The future looks dark for some small churches

This past month I've received a number of calls from pastors and lay leaders of smaller churches asking what they need to do to reach new people.  Some have asked me to come and talk with them about what they need to do to have a more effective ministry in their communities.  Tonight I will be meeting with one of those churches.  I have no way of knowing the motivation behind these requests, but my guess is that for at least some the primary motivation is fear.  For years now they have witnessed the declining numbers of people who attend their services and the increasing graying of those who do, and they have ignored it hoping that it would somehow magically improve.  Since there's been no improvement they have now reached the stage in their life cycle when they are feeling desparate.  They now realize that unless something changes soon their church is in danger of closing, and the thought of that terrifies them.  It has been said that people won't change until the pain of not changing exceeds the pain of the change, and some of these churches are now reaching that place.  Having worked with smaller churches for over three decades my concern is that even though some of them are now reaching out for help in doing something different, when they find out what it might cost them they will go back to hoping for the magic solution.

Let me say quickly that there is no magic solution.  There is no magic formula that I or anyone else can provide a congregation to guarantee their church will not close.  In fact, as much as it pains me to say it, some churches should close.  Quite frankly, it is poor stewardship of God's resources to keep some churches open.  Survival should never the primary goal of a church.  Ministering to people in ways that will advance the Kingdom of God should be that goal.  As I've told countless pastors in workshops around the country, God is not concerned with whether or not your church remains open.  He is quite interested in whether or not your church is on mission with Him.

Most people who read this blog and anyone who has read my books knows my passion for smaller churches and those who lead them.  My ministry focus has always been towards the smaller church because I know how vital they are to the Kingdom.  I hope my long commitment to the smaller church allows me to speak boldly to these churches.  What I'm about to write may seem harsh, but it is being written out of love for those churches that need a wake-up call.

The most common question I get from smaller churches is how can they reach youth and young people.  What makes you think you can reach youth and young people when you couldn't keep the ones you had?  Your congregation consists of people who raised their families in your church.  Where are those young people?  Sure, some moved away, but what about the ones who remain in the area?  Where are they going to church?  Are they going to church?  Why?  When you honestly answer those questions you will probably find out what you have to do to reach new young people, and many churches will not like the answers.

The second most common question I'm asked is how can the church get people more dedicated?  Please define dedication.  By dedication do you mean how can we get people to serve on six committees, sing in the choir, attend monthly business meetings, and teach a Sunday school class?  If so, the answer is you will not get people dedicated to do those things.  This is the 21st century and people are too busy to be involved in doing a lot of things that make little or no difference in the grand scheme of things.  Does a church of 30 people really need three of them to serve on the Flower and Card committee?  What really significant events occur in your church to require a monthly business meeting?  If the meeting consists of listening to a few reports being read and a vote on what color toilet paper the church should buy I don't blame anyone for not wanting to go either.  If you want people to be more dedicated eliminate the various maintenance tasks that exist in your church, assign them to those elected to leadership, and challenge people to become involved in ministry that touches people's lives in real ways.

The third most common question I get from smaller churches involves the worship service.  Some are trying to go contemporary, but I'm not sure why.  I've sat in some of these churches that have really amazed me with the more contemporary feel of their churches, but I've also been in some that have no clue what they are doing, do not have the talent to do this well, and no one is there who appreciates the change in the worship format anyway.  To borrow a common phrase, "If we do a different service, they will come" seems to be the mindset in these churches. Churches should provide a worship experience that enables people to touch God in a signficant way.  Smaller churches cannot be all things to all people so stop trying.  Create a meaningful worship experience based upon the people you have and the ones you would like to reach and stay with it.  However, there are some things you can do to improve the worship service regardless of the format.  The most basic is speed it up.  Put a little life in some of the old hymns.  Sing "Joy to the World" with a little enthusiasm and joy in your voices.  If you are going to sing "We're marching to Zion" then sing it like you want to get there this decade and not drag it out until it sounds more like a dirge.  People who are going to pray or lead some aspect of the service should be near the front when it's their time and not spend five minutes walking to the platform for their one minute announcement.

If a building is allowed to deteriorate over many years it is much more difficult and costly to improve it than it would be if regular improvement and upgrades were made over the years.  Because so many churches resisted change for so many years (decades) it will be very difficult for some of them to be able to make the needed changes now.  The cost will simply be too great, and eventually these churches will close their doors.  Others will pay the heavy cost and endure the pain and make the necessary changes.  Those churches will begin to move forward with a fresh vision from God and will enjoy a long and meaningful ministry in their communities.  You will have to determine which choice your church will make.

