Consider a church similar to mine-white and middle class-that has served the people of its community faithfully for years. Then gradually, almost without notice, members begin moving away, some only a few miles, others long distances.
People begin talking about the new black or Hispanic family who just moved in down the block. The new folks seem nice, but they are different. Members dutifully stop by and invite their new neighbors to church. But becoming close friends seems a mutually low priority.
Soon, membership and attendance dip. Members begin to worry excessively and, ironically, become less active at reaching out to the community. When a few of the new neighbors actually visit, some members feel threatened: “If too many of those people join this church, I’m leaving!” Then again, some members enthusiastically open their arms to the newcomers.
As more minorities move into the neighborhood, church leaders are torn between embracing them, and thus changing the nature of the church, and excluding them, and thus retaining the church’s identity but placing the future of the church in jeopardy.
Yet, rarely do many newcomers join the church.
Soon the exodus of old-timers becomes a stream. The leaders then decide that the Bible calls them to welcome the new ethnics. Some members begin to argue, “This is our church, and we’re going to keep it that way,” while others respond “Prejudice is a sin!” and “God invites everyone into his family.” It’s still clear, however, that any newcomers must accept the prevailing ministry style.
Hope for better days starts to sink under a flood of fears. When several new ethnic members finally do join the church, a block of established members makes an exodus. Finally, in near desperation, church leaders begin seeking answers to their complex problems. Alternatives come slowly, and each option bears difficulties.
Our church, located in south-suburban Chicago, declined by over 40 percent before the other leaders and I were able to sort our options. Nine alternatives emerged: (1) maintaining the status quo, (2) relocating, (3) developing a metropolitan-style ministry, (4) renting out facilities, (5) integrating, (6) undergoing transition, (7) merging with another church, (8) planting a new ethnic ministry, or (9) dissolving the church-dying.
As we looked at each of these options, we learned something about our church and its future.
Maintaining the Status Quo
Perhaps the most desirable alternative is to stay as we are. The church holds precious memories for members. David, a former elder, often talks about a teenage music group we had. “They were loud and sometimes off-key,” he recalls, “but everybody loved it when those four boys got up to sing.” They also remember church picnics, Bible classes, baptisms, weddings, funerals, and mortgage burnings. Certainly these kinds of memories are worth cherishing.
But what can the church realistically expect for its future? It seems apparent that membership and attendance will continue to decline and eventually lead to financial difficulties that dictate closure.
Patterson Christian Church in Patterson, New Jersey, followed this route for over fifteen years while the Italian community changed to Hispanic. The church maintained its traditional fellowship but moved from a full-time pastorate to part-time. Later it depended on supply preachers sent from a Bible college.
At one point the parsonage was sold to meet church expenses. Maintenance was deferred, and the facilities fell into dangerous disrepair. Finally the eight remaining members closed the church. Assets reverted to a Bible college, which planted a church to serve the new ethnic community.
When the members’ needs take priority over the needs of the local community, ministry gradually declines. Careful conservation of resources can enable a church to continue meeting the needs of remaining members for several years. But it can be frustrating to watch one’s own church decline while believing in the desirability of growth.
While I preached on the Great Commission and the desperate needs of people outside the church, Hillcrest members quietly resisted outreach efforts. One year the leaders and I instituted a plan to contact every nearby home by phone and direct mail. I even raised the needed funds outside of regular offerings. But once the campaign started, general offerings dropped.
Four weeks into the ten-week program, the treasurer came into my office and declared, “If you don’t stop this program, it will kill our church!” While angry and hurt, I couldn’t ignore reality. People’s words kept ringing in my ears: “We like our church just the way it is. Why do you have to change it?”
For some churches, patterns are so entrenched that no alternative to the status quo is pursued.
Relocating to Greener Pastures
Sometimes churches seek to maintain the institution by relocating to a neighborhood in which members now live. This approach emphasizes the church as the people of God, rather than the building in which they gather.
