A 100 year-old plus-mainline-congregation closes its doors. The church dies. What’s left? An empty shell of a building and a disbanded group of church members. Many have predicted the death of mainline churches for the last 20 years. People have “headed to the hills” or more accurately, to less connectional churches or no churches at all.
I keep a pulse on my denomination, the American Baptist Churches USA, as it appears in the news. One “dead” congregation caught my attention. It is a New England American Baptist congregational and it died. After 163 years, the Massachusetts church closed its doors. Usually, that would be the end of the story, but it was not. The MetroWest Daily News tells the story:
Nine months after the small First Baptist Church held its final service, a new pastor has come to the Natick Center church, hoping to build a new, diverse congregation. The 163-year-old First Baptist congregation ended last September. With membership dwindling to about 20 people, most of whom were in their 70s, 80s and 90s, the congregation decided to disband in hopes a younger, vibrant community would develop in their place.
After the death of this American Baptist congregation, a young 28-year-old church pastor will try to resurrect this dead church. The Rev. Ian Mevorach will engage in what we sometimes call a “church restart”, which means that the building exists but a church takes a completely new direction with new leadership. It’s not a church split. “Church restarts” happen because a church is not able to survive in its current form. The blessing in the above story is that the church willing handed over the building in hopes that a new church will take plant.
If living organisms have a life-cycle, then living churches have a life-cycle too. This means that congregations may fulfill their God-given purpose: to be a community of Christ for the people who embodied the community of faith for a specific time frame. To many this idea spells death of Christianity. Hogwash!
Why then, if we believe in a resurrected God, people cannot conceive of a world where churches need to be resurrected? What if many of our mainline churches need to die a death of institutionalism in order that it be resurrected into a Christ centered-faith community with a new calling? And that is the death – a dying of an institution – so that another can organically rebuild. Many mainline churches, not all, are operating on models that worked 50 years ago. How many businesses work on a business model from 50 years ago? Almost none. Why must we insist that churches cannot change or be reborn into new life?
In the end, mainline churches will always be around but not at the numbers we saw in the 1960’s. Many mainline churches will need to go through a life cycle that seeks to affirm the Easter message: Christ was born, Christ lived, Christ died, and Christ resurrected. In many ways, the mainline church will have to go through the same process of birth and resurrection.
8 Comments
My brother-in-law was pastor years ago at a small church in Hornell, N.Y. Boy, could he preach using Bible teachings every Sunday morning and evening. Wed. night prayer meetings. He was doing everything right.
As an Associate Pastor at the Baptist Church in Pennsylvania, many of the congregation would flock to the teachings on Sunday night. There was always a crowd with seating hard to find.
Hornell had many churches in this very small town. The church never grew. I often wondered why? Could it be folks are hesitant visit another church? The question was never answered. I research study in this area might be interesting.
Thanks for this, Alan. I appreciate how you articulate what many of us in pastoral leadership are actually trying to accomplish in congregation. The pastoral challenges are enormous. It is hard for a church that lives so vibrantly in the memories of those in the pews to die. These communities need to dwindle to the 20 that you list here. Such a small group, indeed, to maintain a traditional mainline Baptist congregation (full-time pastor, etc). And, let’s be honest, those 20 have to live in a kind of congregational hospice for a decade or more to get to the point where they can close their congregation. We don’t like to think that our congregations die…our own mortality its too tied to the mortality of the institutional church.
Tripp, it’s sad to see when congregations don’t even know when they are in decline. There is decline and then realized decline.
Alan, thanks for these observations. As a second-career pastor (in fourth year of ministry) I constantly watch what ‘my’ congregation is doing and thinking. I want them to honor and remember and where apporpriate make use of the past, but not to remain there. We must identify the needs of today (and tomorrrow) and gather our energy, spirit and prayers to address the needs – primarily locally, but often wider afield.
Jim, it is so easy for churches to look back and glamorize the good olde days. The reality is, the past is not always as bright as we thought and the future, for most, can never be brighter. However, I truely believe that God is doing something that is holy and disruptive in Christianity.
Good thoughts. I am in the same region with that church start and there are other congregations rallying to help them with supplies and so on. It is great to see!
I’m reminded of Walter Brueggemann’s categories of the psalms (The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary): orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. As humans go through this cycle of growth, so must congregations. External and/or internal factors disorient. God moves us toward new orientation (we can never go back to the original state of orientation). As we see in the psalms, it is a painful but important journey as we learn to trust in God to guide and reorient us — individually and corporately.
[…] Sometimes, churches need to ‘die’ | AlanRudnick.org. […]