Why is it so hard to reach young people?

I just finished reading one of the best books I've read this year.  You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church...and Rethinking Faith by David Kinnaman explains why young Christians are leaving the church and rethinking their faith.  It is a sobering book that examines why so many 18 to 29 year old Christians are walking away from the church.  The author is president of The Barna Group who has interviewed countless individuals and poured over numerous studies to understand what has led so many of our young adults to abandon the faith in which they were raised.  One of the reasons I found this book so interesting is that one of the most frequent questions I get from the leaders of smaller churches is how they can reach this particular generation.  This is the age group small churches want to reach because they believe if they can reach this generation their church will survive into the future.  "Just tell us what we can do," some of they have nearly begged me.  Well, this book will tell them what to do, but my guess is that many of them won't like what it has to say.

Kinnaman believes the core problem that leads to young adults leaving the church is that the church is failing to adequately disciple it's people.  He writes, "The church is not adequately preparing the next generation to follow Christ faithfully in a rapidly changing culture."  The research he conducted found that 59 percent of young people with a Christian background have dropped out of attending church even though they used to attend regularly.  That is a big number!  One of the things that surprised me about this is that most of the ones who drop out do so before they go away to college.  Like many, I had always felt that young people found their faith being challenged while they were in college, and it will be, but most of who walk away from their faith do so before graduating from high school.

His research further found that there are six broad reasons for them dropping out of the church.  They find the church to be overprotective, shallow, antiscience, repressive, exclusive, and doubtless.  The author addresses each of these in separate chapters and provides the church some guidance on how to respond to the concerns young people have about each of these reasons.

At no place in the book is there ever a sense the author believes the church should compromise its beliefs or values in order to reach a younger generation.  In fact, he would argue that the church should raise its expectations of its members and once again make being a Christian mean something.  He calls for new and better ways to do discipleship as a way to help strengthen the faith commitment of all our members.

Let me add a personal word here.  Before churches ask how they can reach youth and young adults they need to first ask why they were not able to keep the ones they had.  If they couldn't keep the ones who grew up in their churches, why?  And why would they think they would be able to reach others in that age group who have no prior connection with them?

Church leaders whose churches are struggling with keeping their young people need to read this book because it will probably point out some things they need to be doing differently.  Churches who find it difficult to reach new young people also need to read this book for insights on how they can better address the questions and concerns this younger generation has about God and the church.  I think you'll find this to be one of the more helpful books you'll read on this topic.

$3.00 worth of God.

Several years ago I came across this written by Wilber Rees.

I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please, not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine.  I don't want enough of Him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant.  I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth.  I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack.  I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.

Does this sound like any Christians you know?  I've met many in my lifetime.  In fact, I've encountered entire churches filled with such believers.  A few years ago a pastor called to tell me he was leaving his church for another. Since I would be working with the pastor search committee after he was gone I asked what he felt this church needed most.  He immediately replied that many in the congregation needed to become more serious about being disciples of Jesus Christ.  Most were content to attend Sunday services when convenient but were not interested in doing much more than that.  The pastor said that a number in the church could be classified as mean-spirited.  I had met them in the past and mentally agreed with that assessment.  If you asked them they would tell you how they were growing as disciples, but there was little spiritual fruit evident in many of their lives.  They also could not understand why their church could never seem to accomplish much good or grow.

This church isn't alone in their lack of discipleship.  A few years ago I spoke with a leader in a different denomination who was concerned about the low level of spiritual development seen in many of the churches he served.  He said even in the churches that are growing, many of them were only growing in numbers on Sunday morning.  Discipleship training opportunities were rather poorly attended even in their faster growing churches.  His concern was that a few years from then, when this new crop of Christians became leaders in their churches, they would not have the spiritual maturity to provide good leadership.  He saw many of their churches being led with a CEO mentality rather than a servant mentality due to the lack of discipleship training many of their new converts were receiving.

One of the many challenges facing the church today is raising the expectations for our membership in the area of discipleship.  As in many things in life, we tend to get what we expect.  If you expect little you usually receive little.  If you expect more, and let people know you expect more, you often get more.  The church needs to raise the bar on discipleship expectations, and that is not going to be easily done in many of our existing churches.  It will be difficult to convince a congregation to approve expecting more from new people than they've been asked to give in the past.  Their fear will be they will now be expected to meet the new standards!  Despite the difficulty, such higher expectations must be developed.  Even a cursory reading of the words of Jesus will reveal that He did not hesitate to set very high demands for anyone who would call themselves a disciple.  We really do not have the right to change those demands even though we have.