Our church leaders, many of whom already had relocated, geographically charted the current membership and recent transfers. The emerging pattern revealed a mass exodus from our area. In 1984, 71 percent of our members lived within two miles of the church. In 1989, only 14 percent remained within the same radius.
In some churches, many of the relocated members cluster in a new location. The church purchases property there and constructs a new building. Often the new building isn’t as large as the old one, but the church moves and attempts to sell its old building.
The move usually isn’t easy, however. Two primary issues engender strong emotional resistance. First, some cannot separate the church family from the church building; it’s a place that holds many memories. Second, those evangelistically inclined feel the church is unjustly abandoning lost souls in the old location.
East 38th Street Christian Church in Indianapolis realized its community had changed and only a handful of members remained locally. The church purchased property and constructed a new building. But when it was time to relocate, a block of frustrated members refused to attend at the new site. Attendance dropped by nearly 50 percent from the already-thinned number. Altogether, the congregation dropped from a high of 2,500 to an attendance of 350 by the time of relocation.
Nonetheless, the heritage of the old church continues at the new location, and a new opportunity for growth has been secured.
As attractive as this option may be for many suburban and urban churches, two conditions must exist for it to become viable: (1) the church must have the financial resources to invest in new property and construction, and (2) a significant portion of the members must live within the target community.
We found that if our congregation was to move in any one direction, we would lose nearly three-fourths of our members. The thought of abandoning these loved ones was unbearable.
Thus, relocating entails unique costs, in money and in members who feel left behind. Still, relocation remains the best option for many churches.
Developing a Metropolitan Style
Many churches focus on the worship service for their corporate identity, and smaller groupings such as Sunday school remain secondary points of contact. Paul Cho of Seoul, Korea, takes a different approach. His congregation derives its primary identity from its cell groups and places secondary emphasis on the worship services. Each neighborhood, each corporate office, each high-rise apartment building, each place where people meet together offers opportunity for small fellowship cells.
A church in a changing community may want to reorganize its ministry along these lines. While the worship service remains important, primary identity is shifted to the Bible-study groups located where people live. The people drive to the church building on Sundays for a rousing celebration with dozens of other subgroups. A church then can draw from a wide geographic area while maintaining its original location.
Boston Church of Christ had declined severely when it decided to try this strategy. They called a new minister trained in this style, and the church reorganized. At first only two or three groups could be formed, but gradually more were created. Today the celebration service runs in the thousands and the church enjoys fellowship with member groups from all over the Boston area.
Success for the cell-group approach hinges on developing an effective system of accountability. Personal discipling, group allegiance and activity, and loyalty to the mother church need to be balanced.
Many members involved in our church’s Bible groups no longer felt it necessary to attend worship. One woman, after joining a women’s group, started missing worship regularly. The pattern was gradual but unmistakable. When I inquired about her absence, she replied, “My ladies group is my church.”
In addition, although our leaders favored Bible studies, not all liked personal accountability. One elder declared, “No one can stand between me and God! If this is the kind of church you want, I’ll leave.”
In a small group, one man said, “I don’t care what the Bible says. I’ll do what I darn well please!” Fearful of such incidents recurring, several members refused to return.
New churches that start with this system often fare better than established churches attempting to reorganize, perhaps because the newly converted remain more teachable. Long-term church members usually have already defined their comfort zones spiritually and resist change. When I asked one faithful deacon why he didn’t attend a Bible group, he said, “For thirty years I’ve come to church without needing a Bible group, and I don’t need one now.”
Those considering this option need to evaluate how open members are to the changes required, the potential leadership pool, and the overall ability of members to reach out while ministering to one another. Cho’s model is one a church in a changing community might well use. But it is a highly demanding ministry for lay members.
Renting Out Facilities
Many churches use their buildings only a few hours a week, so renting out their office space, recreational areas, and meeting rooms can generate substantial revenue as well as touch the community.
One Mennonite church struggled to serve its changing community. Expenses kept growing, while membership and attendance declined. One of the members asked for permission to move her childcare service into the church. Within a year the childcare center served over one hundred children of the new ethnic families, at a monthly profit to the church of $500. Office space was leased to a lawyer for $200 a month. The church also owned two small houses, and their rental brought in another $400 monthly.
