autopsy of a Deceased Church attempts to answer these questions, and help find solutions for churches before it is too late.  We can learn a lot from these autopsies.  

 

     Thom Rainer conducted autopsies on fourteen churches that had died.  He shared a lot of anecdotes and patterns to serve as warnings.  There were several points.

     For one thing, churches that died generally had "good old days" that were in the distant past, and the membership were not really trying to do anything in the present, but instead lived off those past victories.  Past victories matter.  There are so many recorded in the Bible to build our faith.  It's wonderful to remember, and know that there are still "ripple effects" of these past victories happening today.  And yet we can't live on past victories.  We can't stay stuck in a rut.  We have to keep running the race set before us (Hebrews 12:1).  Isaiah 43:19 has always been a favorite of mine:  Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.  God has something new in store, and we'll miss it if we're living on past victories.  

     I remember visiting a church in the California desert years ago. Upon walking in, I saw many framed pictures on the wall showing groups of children.  A closer look revealed that these were the church's kids at camp different years.  The year was printed on each picture.  I looked at each one, and saw the most recent year was almost twenty years earlier.  What had happened since then?  But there was more.  This church had once had a very active AWANA club, and the AWANA awards earned from Bible quizzing and AWANA Olympics decorated walls, in very prominent places. And yet the most recent year was again, decades earlier.   In the Sunday school rooms, there were world naps on the walls, with prayer cards of missionaries the church supported.  And yet the maps were outdated, with nations that no longer existed.  The missionary prayer cards were all black and white, and looked quite old.  

     I ended up attending the adult Sunday school class.  One of the elderly men referred to "current events" such as "that conflict in Nam."  I expected everyone to laugh, as if it were a joke, but he was serious, snd everyone acted as if what he said was valid.  I began to wonder if I really had gotten into a time warp!  

     In the worship service, I was the only adult without gray hair.  There were about 5 kids in children's church, all grandchildren or great-grandchildren of members.  

     This church was living on past victories.  There was something disconcerting about it, while at the same time, fatally attractive.  

     Another mark of a dead church is that members no longer prayed together, in a deep, real, Book-of-Acts way.  Many of these churches just recited prayer during the service out of habit or obligation, but it hardly qualified as prayer.  I love Acts 12, about Peter's miraculous release from prison.  After he was released, he made his way to John Mark's house, where believers were praying for him!  That kind of fervent prayer will keep a church alive.  

     

     Still another commonality found in the autopsies of dead churches involved demanding "my way" more than God's way (conflicting over music, service times, church property, etc.).  The book gave some crazy examples.  One church split over whether or not to buy a new pulpit.  The group that wanted to keep the old one left and started a new church with the old pulpit.  It only lasted two years before disbanding.  The older church that ended up getting a new pulpit closed down seven years later.  These kinds of squabbles have nothing to do with kingdom business.  It doesn't mean they don't need to be addressed ever.  It simply means they don't deserve that high of a priority.  

     Losing evangelistic fervor was a huge red flag in these church autopsies.  When churches stop being burdened for the lost in their community, they're on the road to death.  It may be a slow death.  It may take years.  But it's coming, unless something changes!  I have shared in other posts how important evangelism is to me.  Jesus's very last command was to preach the Gospel (Matthew 28:19-20; Mark 16:15; Acts 1:8).  If a church isn't doing this, they are in disobedience.   

     A close cousin of this problem was losing love toward the community.  Sometimes, a changing demographic in a neighborhood goes unnoticed by those inside the walls of the church.  This can involve racial change, economic class change, or somethong else.  These members want to do things the way they always have, but those things are no longer effective.  The members don't care.  They make no effort to reach out to the community.  They do things that reached the community thirty years ago, and when it doesn't work, they pass it off as hard-heartedness on the part of the community.  They might hold some sort of outreach, but expect those in the community to come to them.  Jesus came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10).  As His people, we are to seek out those who need Him.  With rare exceptions, they're not going to just come to us.  

     A common (but not universal) thread was that churches that had died had had a revolving door with pastors the last several years in operation.  Their stubbornness and selfishness wore these poor ministers down, and they really couldn't lead.  Feeling they couldn't accomplish anything, they left.  The few churches autopsied that had longer-term pastors had a different problem.   The pastors simply adopted the attitude of the people, and served their whims, rather than lead.  

     These were all things observed in these autopsies.  Thom Rainer put churches in four categories: Healthy churches, which he estimates to be about 10% of churches; Sick churches (that is, they are showing some signs toward death), which he said were about 40%; Very sick churches (those almost beyond repair, and which can only survive if real repentance and drastic action happens), which were also 40%; and finally, dying churches (no hope--only a matter of time), which were at 10%.  The book ended with advice for sick, very sick, and dying churches.  There was hope for sick churches, but action required.   There was a glimmer of hope for very sick churches, but a lot more action was required.   For dying churches, the advice was about dying well.  Some ideas were given, such as giving their building to a new church plant that needed one.  The sacrifice would allow their church's death to give life to another.  That's what our faith is all about.   

     The only issue not addressed in this book was corrupt leadership that can close even large and seemingly-thriving churches (for further insight, listen to the podcast The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill).  

     This was a sobering read for me, and it made me revisit some tender memories.  The universal church (Christ's body) will never die (on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Matthew 16:18).  Individual congregations do die, though.  It hurts when that happens.  That is why my husband and I have a great love for these struggling churches.  Our heart is reflected in the last verse of the song Shout to the North.   I will close with these lyrics: Rise up church with broken wings.  Fill this place with songs again, of our God who reigns on high.  By His grace again we'll fly.  

To order the book, go to https://a.co/d/bKSLNMg