What would be best for many smaller churches that are struggling?

In recent weeks I've had a number of interesting conversations with small church leaders, denominational leaders, and others about some of the challenges facing smaller churches.  Our nation is dotted with smaller churches.  Some have very effective ministries while others struggle to keep their doors open.  Some are led by student pastors, others have found bivocational leadership, and growing numbers of them are finding it difficult to find pastoral leadership.  Even finding good lay leadership is a struggle in some of these churches as their membership ages and people do not want the responsibility.  Those churches with healthy leadership and ministries will do quite well, but what about the others?  What lies ahead for them?

There are several options.  One obvious option would be to close, and for some of those churches it is the best option.  Such churches could probably contribute more to the Kingdom of God by becoming a legacy church than to remain open as long as they can pay their light and heat bills.  For more information on legacy churches I recommend reading Legacy Churches by Stephen Gray and Franklin Dumond.

A second option is to have several churches served by one pastor.  The United Methodist Church has been doing that for years.  We have proposed this to some of our American Baptist churches in our region but it has not been met with a lot of acceptance.  There is a strong tradition of our churches having their own pastor, and that tradition has been difficult to overcome.  This is unfortunate because it can be a viable option.

Some ask why many of these smaller churches do not merge to become a larger church.  Those asking assume that once the churches merge and become larger they will be better able to attract leadership and develop more effective ministries.  Unfortunately, mergers are much more complicated than many people think.  Often, when two or three unhealthy small churches merge you have one larger unhealthy church.  Mergers do not solve underlying issues in a church.  Another common problem is that these merged churches sometimes continue to be two churches who now happen to meet at the same time in the same location.  The congregations never truly merge into one, and it can be easy for an "us vs. them" mentality to take over.  Another issue that arises is where will this new, merged congregation meet.  It's often best if both churches sell their facilities and purchase a new one.  Otherwise, the congregation that keeps its building may feel their vote counts a little more than the other congregation who has been merged into their church.

There is another option that I think needs to be explored more than it has.  Some smaller churches have become satellite sites of larger churches in the area.  These churches are able to keep their property and much of their identity, but they often benefit from having more experienced leadership and more resources than they would have on their own.  Many of them have live worship in their own building and at a prescribed time the teaching pastor appears on the screen to deliver a message.  Many of them will have a site pastor who will provide pastoral care and local ministry.  This person may or may not be ordained.  He or she might be a lay person with the spiritual gifts for such ministry.

There are challenges to this option.  A recent study found that a majority of churchgoers prefer a live speaker to one on video.  I enjoy watching a baseball game at the ballpark, but I might do that once or twice a year.  The rest of the time I watch it on television and still enjoy the game. I have to wonder how many people who would object to having their pastor preach on video never miss a Charles Stanley sermon on Sunday morning before they go to church.   I believe once people got used to having their minister deliver his or her message on a screen they would find this is a not a problem.

If the speaker is live the satellite church would have to be very careful about timing.  There may not be time for every person in attendance to share their prayer concerns which is an important part of the worship service in many smaller churches.  The service would have to be scripted much tighter than sometimes happens in smaller churches which some might find troublesome.  Some churches get around this problem by using a video from the previous week's message so they can play it at the appropriate time and not have to worry as much about timing everything so the church is ready for the speaker.

While there are other challenges let me briefly mention some big advantages this could have for the smaller church.  The quality of the sermons could be much better.  Most people who become pastors of larger churches are usually very good communicators.  Many of them would bring better preaching skills and scholarship than what some smaller churches have been used to having.  A second benefit would be the additional resources the smaller church would have available through their relationship with the larger church.    Additional training opportunities that could be offered by the larger church is a third advantage.

Smaller churches are going to have to begin looking at some of these options are they look ahead.  It will become increasingly more difficult for them to just continue as they have for decades.  Changes are coming whether we like them or not.  The wise churches will be those who recognize that and begin now to transition to the options that will make the most sense for them.