WHAT TO DO AFTER A CHURCH COLLAPSE?

Quite a few churches are dealing with a double-whammy of a church split (over something), followed by the Covid crisis – with the pandemic hitting the church while it was in a greatly weakened and disoriented state.  The split may have been over theology, politics, worship – the list is endless – but typically we hear that a significant exodus occurred, often taking the few younger members with it.

We, at Epicenter Group, get a steady inquiry from such churches.  

Almost inevitably...

• The church has waited a bit too long to call us up – so that the window for taking action is closing fast.  The members often see the window of opportunity as related to how long the money lasts – but in fact, it is related to many other factors, including rising median age and loss of critical mass of people in the church.

• The remaining members skew older, and really do not have much of a clue about how to connect with younger people in terms of spiritual community.

• The church has become culturally isolated from the communities of people who exist all around it.  Relational connections have dried up.

• The buildings are now outsized for the church, both in sheer cubic footage and also in cost to heat and maintain.

• Certain leaders cling to the hope that there is a recipe of ‘best practices’ imported from twenty years ago and/or another ministry context that can ‘save the church.’

Let me be clear: there are no easy solutions or ministry tweaks for churches that find themselves down to 70 worshipers (from 250+ ten years ago).  In most cases, there will be no recovery to anything that looks or feels like the normalcy of years past.  Let me be doubly clear: the best website will not save such a church, nor will good preaching (on its own).  Of course, a good future will seldom open up without good web presence and good preaching. 

Consulting firms that jump too quickly to solutions without addressing the issues that brought a church to such a place – they will not typically help the church change its narrative.

What must happen if a good future is to be discovered:

• A serious accounting of the church’s recent history and inner culture must occur.  A clear understanding of how the church got into its predicament must emerge – that is free from scapegoating and wishful thinking.

• A season of both grieving and thankfulness may be in order – as the church makes peace with its past.

• A time of discernment must occur where the leaders of the church venture into a fresh ministry journey, with clarity that the future will not look like the past in many ways.   This discernment will spill over from just in-house conversation to include the neighbors.

• Conversation must happen about what to do with the building (sell it, trade it, repurpose it, monetize it?) with action taken.  If the building is not easily adaptable to the vision that is emerging for the church, then I would recommend selling it.

• A plan must emerge that includes both a process for spiritual development and for community service/interface.

• We must discover (somewhere/somehow) the capacity to execute the plan, both financially and in terms of people power.  The church may wish to spend money on a staff member with gifts and community rapport to quarterback key initiatives – a person other than the pastor, but who can partner with the pastor.  Or the church may wish to partner with a church planter and her/his younger flock or to merge with a campus ministry – as it seeks the kind of energy and disruption required to change the ministry narrative.

If all we get from working a planning process is an unlikely scheme to bring back fictional ‘young families with kids’, this means that the church missed its opportunity, and that it will likely evaporate entirely before 2040.

The era of Mild Tweaks is over.