I encourage you to spend some time this fall thinking about the discipleship training your church now offers and the expectations you have for that training as well as the expectations the church has for the spiritual growth of its membership.  If you find this area of ministry lacking in your church, can you find two or three things you could do in 2013 to begin to turn that around?  How can you best implement them?  What results would you hope to get if your implementation was successful?

One last word.  There have been times when I've been content with $3 worth of God myself.  My guess is that most of us could identify similar times in our own lives.  Let us never be content with that level of relationship with our Lord and Savior.  If you are already not doing so, identify what you need to do in your own life to grow spiritually in 2013.  Just because you are in the ministry doesn't mean that such growth will happen automatically.  Be intentional about your own spiritual development.  I already have a book in my library that I plan to start studying on January 1: Why Jesus?: Rediscovering His Truth in an Age of Mass Marketed Spirituality by Ravi Zacharias.  I read the book earlier this year, but I want to dig a little deeper into it as I begin 2013 for my own personal growth.

Much of this post was adapted from my latest book The Healthy Community: Moving Your Church Beyond Tunnel Vision.

Cleaning out the study

For the past couple of weeks I've been cleaning out my bookshelves.  I don't have enough shelf space now for my books, and some were just so outdated that they really were of little value.  Some have been hard to pitch; some I really don't remember why I bought them in the first place.  This past weekend I began working on my Leadership journals.  I began my pastoral ministry in 1981, and one of the first resources I discovered was Leadership.  I devoured every issue, and I have to admit that it's been a little difficult to put them in the recycle bin.  Before doing so I am going through them and cutting out some of the best cartoons!  As I leaf through each issue I am reminded of various articles that were so helpful to me in my earlier years of ministry.  Many of them were highlighted or underlined making it easy for me to remember how much these old journals helped a young, inexperienced pastor. Looking through these old journals I have also been reminded of some of the haircut and suit styles that were popular back then, and I've chuckled as I've seen some that were similar to some of mine during that time.  These issues bring back a lot of memories, but it's time they are gone to make room for new material that is more pertinent to ministry today.

I meet a lot of pastors my age, and many younger ones too, who refuse to recognize that we are living and ministering in a different time.  Our message is timeless, but our methods are not.  I grew up attending church in the 1950s and 60s and remember many of the things we did in church then that will not work in our age.  That was a time of two-week Vacation Bible Schools and two-week revivals.  Many churches now struggle to offer even a one-week VBS, and I know of a couple that have gone to a weekend VBS.  Churches that still have revival meetings now usually offer them three or four nights, and even then it's hard to get people to attend.  That was a time when every young person in our church looked forward to going to church camp, and most camp sessions were filled to capacity.  Now, with the various activities available to young people and changing school schedules many denominations are closing their camps, and the ones that are open are struggling to draw enough young people to pay the bills.  That was also a time when Sunday night and mid-week services drew many people back to the church.  More and more churches no longer have a mid-week service and even more of them have eliminated the Sunday evening service.

That was a time of objective truth, a sense of right and wrong, and respect for the teaching of the Christian faith even by those who were not living according to those teachings.  Of course, that is not the case today.  In our postmodern society each person decides for himself or herself what is true for them, it is considered politically incorrect to say that lifestyle choices are right and wrong, and nearly everyone's religious beliefs are respected except for those of the Christian.

When I began my pastoral ministry in 1981 things in the church had not changed much from when I was growing up, but by the time I resigned the church in 2001 to accept a ministry position with our judicatory ministry had changed greatly.  Ministry had become much tougher during those twenty years as people began to look elsewhere for the answers to their spiritual questions.  The public's expectations for pastors and churches changed as well.  When I began it was common for me and others in our church to go door to door meeting people and inviting them to church activities, but by the time I resigned from the church I seldom visited even a member of our church without an appointment.  Most church growth when I began my ministry occurred through the front door as people would visit the church.  Today a growing church needs a lot of side door ministries that help connect people to the church before they ever attend a worship service.  These only scratch the surface of the changes that have occurred in the church, but they serve to make the point that we cannot depend on the strategies that were effective in an earlier time to be effective today.  Churches and pastors that refuse to adjust will see their churches continue to decline in numbers and influence.

