Ancient mariners feared the doldrums. They could die of thirst or starvation if they were caught in the wrong latitudes for too long with no wind. Churches are much the same if they’re caught without motivational winds.
I once talked with a church member who had no hope that the church could continue. “There are no people left to come here,” he sadly explained.
That seemed odd to me. The church was located in one of the most densely populated areas of a major city. What he was really saying, however, was, “The reason people used to come here no longer exists, and so no one is coming.” On that score he was right. The problem was not an inadequate supply of people but rather an inability to connect the church’s purpose to the people it touched.
The church that once went full steam ahead with a clear and definite sense of mission, the church that once drew members almost effortlessly through a contagious spiritual life-that church may now be struggling, thirsting for a reason to exist. But how does that happen?
Here are some often-overlooked causes and cures of congregational doldrums.
Caught in a Cultural Time Warp
Some churches that find their sails hanging listlessly have lost touch with their community’s current needs.
I once heard of a well-meaning parishioner who suggested the church lights needed to be on even on Sunday evenings when they weren’t having services, as a witness to the community. Apart from the ethical question of possibly creating false appearances, I had trouble understanding the evangelistic value of such a luminous testimony.
Yet in my own parish, I received a phone call from a neighbor upset that the church had no social conscience-we were wasting energy by leaving lights on in the offices all night. I was struck by the changing attitudes even toward church lighting.
What drew people in the 1940s, 1950s, or even the 1970s may have little or no relevance in the 1980s or 1990s. Remember coffee houses? They’ve gone the way of bell-bottom jeans and the hippies.
My wife remembers when helicopter rides and free bicycles drew children to Sunday school by the scores during her childhood. Sunday school competitions were so popular that school playground fights actually erupted among children from competing churches arguing as to whose was best in the district. Those days have passed.
Today parents, when choosing a church, take a close look at the quality of the nursery, the cleanliness and attractiveness of the facility, and the learning options available during the week for their children. If these aren’t cared for adequately, you won’t see those parents next week.
While the gospel never changes, the cultural attitudes that shape how these truths are presented do change. Our challenge is continually to seek new ways to present the gospel to this generation, a challenge that often can breathe new life into a congregation.
One way of doing that is to develop an “outside-in” perspective by looking at a church’s programs, facilities, and personnel as an outsider would. Our temptation is to evaluate the needs of our community from an “inside-out” perspective, which is hazardous to the future health and vitality of the church. An outside-in approach can help us avoid becoming painfully out of touch with the needs of the culture.
If church leaders don’t address the changing world, what was once a vital church will become, within a generation, the equivalent of a religious historical society. We will meet to preserve the past, not to alter the future.
Unresolved Conflict, Unaddressed Sin
The captain of the Titanic refused to believe the ship was in trouble till water was ankle deep in the mail room. Only then was it apparent the multi-layered hull had been pierced, and the unsinkable ship was going to sink. Ships that could have arrived before the great ocean liner went down weren’t summoned until it was too late.
Often there has been water in the mail room of a church for some time, but no one has been willing to acknowledge what it means. Perhaps a feud between families in the congregation has been brewing for months, but the pastor doesn’t feel his position is secure enough to get involved. Attendance, giving, and visitor trends have all been headed down for several years, but no one wants to admit the church is hurting. Or, there has been a secret liaison going on between a man and a woman on the music committee, but no one wants to handle the potentially explosive issue.
These and a host of other situations occur in churches in one form or another all the time. But for a variety of reasons-fear, uncertainty of what to do-these problems are left unaddressed.
A pastor friend once learned that money from the benevolent fund was going to make alimony payments for one of the church members. Word of this had filtered out, and many in the congregation felt it was an inappropriate use of the fund. As a result, contributions to the fund dried up. But no one was willing to discuss the issue. The life and resources drained from a worthwhile program.
Churches and church leaders that are unwilling to deal with moral, ethical, or financial misconduct in the church pay an enormous price in the loss of energy and motivation that inevitably occurs.
The corrective, of course, is wise and courageous confrontation of sin and conflict. It’s wonderful when revival sweeps a church and the ugly problems of sin and conflict seem to resolve themselves in an entirely supernatural fashion. But that’s more the exception than the rule. In the midst of unresolved sin or conflict, more often than not, someone has to take on the difficult and thankless task of confrontation before things get noticeably better.
Sometimes it’s tough to get people to help with this task. On one occasion, an elder knew he would be involved in confronting a friend. Rather than do that, he slipped his resignation under the pastor’s door, stopped coming to church, and was never seen on the premises again. The heat in the kitchen had sent him out for fast food permanently.
But instructions for church discipline and confrontation appear in the same New Testament epistles that call for love and forbearance. The truth is that only tough love will resolve some issues that slowly hemorrhage the life from churches for years or decades.
