I have been wondering…
How important is it for a church to have longevity, or long term ongoing presence in a community?
Realising that most churches go thru ebbs and flows, is it better to ride these out and aim to be in a community for the next 500 years, or ought we have a shorter life-span in mind?
Does it even matter?
I see real value in a healthy long term presence and yet I also see churches that live for many years on death’s door but never actually die.
I wonder if its better to operate with shorter life spans realising that we never cease to be the people of God in a place, but that we may need to re-configure from time to time?
At the moment shorter spans would be seen as failure. But maybe that’s not so. Maybe there are some ventures that can serve their God given purpose in a shorter time.
Anyway…
Just a thought on a chilly Wednesday morning as I sip a long machiatto in Cranked cafe and wait for my friend to arrive…
Would be interested in your reflectionsgeorgia rule download free
I think it’s way too simplistic (and at times just silly) to assume that a mininstry/group/church has failed just because it’s finished. But so often we do exactly that – usually shaking our heads in disappointment when we hear about ministries closing up that we often have little to no idea about. And this builds in the mindset that anything we do needs to last forever, which can only be hindering experimentation and innovation in churches.
While you’re at Cranked, feel free to pop in next door and buy me one of the wonderful machines they have there at Riders Choice. 🙂 I need to head down there sometime soon to look at my options for a bike upgrade.
Meanwhile, returning to the real subject of your post, I strongly believe that ministries can and will come to an end. Some people choose to adapt and ‘modernise’ some older ministries and churches with little effect when it would be smarter to use that energy to begin a new work.
It is an interesting point about longevity. My wife and her family were saved about 13-15 years ago. The church was a plant in the northern suburbs. It was there for about two years with a group of people about the size of a large home group or house church.
After two years they were not self sufficient financially and it didn’t grow numerically so the denomination closed it. Some thought it was not a success because it didn’t grow numerically. However others did because people got saved and discipled.
When it closed some people were sad, but most realised it had served its purpose for the time. Most of the people are still continuing on in their faith and some meet with other Christians regularly. Too me it was a church that fulfilled its purpose and then closed. It’s mission was complete.
I hope that adds to your conversation in some way.
If you’d written this a year ago I would have said if a church isn’t making a difference and is just going through the motions then shut it down.
Then I came to Wynnum, a church in that category. But they’ve taken a risk and decided to employ me in the hope that a new venture can start.
The existing congregation realise they’re not the ones who are going to do it, but trust God that it can happen (to varying degrees!)
We’re 83 years old this year and I am excited about the heritage of Wynnum Church of Christ and I believe that means something.
Ultimately it’s about God speaking to people and them listening to him about what the future holds.
Can go either way. Some places seem to live in an iron lung – the success is in the small things that most don’t see. The failure can be in refusing to hear God on the matter, and keeping it past it’s use-by date.
Too blind to see from the outside.
Too stubborn to see from the inside.
Man – where did that come from?!?
This is something that pops up for me from time to time. On the one hand you have the Jeremiah approach that almost communicates that unless you are in something till it is on life support (and the more pain and hardship the better) – then you really are not committed to the ministry.
Yt there is also this sense that to faithfully and fully contextualize to your environment and people – that just as they seem to rapidly change, then so should the way we do church. Maybe it would be healthy to build in ‘use by dates’ for congregations?
I think ‘the Church’ needs to have a long term ongoing presence in a community but the particular local expressions of it may change over time.
I think a part of the reason we struggle with these questions is that we have lost the sense of the universal Church, the greater body and have focussed too much on our little thing.
In terms of generating community and depth in relationships in neighbourhoods, I think it takes a lot longer than most of us give it time for. Jay and I have now been in the neighbourhood in Preston for 3 years and we are really only beginning to see a real depth and openness to some of our relationships. It is an area that we have to be counter cultural in if we are to be effective I think.
We do emotionally attach to groups and organisation, that’s natural when we’ve put in effort and time and built relationships and an important consideration. But I wonder if the point is that THE church remains present rather than A church, that ministry and witness continue regardless of what group are carrying them.
I think this is a very nuanced issue with no real clear answer that is true for all situations for all time.
I agree with the commenter who said that “the church” needs to have a strong, life giving presence in every community – but that does not mean that every individual church will be around forever…or even that it should.
I think as a rule, church leaders are too afraid of death – seeing it only as a negative. I also believe that is the case with all of our philosophy in the west – death, suffering, pain – are all seen as inherently negative and to be avoided at all costs.
I share your thoughts – we are wondering the same thing about our little simple church experiment. If we “let it die” is it because it’s time or because we lack the perseverance? Because another problem with westerners as a rule is that we tend to lack perseverance.