This means that pastors and other church leaders can never stop being lifelong learners.  One important step in learning new information is un-learning old information that is no longer applicable.  That is a primary reason I am discarding some of the old books and journals that address ministry from a different perspective than exists today.  It is a way that I am symbolically un-learning information that used to be relevant but is not so today.  As I remove the old material I am also making room in my bookshelves and in my thinking for the new material I need as my ministry continues.  It's turned out to be a little bit painful process but one that is necessary to my own personal growth. 

I'm not advocating that you discard part of your library as I am, but I would challenge you to ask yourself what do you need to un-learn as you prepare for ministry in 2013 and beyond.  What old traditions are you holding onto that you know deep down are no longer effective but you are afraid to give up?  What new knowledge and/or skills do you need to learn that will help you better serve your congregation and the community your church has been called to reach?

Do all young people abandon their faith when they go to college?

For years I've heard Christian leaders complain about the number of young people who grow up in churches and then turn their backs on God when they go away to college.  It is a problem, but what is anyone doing about it other than complaining?  How many pastors and/or youth leaders spend time with their young people and talk about this?  How many churches do a good job of discipling their young people so they can defend their faith when it is challenged?   Actually, research indicates that most young people who experience a loss of faith do so before they leave for college.  For most of them it happens before they complete high school.

I came across that information in You Lost Me, an excellent book written by David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group.  He also reminds us that "Millions of young Christians get through college with a flourishing faith.  One of the marks of these individuals is a meaningful connection to some form of Christian community - whether a worshiping congregation, a Christian campus group, or a Christian-oriented college - which makes them less likely to become nomadic or prodigal.  The key here is a meaningful connection, not merely showing up at religious practices. (p. 141)"

How many churches help their young people connect with such groups when they go away to college?  If I had to guess I would say that probably not many.  I never did.  Quite frankly, during my twenty year pastorate I could not tell you the name of any of the campus ministers who were affiliated with our denomination.  I had very few students who went away to college during that time so I really didn't have a need to know that information, but I have to be honest and admit that it probably would not have made any difference.  I doubt that I would have thought about it, and my fear is that I may be in the majority.  Reading this book by Kinnaman made me realize that would have been an important part of my pastoral responsibility towards those young people and their families.

We now live in a time when many state universities are rather hostile to the Christian faith.  Some faith-based groups on some secular campuses have had recent problems with their universities around some of their practices.  Other Christian organizations have ended up leaving the secular campuses because of financial issues.  Some of these simply do not receive the support they need to be viable.  Many others are doing a great job of connecting with students and providing them with meaningful worship, service, and fellowship opportunities.  As church leaders we need to emphasize the importance of connecting with these groups to our students, and it would probably be best, if possible, for us to make the initial introduction.  It would take very little time to send a letter to the leader of these campus groups letting them know one of our folks has enrolled at their school.

This is also a time when Christian higher education is increasingly important.  My son graduated from Liberty University, and I was so impressed with the school that I later went there for my master's and doctorate.  I had earned my bachelor's degree on a very secular campus, had been on other secular campuses, and it was obvious there was something different about Liberty.

Those who follow this blog and me on Facebook know of my involvement with Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Kentucky.  This is another great Christian university that continues to grow every semester.  This fall they celebrated their 12th consecutive fall record enrollment with over 3,600 students.  One of the great things this school does is require every new student to participate in First Class, a semester long program that helps young people focus on developing character, leadership, and financial stewardship.  What an exciting way to help a young person who may be away from home for the first time to take a good look at his or her personal development in these areas!

We can complain about the number of young people who seem to walk away from their faith when they leave for school or we can do something about it.  We can do a better job of discipling them while they are still at home and in our churches.  We can talk to them about the challenges they will face when they go away to school and how to respond to those challenges.  We can help get them connected with good Christian organizations on secular universities if they choose to go there.  We can also help them identify Christian universities that might meet their academic and spiritual needs.

Sermon planning helps ease the pressure of sermon preparation.

Take a long, hard look at your calendar.  One of the things you'll notice is that there is a Sunday in every week.  If you are a pastor that means for most of those Sundays you will need a fresh sermon to share with your congregation.  Does your church still have a Sunday evening service?  If so, you can double the number of sermons you will need to prepare for the next year.  That is a lot of messages you will deliver to mostly the same people each week which puts sermon preparation at the top of most pastor's priority lists.  I think it is one of the biggest challenges facing many pastors, and this is especially true for the bivocational pastor who often has less time for sermon preparation.  How can a pastor reduce some of the stress associated with preparing weekly sermons?