Ten years later, membership continues in the low fifties. The community’s ethnicity has stabilized, and the church remains financially solvent. It even provides a reasonable salary for its full-time minister.
Renting out space may extend the life of a congregation, but there are costs.
1. Making full use of the facility increases expenses in utilities, general maintenance, and unexpected repair. And disadvantageous tax consequences need to be considered before renting to for-profit groups.
2. Renting requires releasing some control. Scheduling may become critical; conflicts add stress and pressure. Possessive members sometimes resent having to share their facility with outsiders.
3. A church may discover a lack of desirable candidates. My church has been approached by a Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation, a rock music teen center, and the high school all-night party committee. We chose not to pursue these options.
Acceptable groups however might include community clubs, recreation groups, service groups, office-based businesses, or even a congregation of a different denomination.
We’ve enjoyed sharing our facility as a polling place-that is, most of us. One deacon suggested “the church is for worship, not politics.” It’s important to consider members’ feelings about the facilities when considering the landlord option.
Integrating the Church
Many voices herald integrating various ethnic groups into one congregation. Yet numerous church growth experts, including Lyle Schaller, observe that in spite of all the talk and promotion, very few integrated churches exist.
Perhaps ethnic preferences partially explain this. For example, “Blue Island Church” began as an Anglo congregation in the 1950s. When the area began changing into a Hispanic community in the 1970s, the church attempted to assimilate its new neighbors. A small group of Hispanics joined the church, but generally the new residents preferred a more emotionally expressive service than Blue Island offered.
One woman, newly arrived from Mexico, visited the church with her son. She sat nervously through the service. At one point she started to raise her hands with the music, but her son quickly took her wrist and shook his head. Later a member asked, “How did you enjoy our service?”
The woman was quiet for a moment and then murmured, “No hablo ingles.” The family didn’t return.
Once a thriving group of three hundred, the church today gathers less than fifty to its Anglo-styled services. It considers itself integrated. The problem: to the church, integration means that newcomers will adopt established mores.
An exception is Westlane Christian Church in Indianapolis, which started in the 1960s with a specific commitment to integrate Anglos and blacks. While its first ten years convulsed with great struggles, the church gradually developed a style of worship that included a quiet reverence and devotional climate as well as more expressive elements. Variety in music helped both groups feel good about the services. Today the church continues to offer a balanced, integrated environment.
Blending cultures and styles may offer great possibilities for churches in changing communities, but some members will feel threatened. When this option came up among the elders at Hillcrest, one immediately replied, “This will make the church go all black.”
Many of us feared losing control. Perhaps part of that fear came from underlying prejudice. Our elders prayed seriously about integrating our church and initially considered it God’s design. They went to dynamic black churches and talked with their leaders. The result was polite but definite discouragement, although one pastor offered to take over our facilities!
The elders and I then discussed the possibilities with several member families. Some responded guardedly, but one stated clearly, “If you change our worship, we’ll leave, and so will most of the others.” Seeing that integration would precipitate the loss of members and the collapse of the church, we considered this option closed.
“Will it work?” remains the most crucial question for the integration option. Unless the current members feel great love and determination to “become all things to all people,” the task is impossible.
Changing Intentionally
I asked our director of women’s ministry what future she saw for our church. She responded, “I see the church as either a struggling, declining white church or a growing black church.”
Logically our church should replace the former members with the new residents. After all, the black believers need a place to worship, and initially no black churches were serving our area.
The task, however, is neither simple in concept nor easy in execution. The black emigrants resist attending an all-white church like ours. And resistant whites agonize over blacks eventually taking over their church.
How can a church established to serve one ethnic group change gradually to serve a new one? Six strategy steps prove helpful:
Hire ethnic leadership to evangelize the new people group.
Develop Bible-study groups in the homes of new residents.
Provide high visibility for ethnic members in church activities.