I grew up in a church that was racially mixed long before it was acceptable. In fact, it was a source of bitter dispute in those days. Hundreds left because it was feared certain minority groups would take over.
It was not until the last of such opposition left that the new church was born. But from that point onward, a 90-year-old church took on the zest and enthusiasm of a new church plant. The long and sometimes acrimonious board meetings, the whisper campaigns, and the not-so-veiled threats to take the money and go elsewhere finally ended. When it did, the survivors watched as the church blossomed and was given a new life.
So the principle that some conflict must be escalated in order to resolve it can be true as a church struggles to gain new purpose and direction. It’s no one’s first choice, but at times it’s the only viable option left when a church finds itself adrift because of long-standing conflict or hidden sin.
Unrewarded Effort
A friend of mine as a child once painted his entire backyard fence during the heat of the summer. For his efforts his parents gave him a dime. Sometimes that also happens in the church. People in the various ministries give and give, year after year, and receive little or no recognition for doing so. The burn-out rate in such settings stands alarmingly high.
This is particularly true in settings with an entrepreneurial leadership style. Launch one new ministry, and the attention turns to beginning another. Those in charge of making the program work are left to carry on alone. The excitement of the program fades into dull routine and weekly effort.
While the ministry itself may be effective, the sense of significance is gone because the leaders are wrapped up in new interests. The result: diligent workers are given the impression their sacrifice of time and energy is no longer important.
I’m well aware that our reward is in heaven, and our workers should seek the praise of God rather than men. But expressing appreciation for a job well done is also part of Christian virtue.
When we forget, we end up going through volunteers like aluminum soda cans in a college dorm. And with such a disposable attitude, often motivation and involvement are discarded as well.
But as important as it is to recognize and appreciate people’s efforts, the even more significant strategy is to help people discover they can make a difference.
There is nothing more discouraging than feeling your work doesn’t matter. One of the more cruel punishments inflicted on prisoners during World War II was to assign them to dig holes each day and then to fill them in at quitting time. That devastating psychological tactic cost many an individual his sanity and will to live.
Sadly, some people in church also arrive at the conclusion that their work is meaningless, an exercise in futility. They lose the will to try because they’ve lost the hope of making a difference.
During one pastorate, I visited a family that had left the church years earlier in anger but was still on the membership list. When I knocked, I was invited in, but it was clear their feelings toward the church were mixed at best. They spoke of how they had been unappreciated at the church and never intended to come back.
Not long afterward, the husband was diagnosed with brain cancer. It was a shock to everyone. He died within three months. I conducted the funeral, and in the follow-up counseling, I suggested to the widow that she get involved in the church’s ministry to the poor of our neighborhood.
With some hesitation, she agreed. Each Tuesday morning we handed out clothing to approximately one hundred people. Many were street indigents, bag ladies, and homeless families. Her job was to bring cookies and serve coffee to the people as they searched for clothing.
Though I knew the experience would help, the extent of her transformation amazed me. Her disappointment and hurt melted away week by week as she served coffee and cookies and helped distribute clothes. Instead of the painful memories of how the church had failed her, she was filled with the joy of knowing she was making a difference in people’s lives.
The same is true for a church. Years of anger, frustration, and hurt can be healed by helping others with needs. It’s hard to feel aimless when you see God at work through what you’re doing.
Cures You Can’t Control
Perhaps none of these cause a particular church’s doldrums. Even when the cause remains unidentified, a number of cures can revive sagging spirits. Some might surprise you.
A churchwide crisis. The noted English satirist Samuel Johnson once said something to the effect that nothing clears your mind as effectively as the prospect of being hanged.
The same may be said of churches. Either an imminent or a present crisis can galvanize members into working as a committed and concerned group of believers once more.
In a church I once served, an elder’s son died in his sleep while the man’s hospitalized daughter was fighting for her life with a deadly viral disease. After the funeral, the entire church took on a spiritual seriousness that remained evident years later.
Often a lawsuit will accomplish the same mobilization of the troops. Or a building fire. I listened in amazement as a fellow pastor told how he’d planned to preach from Peter on the refining fire of God’s work in our lives. The same week their new church building, only days from completion, burned to the ground. You can imagine how seriously the folks listened to his sermon the next Sunday.
The point, however, is that sometimes difficult and adverse circumstances can stir people to action. Adverse circumstances can become the opportunity for the people to search their hearts and recommit themselves to serving Christ in that church.
We obviously can’t control such crises, but we can be alert to the ways they affect a church.
Likewise, there’s a second uncontrollable remedy for congregational doldrums: a profound spiritual experience in key leaders.
