Four Ways to Deal with Church Decline

I read a blog post by Albert Molher this week. You can find it at this link: The Future of the Southern Baptist Convention: The Numbers Don’t Add Up. The post states something that I have sensed was happening for some time, and that is that attendance and baptisms in the SBC are declining. Membership has fallen to 14.8 million. This is the first time under 15 million since 1989. Molher gives many reasons for this decline, and think he is spot on with many of his conclusions. I don’t want to rehash those here, but I would encourage you to go and read it for yourself. What I want to do is think about what can be done about what is happening. I’m not in the camp of just accept the decline of the church. There are people and churches that are just turning inward. They are content to just sit and watch while the church declines, and eventually dies in many places because it feels safer and easier. They just blame the big bad culture out there, and how it has changed. I think the truth is that the church has played a major role in its own decline. That brings us to the hard moment of having to look at ourselves instead of everyone else. I can’t control what everyone else does, but I can control what I do. Here are a few things I believe strongly that we need to do. This isn’t an exhaustive list in any form or fashion, but it is a place to start for all of us.

Abandon an Inward Focus

We have too much of an inward focus. I say this to the staff and leaders at FBC Okeechobee constantly. We have to think about the lost and dechurced people in our community. A major problem in churches is the comfort factor. Everything has to be like we want it to be. The problem is our comfort is secondary to effectively reaching the lost, and bringing back those that have left the church for a variety of reasons. I was participating in a webinar a few days ago, and the person leading it asked what were the major things holding back the churches represented at the webinar. The answers were pretty varied, but the ones I saw that kept popping up in the chat were an inward focus and resistance to change. There are things that are for the church members. We should have in depth Bible studies for more mature Christians. We should have focused prayer meetings for those that are deeply involved to lift up the church and each other, but ask yourself this, in your church what is for the community? Is the Sunday morning service something a lost person or dechurched person can easily walk into and feel comfortable. Now if you’ve been going to a church for a long time your answer is probably yes. We are the friendliest church in town, but you have to look at it through the guests eyes not yours.

I’ll give you an example of this. The stand and greet time that was a staple in every church I attended or visited growing up is not loved by many guests. They feel awkward, and they are often ignored or feel left out as old friends greet warmly. That’s a small thing, but a very real one. Is the service structure easy to understand? Is what’s happening next explained? What about the language in the service. I think about this all the time. I served as a youth pastor for many years, and I dealt with teenagers that had no Biblical knowledge or church background. I simply couldn’t use a word like daily devotion with them. The idea of a fellowship hall was foreign to them as well. I sure couldn’t roll out a word like sanctified. I could roll out the concept with a good explanation, and then tie that to the word sanctified. There are all these little barriers that those of us that have grown up in church or been in church for years simply don’t think about. It’s like second nature to us, and often times it’s like a second language. Those little things matter, and if they aren’t thought about and addressed to make them more friendly to a guest then we are being inwardly focused even if we don’t realize it. The little things add up in a big way.

This idea of inward focus spreads to bigger issues as well. There are way too many people in the church that see the church as there to meet their needs, and the church should meet the needs of the people attending, but not if by doing so they are crippling themselves when it comes to reaching their community. Here’s a difficult thing to hear and say; whatever church you attend it isn’t your church. It also isn’t the pastor’s church. It also isn’t the deacon’s or elder’s church. It is God’s church, and He is the one that should be guiding it. When I run across people that are in disagreement about what a church should do I often find that both parties say they have heard from God, and if they don’t outright say it they will often say something along the lines of, “I’ve prayed about it and I believe we should do this.” When two opposite opinions are sitting there they can’t both be from God. One is right and one is wrong, or the third option is that neither one is from God, and he’s doing something else entirely. The church and its members have to let go of what they want, and actually seek what God wants. Set aside your preferences, and truly ask God how He wants the church to function. A church that does that will leave inwardness behind.

Embrace Change

The church was insulated from change for a long time. The church pretty much remained the same for a century. The music stayed the same. The order of service stayed the same. The dress of the members stayed pretty much the same. Women in some churches began wearing pants sometime in the 1980’s as best I can tell. Most protestant churches used the same Bible translation. A few things changed along the way. Youth ministries and children’s ministries developed in many churches, but that was about it. While this was happening in the church the world outside the walls of the church were changing in profound ways, and much of it wasn’t for the better. The church didn’t adapt, and I don’t mean adapt its theology or doctrine. I mean it didn’t adapt its methods. Here’s a thing many people don’t think about. Churches put resources into youth programs where they sang different types of music and dressed in a much more casual fashion, and we wonder why those people grew up and embrace worshipping the same God in a different way.

Churches that are resisting change are going to face or are already facing a huge challenge. The simple truth is an unwillingness to change the methods for delivering the Gospel, bringing people into an attitude of worship, and how ministries are structured or function can lead to a decline into a death spiral for a church. I think we will see entire denominations disappear over the next 20 years, or at the very least shrink to a size that the denominational structure barely functions. A church congregation has to ask themselves the question, what do we want to leave behind? While I see these overall declines in church membership I still see churches that are growing. The question then becomes what are they doing differently? If they are compromising the Gospel and the core doctrines of what it means to be a Christian then I can’t go down that road, but there are many growing churches that aren’t doing that. There may be churches in your city that are doing well, and I find that some churches will resent that fact. How about we stop resenting a church fulfilling the Great Commission, and instead ask what can we do in our context to reach the community God has planted us in?