Develop cross-cultural ministries seeking to bridge gaps in relationships. These might include hosting musical, political, or social events and programs.
Build a worship style to attract the new families.
Finally, turn the church facilities over to leaders of the new ethnic group.
Of course, these are more easily listed than accomplished. We mailed many invitations and contacted personally over one hundred new residents, inviting them to attend a six-week Bible study in the home of one of our black members. Three women showed up the first evening. The study went well, but before the group closed, one of the guests said, “I’m a deaconess at Daniel’s Chapel [a large, city church] and I’d love to take you all to church with me on Sunday morning.” The other two women, who’d heard of the well-known church, decided to attend with her.
The intentionally changing church must make the necessary adjustments to attract and meet the needs of the new ethnics in the neighborhood. Gradually, the original style, ministry, and members give way to the new wave of people serving and worshiping God.
Merging with Another Church
In many denominations, merging two or more congregations remains popular. Commonly two congregations agree to sell one facility (or sometimes both) and meet together as one church. Initially, attendance and membership appear large, and the new church receives a sizable capital gain from the sale of the vacated property. However, it doesn’t solve all problems.
A congregation I’ll call North Fletcher Church declined from the mid four hundreds to just over one hundred during the early 1970s as the neighborhood changed from middle class white to lower-class black. Members gradually moved away, many to a new subdivision northeast of the former neighborhood. The pastor attempted to reach out to the new residents, but resistance within the church brought pressure on him to leave. Finally the economic, ethnic, and cultural differences of the community made the leaders realize, as one deacon put it, “We ain’t gonna do any good for them no matter how hard we try.”
A small sister congregation, also struggling financially, was located at the center of the new subdivision into which many North Fletcher members had moved. Leaders of the two churches decided to sell the old North Fletcher facilities and invest the funds in the merged church. The congregations then chose a new name-Franklin Circle Church-to help form a joint identity.
The old church building sold for $200,000, and half the money was set aside as a contingency fund. The other half financed building renovation and expansion at the newly united Franklin Circle Church, where worship services had become full. As one woman said, “It’s great to see so many people praising God together every Sunday!” The old North Fletcher building continued to serve the neighborhood residents through another denomination.
However, many of the members from the old North Fletcher Church never joined Franklin Circle. “We just don’t belong,” they said. And several members of the “overrun” church in the subdivision felt dispossessed by the influx of outsiders. Gradually, attendance at Franklin Circle declined. Within the first year, attendance dipped to just slightly more than former attendance at the North Fletcher congregation. Giving also leveled off near the former single congregation level. After five years Franklin Circle Church continues to serve its community, but at an attendance and membership level far below expected.
Our elders and I talked at length about Hillcrest merging with one or more sister churches. I even expressed willingness to step aside, if necessary, to effect a merger. Finally one elder said, “No matter which church we choose, most of our people won’t go along. They’re attached to this building.”
Another elder asked, “What if they don’t like us or we don’t like them?” When we queried neighboring churches, we got a mixture of responses, further muddying the waters. The potential for financial stability appeared attractive, but the possibility of great conflicts remained.
First Christian Church in Harvey, Illinois, merged successfully with the United Christian Church in Country Club Hills after a three-year process. They set up a plan to sell one property, hold fellowship gatherings to forge closer ties, call a new pastor for the merged group (following the resignation of both present pastors), and form new boards. Now, the congregation functions as if it has always been one.
As a former elder puts it, “We used to feel like a small family, but now we’re just a bit larger family, and I like it.”
To insure success, great care must be taken to develop a workable framework for the long haul. Then, to help the members merge into a single body of believers, the leaders must teach, sell, counsel, and prod unity in every possible way.
Planting a New Ethnic Ministry
Tetsunao Yamamori with the Institute for American Church Growth describes a strategy of planting an ethnically specific fellowship in a church’s facilities. This group is founded with its own leadership and worship style. The new fellowship understands that it is free to seek its own facilities and form a separate church as it grows.
