Death tsunami

I got this interesting title for a blog post from an article I recently read about the financial problems facing denominations.  The article's author correctly noted that the financial struggles currently experienced by many denominations are not likely to improve even when the economy improves.  This is due to a number of reasons but one that many people do not seem to grasp is that we are facing a major loss of people in the coming years due to the aging baby boomer population.  This will not only affect denominations, it will affect many of our churches as well.

The WWII generation is often referred to as the builder generation because of their commitment to building churches, businesses, companies, institutions, organizations, and much of the infrastructure that exists in our country today.  They not only were personally involved in building these organizations, they supported them financially and with their time.  The boomer generation (my generation) that followed has not demonstrated that same commitment to these institutions, and succeeding generations have shown even less commitment.  In many of our churches, especially bivocational churches, a good percentage of the financial support has come from the builder generation and the older baby boomers.  If your church is an exception, count yourself fortunate.  As these generations continue to pass from the scene, many churches can expect to see their finances shrink which may spell trouble.

There is seldom a week goes by that I do not see persons my age in our local newspaper's obituary column.  There are fewer of my classmates at each high school reunion.  I think the term "death tsumani" is an accurate way to describe what is going to happen during the next decade, and I'm afraid that some of our churches do not realize how that may impact them.  Right now is a good time for church leadership to sit down and identify where the church's financial support is coming from.  Rather than waiting until finances nearly disappear now is the right time to be proactive and make some decisions based on the strong possibility that financial support will drop off in the coming years.  Here are some things to consider.

• Now may not be a good time for a church to go into debt.  I already know too many churches that have reduced staff or cut programs because of debt they incurred in better economic times.  If giving levels continue to shrink it will become more difficult to make the mortgage payments and provide ministries to the membership and community.
• Teach on stewardship.  I know many churches resist stewardship training, but these are probably the churches that need it the most.  Younger generations such as Gen-X do not understand tithing or the basic stewardship principles.  There is a reason the builder generation and older baby boomers support their churches financially.  Most of them were trained to do so before churches decided it wasn't cool to talk about money.
• Encourage church members to do responsible estate planning that would include remembering their church in that planning.  I doubt most pastors have the knowledge to lead people through estate planning, but many denominations have persons who can come to your church and lead people through that process.
• Do long-range planning figuring on reduced giving levels in the future.  I think it would be very dangerous to plan for the future believing that giving levels will remain the same or will increase.   If you plan on lower giving levels, and those levels do increase, then you will be in a position to do additional ministry, and that would be great.  However, if you have to cut back on anticipated ministries and programs because of lower than expected giving, everyone is disappointed.

If you have other suggestions for how to plan for what many believe will be reduced giving levels in the future, please share them with other readers of this blog.  That way we all will benefit