What will your church do when the Builder generation is gone?

I recently preached a message to a church that looked at 12 trends that are impacting the church today and will continue to do so for the near future. One of those trends is the disappearance of the Builder Generation. This was the WWII generation, the one Tom Brokaw called The Greatest Generation in the book by the same title. These men and women returned home from the war and built much of what we see today. They built great companies, successful businesses, schools, and churches. They joined organizations in which they gave their time, talents and treasure. This generation is rapidly dying off or moving into much less active lifestyles.

Their absence is affecting many organizations. Veterans organizations continually decrease in size as younger veterans are less inclined to join them. Other service organizations such as Rotary, Lion's Club, Moose, etc. are seeing the same decline in membership. Churches are not exempt from the decline in both attendance and giving. In another ten years few of the Builder Generation will still be here, and those who are will be much less active than they are today. What will your church do when that happens?

One state denomination hired a consultant to visit their churches to discuss this situation. He told me that few churches are aware of the problems they are facing when that generation is gone, and some pastors do not want to admit it will be a potential problem in their churches. It will be.

When the Builder Generation found a church they wanted to attend they became a member of that church. They were active in the church often serving in several roles. They gave their tithes and offerings to the church in which they were a member. They showed up on work days, outreach events and every revival the church held. They attended Sunday school, Brotherhood or Mission Circle meetings, and were often present not only on Sunday morning but that evening as well. Many of them attended the mid-week service. Finally, they brought their children with them. None of these are necessarily true of the generations that have followed them.

Because the Builder Generation brought their children (the Boomer Generation) to church we grew up with at least some concept of what God, Christianity and faith was all about. Many of us may have strayed from the faith in our early adult years, but many of us also came back to the church and to the faith in later years. But, many of us did not come back with the same level of commitment our parents had. We may have joined the church, but many of us were not nearly as active in it as our parents. We were also less insistent that our children attend with us so many of them had little exposure to biblical teaching. Partly as a result of that, and the culture changes that have occurred in the past few decades, the generations after the Boomers are even less involved in church life.

As a denominational minister for 14 years I attended many churches. There was often a large gap in generations present for the worship services. The Builder Generation was there, a few Boomers and the grandchildren of the Builders who had brought them. Those pastors of whom I spoke earlier either are blind or have their heads in the sand if they do not see that.

Many small churches today are operating on the money given to them by the Builder Generation over the past years. Their current offerings are not enough to keep the church open and support any kind of effective ministry. Because many pastors have been told they cannot preach on money the younger generations have no concept of stewardship, tithing or financially supporting the church in any way. Positions in the church often go unfilled because there are so few people willing to make a commitment to the church.

I could go on and on about the problems facing the local church when the Builder Generation is gone. The question church leaders need to be asking is what are they going to do about it? Frankly, I think many smaller churches will have no choice but to close their doors if they do not become proactive now. That does not have to happen, but it's important that church leaders begin to talk about this and decide how they can best address the situation before it becomes a more serious problem.