The planted congregation can also remain autonomous but connected to the sponsoring church. Gerry Appleby, pastor of Bresee Nazarene Church in Pasadena, California, leads a church with Armenian, Arabic, Spanish, and Anglo congregations all using the original Anglo facilities. The growth of this heterogeneous ministry illustrates the powerful possibilities for churches in a changing community.
When Hillcrest Church began as an Anglo congregation in the early 1970s, we were adjacent to a largely Jewish neighborhood. Over the years, however, little outreach touched that neighborhood. Then a revolutionary concept emerged out of our extensive discussions about our neighborhood’s transition: we decided we would hire ethnic leaders and assist them in planting not one but two ethnically specific fellowships.
We met with Asher Carl, a Jewish believer and evangelist, who was enthusiastic about leading our church-planting effort among local Jews. He formed a Bible study, and that group grew large enough to provide a nucleus for the new Beth Emeth Congregation.
We’re currently working to launch an aggressive outreach to the emerging black community. We’ve called an evangelist to develop a new congregation using telemarketing, new-resident visitation, Bible studies, and rallies. This ministry will enjoy a contemporary, gospel-style worship service, and the preaching will combine our denominational distinctives, biblical truths, and ethnic issues.
We plan for the three autonomous ethnic congregations to operate under the umbrella church. Each fellowship eventually will enjoy its own pastor, lay leaders, and outreach and nurture ministries.
Jointly, the churches will participate in mission projects, benevolent ministries, facility care, finances, and occasional gatherings. Each congregation will send delegates to serve on the joint governing board, which will coordinate activities, maintenance, joint ventures, basic doctrinal integrity, and other concerns.
I recently asked Avie, a charter member deeply committed to retaining an Anglo feel to our church, what he believed our purpose should be now. He answered, “Unless we serve the people who live here, we won’t even have a church.”
He’s joined by Sue, who moved from Hazel Crest four years ago but still attends regularly and serves on our evangelism team. Her response to this new plan also grasps this fundamental issue: “If I don’t have to change my worship, I’ll do anything I can to reach people for Jesus.”
Of course, unless we’re willing to share our facility and the decision-making processes, we’ll not be successful. Our job is to maintain ethnic identity and expression within the context of the unity of all believers. It will be difficult, but nobody said death-the last alternative-is any easier.
Death, the Last Option
In August 1989, I visited the remaining members of our troubled church. I wanted to better understand their concerns about our situation and their ideas for our future. At one home I listened to the pained worries of one stalwart widow, a member of longstanding. “The only thing I don’t want to see,” she told me, “is our church closed down.”
This most painful alternative is the one we most avoid. No one wants a church to die. Members who move away feel guilty, and those who remain and see the doors closed feel defeated, helpless, lost.
Theorists, however, argue that the death of a congregation is a part of the logical life cycle of a church. Birth always leads eventually to death in other spheres. But can there be a good death for a church?
Little is written about the demise of a church, partly because it’s such a painful event. Yet an estimated six thousand churches close their doors each year in the United States. As many as three to four thousand of these were facing a changing community.
How do you close a church? Often a denominational executive or committee handles the disposition of properties. A date is set to hold a final worship service. The pastor is reassigned. Members are encouraged to seek membership in nearby churches. These parts are inevitable.
But beyond property disposition and other routine matters, we also should remember the hopes and dreams, memories and triumphs, now put to rest in a shuttered church. Great care needs to be taken to provide ample guidance and emotional and spiritual support for displaced members, many of whom often are elderly. These faithful believers need to be embraced by another caring fellowship nearby.
The hard questions and strong challenges that racial change poses vary from community to community. The right choice for one church may well be unworkable for another. So each option must be thoroughly explored by any given congregation.
At Hillcrest Church, we invested a full, arduous year of study, research, and consultation before we made our choice: a multi-congregational structure to reach all kinds of people for Jesus. Through the power of Christ, we believe a long and fruitful ministry to many peoples is possible, and we’re committed to making it happen.
Churches in changing neighborhoods must choose their destiny, as we’ve done. It’s good to know death isn’t the only option.
Copyright © 1990 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