There is no question as to the most sudden and dramatic change I ever witnessed in a congregation. I had been given two churches to serve part-time as I completed seminary. Each weekend I’d drive 125 miles to a farming community north of the Ohio River.
The smaller church was about to celebrate its centennial. It was a lovely group-kind, hardworking, and faithful to attend the old frame church with its well-worn pews and slightly out-of-tune piano.
But many of the men felt only a cultural obligation to church or attended because their wives coaxed them. In rural life, you don’t pry into one another’s lives much, and things tend to remain as they have been throughout the years. But this church was about to be stood on its head, and me with it.
I had invited a professor from school to hold a weekend of meetings, which they referred to as a revival. It was actually as predictable as Veterans Day, and all that was meant by the term was an extra service on Friday and Saturday night. A Kleenex box was placed dutifully at the altar, just as it was every year for the one or two souls who might respond, but it had been years since anyone did.
The first night when the sermon was over, I thanked the speaker and dismissed the people. Usually such a benediction brought a stampede toward the door. That night no one moved. I got up and assured the people that everyone could leave now, that we were finished for the night. Not a person stirred. I turned in somewhat awkward amazement to the guest speaker. What do you do when people won’t leave the church, even when you ask them to?
The old professor and I walked through the pews praying with people as they requested it. Something powerful was at work.
The next night the same thing happened. No one left following the benediction. We prayed with more people. It seemed something much larger than we had ever imagined was stirring.
We were right. A few weeks later, a farmer knocked at our door during supper. He was an ex-Marine with a reputation for being tightfisted and just plain mean. He was crying, holding an old Bible in his hands. Soon it was not uncommon to see many of the hard-shell cases weeping in church on Sunday mornings. The Spirit of God was at work, and no one knew why or how.
For the first time in half a century, the church started to fill up again, and a new education wing was added. I felt much like an observer in a rowboat as a tidal wave crashed over us. In all the years the professor had been traveling and speaking, he’d never seen anything like this either, he confessed.
Churches can be restored to life and health without warning when the Holy Spirit chooses to act in a powerful way. While we cannot depend on this to be the norm, we cannot rule it out, either. I learned a lesson in that rural church about how big God was and how little I was.
What You Can Do
We’ve mentioned a number of things already that we can do to bring life back to a drifting congregation: reconnecting the church’s ministry to the community’s needs, courageously and lovingly addressing unresolved conflict and sin, taking time to recognize the efforts of church members and to help them see that their work makes a difference in the lives of others.
But by far the most important action we can take is persistent prayer.
Collegians have a term for their fellow students who exhibit study habits above and beyond the call of duty: Black and Deckers. The term refers to a line of solid-steel tools that often set the industry standard for durability and toughness.
Churches reawakened after years of slumbering apathy and ineffectiveness invariably have been influenced by people that qualify as “Black and Deckers” in their own right. They have prayed without ceasing for years on end. Intercession of this type differs from the brief invocation mumbled at the beginning of a board meeting or before taking an offering. This type of prayer continues for years and sometimes for decades, not infrequently occurring early in the morning or late at night.
The results may be years in coming. That’s why so few people actually exercise this ministry in a given church. The patience, the faith, and the persistence it takes quickly thins out the ranks.
Yet, because God in his sovereignty seems to allot every church a Black and Decker or two-and possibly more-the hope remains for a spiritual breakthrough.
I’ve known such people of prayer. In general they aren’t critical souls; they tend to save their complaints for the Throne of Heaven, where they pour out their concerns. They don’t advertise their ministry; it’s far too private and important to discuss on a casual basis. Rather, they tend to be discerning individuals who can assess the needs of any given situation with little outside input. Perhaps it’s their gift of discernment that makes their prayer so powerful.
In each of my last two churches, after going through times of churchwide difficulty, I later learned that two or three individuals had been praying, in some cases for years, that we would address the problems that were sapping our motivation. Their persistent prayer for renewal was eventually answered.
When all is said and done, it is prayer that changes churches and events. But again, this isn’t quick and easy prayer. No, this type of prayer is so difficult and so worthwhile that at times it even hurts. But the results speak for themselves.
Shortly after the death of Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, a newspaper columnist observed the irony of the late president’s influence on the nation. Though he himself never fully recovered the use of his legs after his bout with polio, and though he spent much of his adult life in a wheel chair, it was FDR who taught a crippled nation how to walk again. Thrust into the presidency during the darkest days of the Depression, he inspired hope and vision in a nation immobilized by despair and pessimism.
Pastors, too, even when themselves somewhat infirm, can help congregations crippled by apathy and malaise of spirit not only to walk again, but to run. It’s not easy, and it requires both the wind of God’s Spirit and a crew that keeps the sails trimmed, but it can be done.
Copyright © 1989 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