One of the best solutions I found as a pastor was to do a better job of planning my preaching schedule.  Although I have blogged about this before I believe it is a topic worth repeating simply because of the stress associated with developing a new sermon each week.  This time of the year, November-December, is when I did much of that planning. After listing each Sunday of the next quarter on paper I noted which of the Sundays were associated with special days such as Mother's Day, Easter, etc. to ensure I didn't overlook a holiday.  I would then spend some time thinking of the areas where our church needed to grow and what messages might help with that growth.  I considered any special emphases our church was having in the coming year and possible sermons that would fit those emphases.  I looked for opportunities in the calendar for sermon series that would allow me to explore a topic more thoroughly.  As we entered the summer months I developed a lengthier sermon series that would cover a book of the Bible or a significant portion of it such as the Sermon on the Mount.  That series would cover the entire summer and sometimes go into the fall months.

I tried to work one quarter ahead in my planning.  Usually, I would finish my planning with little more than a text and sermon title.  Sometimes, I would jot down some initial thoughts about a text or topic and include them with my schedule to ensure I would have them when I actually began preparing specific messages.  When I finished with one quarter I would begin on the next one.  Very seldom did I ever work out further than two quarters as I wanted to provide myself some flexibility in case things in the church changed.  I never felt locked into my sermon planning to the extent that I couldn't change a message one Sunday if I felt the need to.  Sometimes I even switched the order in which I delivered the sermons if such a switch made sense.  But, by doing this planning I felt much less pressure when it came time to prepare my sermon for the next week.

For one thing, I already knew what my main idea would be.  I didn't have to spend two days trying to decide what to preach.  That task had already been done.  I could go directly to the preparation of the message.  It gave me time to obtain any study materials I might need.  For instance, if I knew that during the summer I would be preaching through the book of Romans I would begin looking for good resources well before I needed to prepare those sermons.  Normally, unless I already had a good collection of commentaries on the book I planned to study I would purchase three or four commentaries or other study helps for that book earlier in the year.  A third benefit was that I was more attuned to any material that I might come across that would be helpful for an upcoming message.  I might find a quote in a magazine that would be perfect for sermon that was four weeks away, but I could put it in a folder now to use later.  That eliminated my spending hours trying to find that quote I remembered reading earlier.

My sermon planning was very simple and low-tech, but it helped ease a lot of the pressure I felt before I began planning my messages in advance.  For more tips on sermon planning and preparation as well as ways to reduce many of the pressures of ministry, be sure to read my book The Healthy Pastor: Easing the Pressures of Ministry.

New experiments in training clergy

The Alban Institute has an interesting article today on the role churches and judicatories are taking in training clergy.  A number of larger churches have developed training to help prepare individuals to serve in ministry roles in their churches as well as in others.  Some denominations and judicatories have developed similar training opportunities to help prepare persons called into ministry be ready to serve in a local church.  In the region in which I serve we created the Church Leadership Institute about ten years years ago to help develop our lay leaders and persons specially called to bivocational ministry for improved leadership in their churches.  It has been a successful effort.

Some may question if training clergy is not the role of seminaries, and it is a legitimate question.  The fact is, both churches and seminaries have a role to play.  Seminaries do an excellent job of preparing persons in certain areas of pastoral responsibilities.  Churches and judicatories can further develop the young clergy person in the more personal responsibilities.  Most seminary graduates will admit they were not prepared by their schools for some of the hands-on responsibilities of pastoral work.  Local training programs can focus on some of those more personal elements of pastoral ministry.

As the number of bivocational ministers continue to grow more of this localized training will become even more important.  Many of these ministers will not have the opportunity for seminary education.  They may be second career or even third career ministers.  In mid-life with growing families they simply cannot take the time for a seminary education, but they also know that God has a call on their lives that they cannot ignore.  Schools led by churches and judicatories can be the answer.  While such schools often will not provide the opportunities for some of the more advanced academic courses, they will offer good basic ministry training.  This training will serve many of our bivocational ministers very well.

As I speak with leaders from many of our denominations about the growing numbers of bivocational ministers in their churches, the issue of training often is discussed.  Many of them currently offer such training through various programs, but some do not.  Some are looking at how they can improve what they do offer.  I believe this will be one of the emphases in the future for many of our denominations, and it will be an important one if we are going to provide our churches with trained clergy.

To read the article by The Alban Institute please click here.