I know I don't have too much room to talk about this but I feel like I'm getting old. A few weeks ago I went to the doctor to get my eyes checked. When asked if anything has changed with my vision I let her know I was seeing a blur or shadow sometimes and it was uncomfortable. "That's easy", she said, "You've developed an astigmatism, it's just part of getting older." That's reassuring right? When I was in highschool we did spring workouts and if I was lazy all winter break I would be a little sore the next day, however, now when I miss a week of working out I'm sore at least 4 days. I've started having to watch my cholesterol and taking weird pills like fish oil and B complex.
Getting older is just a part of life. Even though I still don't think about it much I'm closer to death now than I've ever been and I'm showing signs of aging. Truthfully the thought of dying doesn't bother me to terribly much because I know when I die I will enter into eternity with my Creator and Lord Jesus Christ.
These pleasant thoughts are not shared for a church dying though. When a church goes there is no eternity in paradise, no being ushered through the gates of glory, no lasting legacy. A church that is dead sits as an empty forgotten building long forgotten and irrelevant to the people passing by. Eternity in heaven is for people, for souls, not for buildings, institutions, or programs. Just like how I'm showing some subtle signs of aging so can a church. Here are some reflections to think about when it comes to your community taken from an article I read last week and questions to evaluate your church.
Here are 7 subtle signs your church is dying:
- Passion is waning
- Are we on fire for Jesus Christ?
- Are we on fire for God's heart?
- Are we actively concerned for reaching the lost? Notice the word actively. Saying we're concerned for the lost but doing nothing about it is a false concern. We must be doing something and moving forward!
- Innovation is rare
- When was the last time we actually made real changes and did something truly new?
- If you can name something was it a significant change or something just surface level
- In the case of our church getting a sound system isn't innovation, it was a much needed surface level change. Surface level changes won't win people to Jesus.
- Management has replaced leadership
- When you start managing you may stop building anything of value
- Instead you simply manage what you've already built
- Is our church thinking of ways to actively reach people and ways to actively disciple believers in the church or is our church more focused on paying bills, attendance numbers, dress code, handbooks and procedures?
- Are we a church full of leaders or a church full of managers?
- Maintenance trumps mission
- Is maintaining the organization we've built more important than the mission that got us started in the first place?
- When maintenance trumps mission, the end is near.
- Is the church we were 20 years ago still the church we're trying to maintain today?
- Your church has become fixated on being...YOUR church
- In scripture the church is never identified as belonging to anyone but Jesus Christ, He is the foundation
- If we're actually focused on the mission long term we much be constantly prepared to reinvent to remain relevant to our community
- A church life cycle is around 10-15 years, think again, how different is our church.
- Do we get upset, bicker, complain, gossip, and cause division when leadership begins to make changes.
- How much do we value other cultures other than our own?
- Younger leaders are criticized
- Young leaders bring innovation, they bring change. Young leaders can be a catalyst for growth if they're encouraged and allowed to focus on the mission.
- Dying churches resist them, dismiss them, and ridicule them
- Does our church resist young leaders? Do we drive them off and make them feel unwelcome? Do we ridicule them in our hearts and private conversations?
- Your relationship with God has gone flat
- Are we a vibrant church with vibrant faith or are we more vibrant about keeping things the same?
- How many people have made a decision to follow Jesus in the past 10 years? This is a great indicator to the health of church in regard to it's relationship with God.
At our church we promised transparency and open communication as we have gone through a consultation process with Healthy Growing Churches. Many in our church have not felt that way and we must ask forgiveness if we have come across as secretive or aloof. If we were to read through our HGC assessment then dig through our file cabinets and find an assessment our church did over a decade ago our church meets all 7 signs of a dying church. That means that over a decade we have been in the process of dying. If you were in our service where HGC presented it's findings they said we have 1 year, 2 if we're lucky, to totally turn this church into a totally different church before we reach the point of no return for revitalizing this church. Our church is not alone in this, in fact 90% of churches in the United States are in this same boat.
That may sound daunting and hopeless but here's some good news. Those assessments measure our past as a church, did you get that, our past. It does not assess our future. We serve a great God! We serve a God who intimately knows every detail of what we're going through as a church. We serve a God of miracles who can do wondrous things! There is no shame in fully owning our dysfunction, naming it, confessing it, and addressing these issues head on!
Matthew 16:13-18 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Jesus says the "gates of hell" will not prevail! Unless you're a super clumsy person I can say with certainty you've never been attacked by a gate! Gates can't win a battle, they can only prevent forward progress. The gates of hell are standing in front of our church ready to be broken through because hell has already been defeated!!! For too long we have sat in our cushy pews with our noses in the air staring at those gates looming without taking action or refusing to acknowledge them. We are both actively and passively being defeated by an enemy who has already been defeated!
It's time to march together in unity as a church. Every age, every gender, every economic class, and every race. Marching arm in arm and tearing that crumbling excuse for a barrier down. We would march valuing each other and placing equal value on our respective cultures.
This is going to be uncomfortable for some, some of you may downright think you hate it. For some of you it's going to bring out the worst and ugly parts of you but that's okay because God can deal with that if you'll confess it and allow Him to work. For some of you it's going to be encouraging, for some of you it's going to light a fire under you, for some of you God is going to do great things through you and if we let God do great things through each one of us individually God will do great things in our church and if God does great things through our church He's going to do great things through our community and if God does great things through our community He's going to do great things through our city and if He does great things through our city He's going to do great things through our state and if He does great things through our state he's going to do great things through our country and if He does great things through our country He's going to do great things to our world! IF we allow Him to work through us.
Each week we take communion with the bread representing the body of Christ and the cup of juice representing the blood of Christ that was spilled for us. We remember His death that paid the penalty for our sin, reconciled us with God, and established His church. We remember how our Lord got uncomfortable, went through terrible suffering, and died for the forgiveness of our sin. Without His sacrifice we wouldn't have the church, the church HE paid for and He alone owns. In that moment our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ did something innovative and new, He did something He never experienced before, He experienced the weight of sin, guilt, and shame for the first time and then He died. Not just my sin, guilt, and shame but all of it, everyone's, past present and future!
Are we going to be a place where we come to have an experience that caters to us, our preferences, and is at our beck and call to do what we say? A place where we defiantly declare to leadership "it's my way or the highway" or "it's my way or I'm taking my money someplace else"?Then we need to cease being a church and become a “feel good morals club.” Or are we going to be a CHURCH! A church that stands up and conquers the gates of hell to see this community come to know Christ in a mighty way. Reflect on that this week personally and think about how you can contribute to what Jesus bought with a price and totally belongs to Him. I hope our congregation chooses to be a Church and I hope your congregation chooses to be a Church as well. Let's all allow God to go great things through us for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Glory of God alone!
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