A Voice of One Crying from a Dead Church

For a long time now, I have been reading a lot of blogs that contrast good churches vs. bad churches, and/or address the symptoms and evidence of what constitutes a dead or dying church. There is so much written in cyberspace about this subject it would not surprise me if I found out the subject dwelt within its own sort of cyber-subculture ... and I would place money that such a network would be pessimistic in tone and outlook.

To be a part of a church or mega-church that is more concerned with image or status quo safety, or to look around and see the many churches and "Christian organizations" that seem to have this following-Jesus thing all wrong, is indeed a frustrating thing. We want to see change. Some of us want to incite that change. Many others want to discuss that change. Unfortunately, few of us actually desire to work toward that change, and to dig into the work so completely that we shut up about the problem long enough to involve ourselves in the fix.

I realize by writing this entry, I immediately align myself with one of the former groups. However, I've decided that if I'm going to write about this subject, I might as well be as honest as I can...

The thing that frustrates me even more than dead or dying churches are the many people who label such churches this way. Call them cynical, or pessimistic, or just judgmentally sardonic, but rarely are these people apt to give a particular struggling church or mega-church a chance if an alternative congregation/community is, in their opinion, getting it right where the others are getting it so wrong. Whether the alternative community is emergent, relevant, innovative, or all of the above, to a person who has learned how to judge the Church, it is simply one thing: greener pastures. In essence, it is the congregational equivalent of a white flight. A neighborhood changes in outlook or becomes too crowded, invaded by people different from me, and I look to the suburbs outside of town where it is safer and I like the look of the landscape a lot better, where people think like me and don't mind my condemnation of the old neighborhood because, instead of staying there to enact change, they escaped to the greener pastures as well. The more I apply this metaphor, the more I see the new, hip, alternative congregations as the greener pastures, and the old model churches (or, even sometimes, the mega-churches) as the old neighborhood many of us are leaving behind for the cause of returning Jesus, and true Christianity, to the Church.

How do we justify planting new congregations if we abandon old ones to do so? If there is a place with a "need," fine. But if the need is just to plant a church that isn't as frustrating or backward, I'm not as quick to appreciate the plant. Did anyone try to affect change in the old community first? Or were they just too close-minded, too set in their ways?

I realize some of what I'm writing here is biting into my own thoughts and behavior, but I read so much subtle (and sometimes non-subtle) condemnation of the mega-church Christian subculture, and rarely, if ever, read of the dangers of escaping these churches that might have some things - if not many things - wrong with it.

My church is one that many of the blogs I read would label as dead or dying. Our attendance is down, as many people are leaving as are visiting, we are consolidating bible studies and Sunday classes because we don't have enough of any one age or station in life to meet on their own. There are people in our church that see missions as nothing more than giving money, and we are involved in very few direct outreach programs to the community. All in all, for many people in my church, life on Sunday morning is lived much different than life during the week. Such criteria is the fodder for these blogs, and it screams, "Abandon this church and find yourself a relevant community that is making an impact!" And a part of me would love to, but then, whether like a loyal captain or Lot's wife, I look back and think, "What will become of them if I, too, leave them behind?" Do I just cut and run and leave them to die? Do I do nothing ... when I certainly could do something ... anything ... EVERYTHING I can to try and save the church?

Maybe this entry is simply the squeaking voice of a person too scared to abandon a sinking Titanic unaware of the certain death that awaits ... or maybe it is of a person who is not ready to give up on a community of people who might have a lot of it wrong, but is still a community with blood running through its veins, with a life that can still be seized and lived toward impact. I do not agree that a dying church is not worth saving. I do not even believe that a dead church (containing whatever criteria makes them that in your opinion) is not worth saving. My church may not be relevant right now, but we're working on it. Who knows whether we'll get there, but there's more to serving God than simply correcting our motivations.