So, all that to say, there are no easy answers but I don’t believe that letting a group ‘die’ is inherently wrong or a sign of failure. In fact, I don’t believe a faith community can fail unless it is being hurtful, abusive, controlling or manipulative – – all of which I have seen in every single huge church i’ve been in and many small ones too. size doesn’t matter *twitter*
it’s a sad thing to see a “Church” – (building) cease to exist in a community, her people slowly age, her songs are a reminder of yesteryear, the youth have gone to greener pastures – finally it’s decided – “let’s sell the building”. They do, join other fellowships and wonder, why they left it so long.
The buiding gone, the people had left the community years ago, they traveled, they were staunch!! at keeping the doors open.
The Church remains though – there is a group of believers in the community, they meet for prayer and teaching, call themselves Emergents (?) – will they decide to be a physical presence as well as as a spiritual presence? – (we will have to wait to and see)
it’s not always a matter of choosing to stay. I think that’s partially the point – do we have a right to say that WE CHOOSE whether a community continues or dies. Do I have the right to say that *I* can keep something alive?
Yes – interesting reflections!
I have more recently had the view that we ought not get too worried over lenght of life but be more concerned with quality.
As someone said – so long as the Church continues to exist then a community does have some salt and light present.
I agree with Mak though, that we so easily give up. I wonder if this is where the presence of a physical building is both an asset (it will give us reason to continue) and a laibility (it ties us down)
Longevity in church life?
20 years ago in a small town in the UK we closed down a house church that had been in existence for perhaps 20 years. There appeared to be a number of factors at the time:
• Concern about not making significant evangelistic impact
• A key family had a job opportunity elsewhere and it clearly seemed right for them to take it for their own development
• I (the then main leader) was unsettled for some time and also received a surprise invitation to work overseas which we sensed was of God
• There appeared to be no one able or willing to take on the leadership of the church (on reflection the incorrect impression from our example may have been that this was a full-time job necessitating leaving current employment)
• Eventually insight from outside the situation indicated that we should disperse.
I had already wrestled with the concept “Unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die it abides alone but if it dies it bears much fruit” as we began to work more with other congregations in the town – considering losing our identity so that a greater one would emerge. In the event most of our folk dispersed elsewhere i.e. not only outside of the comfortable house church nest but even outside of the town and then it was recognised, and they realised, they could ‘fly’ and most began to take on greater responsibility in churches elsewhere.
Perhaps from God’s perspective we were more of a training group and although “we are not told what we might have been if…” I have often wondered ‘What if?’
More recently one of our team spent many sacrificial years in a tough needy situation but eventually left on getting married. It dawned on me that a longer-term perspective on those years was that she may have been there for her own qualitative development rather than for assumed church planting in the situation and her undoubtedly significant calling may be outworked elsewhere. So perhaps timing is a factor?
A recent illustrative vision of a ‘house of cards’ spoke to us of a church that is outwardly fragile but held together by strong joints (relationships) so that instead of collapsing when a puff of wind came it simply flexed and moved to a new position. It seems to me church is to be very flexible and even though long-term committed presence is so important it appears God’s view of long-term may be much longer than ours with many ebbs and flows! Hence we should be ready for more re-configurations than perhaps we would prefer whilst building strong relationships and avoiding a casual approach .
An aging and increasingly irrelevant church either goes through deep painful change…or slow painful death.
Good on Wynum for seeing this and acting appropriately.
I go to the church next to the monstrous Hindu temple and next to that is the chinese confucius temple and I bet they are planning on staying around for a long time, but I do agree with the comment on quality not quantity, which at the moment might leave me out.
The other thing that I think is important to remember is that a community lasts on through its people because a church IS its people – our people are dispersing all over the world causing our community to change and probably “die” but simultaneously grow in ways it wouldn’t otherwise. In other words, to grow and spread the mission, we may have to die.
I think it’s insulting and errant to suggest that every community that folds is lacking in perseverance or doing something selfish.
Also, I think it’s narrow minded and wrongly idealistic to suggest that every church should go on forever – someone (or a team of someones)has to actually lead every one of those churches and to tell a leader, as an outsider, that they’re wrong to end the season of a community is extremely arrogant.
Absolutley…..IN fact I think it can be the most unselfish act for a church to close its doors. Release the resources to somewhere else….give them back to God and the Kingdom
Interesting to me that many of the comments are about “ministries” rather than churches. Seems that paid church leaders see it as being about themselves and not about the community they are serving (they don’t admit this directly, but it’s there I think).
I think there is value in the community being around for a while, but individuals – even ones we see as key – don’t always need to. It was crazy that Jesus left. We would have let him. But he had to otherwise the others wouldn’t have been released.
Communities will have problems if a controlling leader has been dominating (even through doing excellent things). However a community that can sustain itself shouldn’t need it. Don’t know if this can work in practice though!
chris – it doesn’t work in practice — sounds nice though.
I think we need to think much deeper about sustainability and what “ministry” or “church” is.
just because a specific church has to close its doors for whatever reason does not mean it has failed or that it doesnt’ continue on through its people