I’m a believer in striving to do new things while not abandoning everything that has come before. I think this can be especially important for established churches that have, in some cases, existed for over a hundred years. These churches need to focus on how to engage a wide variety of people within the church. This means you may need to have two very different kinds of services in order to engage a really wide range of people. Traditional Sunday School models may need to be paired with a different type of small group model taking place in homes or on campus at different times. The idea is to continue to minister to and engage people that have been in the church for decades while opening the door for the unchurced and dechurched to have a new avenue to engage the church all while not compromising the message of the Gospel or doctrines of the church.

Dive into Technology

I also believe churches should dive head first into technology in order to reach their community. Well done websites, social media accounts, apps, online giving, YouTube channels, blogs, and podcasts can all be of great aid in getting your message out to the community. People of all ages have smart phones and internet access. Why not utilize this? Generation Z and Millennials in many cases view online interaction as being as significant as face to face interaction. Why can’t the church leverage that fact just like Facebook, Netflix, YouTube, and more websites than I can name do? Why not use this technology as a front door for your church, or as a supplement to keep people connected to your church on more than just Sunday? Do Bible studies have to be delivered face to face, or can they be delivered via something like YouTube? I think these technologies should be a vehicle to move people towards in person gatherings or to supplement the face to face time. I think something is lost when we aren’t physically present with other believers, but that doesn’t mean we can’t and shouldn’t use every tool we have to increase the footprint of the local church. New people moving into your community and people looking for a church will go to your website and your social media accounts. They will look to see if you have posted videos of your service. What are they finding? Use every tool you have to reach your community. There may be a learning curve to do these things well, but it’s worth it.

Do Everything with Excellence

This one is a soap box issue for me. I am frustrated when I’m part of a service or attending a service that has obviously not been planned well, and has multiple issues. I think everything should be done with excellence. I visited a church a couple of years ago. There was a portion of the service where the graduates of the local high school were recognized. That’s a pretty standard practice in most churches. What caused me cringe was when the youth pastor was still recognizing the graduates and the worship pastor and praise team got back up in the middle of it, and there was an awkward exchange between them that told me no one had planned any of this. A person that has attended there for 20 years chalks it up to just what happens, but a guest sees a cringe worthy moment when two people have no idea what they are doing. I look at what we are presenting, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and ask myself are we doing it justice? I go to a Disney park and everything is thought out down to the smallest detail. They want everyone coming through the gates to have a great experience, and they think each moment through. This link will show you the lengths they go to in order for people to have the experience they want them to have: Disney Customer Experience. The church isn’t Disney. The church is way more important than Disney. They are pushing roller coasters and a cartoon mouse, but they have figured out how to do entertainment better than anyone else. The church isn’t entertainment. We are striving to lead people to God which is the most important thing in the world, but the attention to detail and the excellence Disney strives for with what they do is what the church can learn from. We have the greatest message in all of history, and we need to deliver it with precision and with as much perfection as we can muster because the God we are talking about is the very definition of perfection.

            We are no longer in a time when you can just open up the church doors, and say you are having a service and people show up. That may be the world you want to live in, but it’s not the one we actually live in. What level of detail are you going into when it comes to planning and executing your worship services and ministries of the church? Are you thinking through the experience that a guest coming to your church is having from the moment that they get out of the car? I’ll give you an example from a recent Sunday. I met with our greeters for our first service. I had drawn a diagram of exactly where I wanted them to be. I then explained to them that anyone coming into the building should have a minimum of three points of contact from getting out of their car to walking into the worship center. I stressed to the greeters at the main doors that no one should open the door for themselves. I place a final greeter inside the worship area to be a final point of contact, and the person that can answer any questions or help the person find someone they may be looking for. This is detail, and it pays off. One of our deacons, Gary, who doubles as the head of our safety and security team told me after the service about a conversation he had with a new person. This person had been attending another church in town, and told Gary that when he attended one our Sunday services he felt more welcomed, wanted, and engaged than he had at any church he had ever been in, BINGO!!!! That is what I was after. I want our staff and volunteers to see the people that come into our services through the eyes of Jesus. He loves and values each one. We also have no idea what any of the people that walk into our building have been through before they get to us. We don’t know their story, but we can make them feel welcomed and wanted because that’s who they are in Jesus Christ.

            Think through the details of everything you do. Think about how people enter and exit the building. Think about how the service flows. Is it smooth? Are there abrupt changes that could throw people off? How will you talk about giving? How will you make announcements clear and concise? What type of experience does a young family have finding and getting their little one to the nursery? It all matters more than we know. The details all add up. Think through every step that takes place in every ministry. Everything needs to be as easy as possible for each person coming into the church. Take away all the guess work for them, and make everything easy to find and easy to participate in. View it through the eyes of someone that has never been to church before. Because that is who you want to reach.

            Don’t let gloomy news like the stats the Albert Mohler talked about cause you to despair. Let it cause you to say what can we do better to get the message of God out more effectively? What can we do different, and what can we change that doesn’t in any way compromise the truth of the Bible. I think if you are really willing to have an outward focus, are ready to change when necessary, utilize every tool you can, and strive for excellence you will find you don’t have to be a statistic.