: Should We or Should We Not? By Dr. Tom Cheyney Company LOGO
v People often will ask the key question: Why Get Involved? v So why should you and your church get involved in ADOPTING A DYING CHURCH? v Let s consider it for a while.
1 Corinthians 1:26-27
v Evangelicals in America are in trouble. We have left our grass roots. Most of us come from the poor, the rural, and the ethnic population of America. In the First and Second Great Awakenings, we made our move from east to west, planting churches as we went. Most members were not well educated. Our buildings and programs were simple. But God blessed.
v Times have changed. Our churches have experienced upward mobility. We have better buildings, more sophisticated programs, well-trained and well-paid staffs, and are reaching fewer and fewer of those from whence we came. God has a problem with that not with the upward mobility, but with neglecting the ethnics, the poor, and the not-so-well educated.
v Have you seen any wounded birds lately? v Lyle Schaller reminds us that 85,000 evangelical churches are running fewer than 50 on Sunday. He calls them wounded birds. They are churches Christ loves and gave Himself for.
v Ephesians 5:25 Adopt a Dying Church
v He cares about every one of them. We too must care. Our churches and denominations must care. When I see a person I love who appears to be very ill, I get very bold showing concern to help. We obviously have many sick churches.
v The author of Lamentations asks a very pertinent question, Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? (Lamentations 1:12)
v We too must be very bold in addressing the needs of these dying sister churches. v But how?
The adopted church must become convinced they need help! v I have found that when most dying, or seriously declining, churches hear there is a stronger church willing to help they will come asking. After we had helped two such churches, we had a meeting with nearly 50 declining church leaders just to let them know we loved them and cared.
The adopted church must become convinced they need help! v This was followed by 12 of these churches coming to us! When they saw a model for help they were quick to call. All have experienced significant growth. Many have been restored to their highest day of effectiveness.
v Being aware of their critical condition, however, is not enough. They must become convinced they need major surgery. Changing the mindset of the residual membership can be very difficult. Most of these churches are peopled by senior adults. Change is often hard to come by.
v Do not be surprised if you are asked to come back to some of the potential churches you will eventually adopt several times. v In one of my churches we adopted there were discussions and it appeared we would help them only to find it stalled for a time. Time would past and we would start over from scratch again. Years could pass before you finally complete the covenant agreement.
v The only thing for a few of the churches was that by the time they were ready we were not longer interested because they let the church decline to such a state that it was no longer feasible. v Until the church is ready to make drastic change, it is useless to become involved.
There are several questions they want answered: 1. Is there hope for our church? When a church loses hope, it is often terminal. They must come to believe they could be on the threshold of their greatest day. If lost people live nearby, it is not time to die. It is time to live.
2. What will happen to our property? First, they need to become convinced it is the Lord s property. With great sacrifice, they erected a building to reach the people of their community. That is its hallowed purpose. Most Christians are not hard to convince. But some get sidetracked. As long as a church has fortress mentality, they are not open to change.
2. What will happen to our property? Reaching a new people group in a transitional community necessitates settling the issue of property. It is the Lord s! He will build the church with the people He brings.
God settled this issue 2,000 years ago. Is He just the God of our kind? On the day of Pentecost, He let it be known once for all that, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Acts 2:21)
When He poured out the Holy Spirit on all flesh, He gave the notable gift of tongues, which enabled all to hear the gospel in their own tongue. The Scripture says there were Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judes, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia (Acts 2:9, 10).
God is no respector of persons but is the receptor of all persons!
v The apostle Peter said, For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are a far off, even as many as the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved (Acts 2:39,47).
3. Who will make the decisions? The answer is: the church will forfeit autonomy as long as they are in a sister relationship with a stronger church. But they will have representation. The church will be a part of all decisions. However, there will be a decision making team to help them through their time of semiautonomy. If they could do it by themselves they would not have needed help!
3. Who will make the decisions? The answer is: Normally we ask that a missions committee be formulated. Three members are appointed by the church under watch-care and three from the Church Planting Committee of the mother church. The Minister of Missions and Mission Pastor are exofficio members.
3. Who will make the decisions? The answer is: This is the governing body until the church resumes autonomy. Of course, major decisions like calling a pastor will be voted on by the church under watch-care. For purposes of understanding, I will call them the mission church hereafter.
What are the options? Rick Warren, the famous church leader, says there are many variations to what a church can look like. When God the Holy Spirit directs a church to its unique configuration, it is just that unique. Like the human thumb print, no two people have the same size.
What are the options? In 14 experiences of adopting churches for revitalization, we have uncovered about six forms. Your church may come to six other unique forms.
1. The first option is do nothing. When initial discussions are held with a church, I make it clear that they called me. At any time during discussions, they can choose to terminate my assistance. No church should ever be able to question the motives of the sponsor church. We are not in the church gobbling business. We are in the church saving business. Once we enter into a covenant relationship, there will be no terminating until a mutual commitment is fulfilled.
2. Merge with the sponsor church. I seldom if ever recommend a merger. As Lyle Schaller said in his book, Innovations in Ministry, when a merger takes place, thirty plus forty is more likely to equal thirty-five or forty or fifty, not seventy. However, in a few particular situations, this has not proven true. Both mergers have been very successful.
2. Merge with the sponsor church. The advantages of a merger are twofold: a) The members were incorporated into our fellowship. Many have become leaders at our church. b) This left the best case scenario at the missions.
There was no mindset change. Since no one was left in the mission center, there were none left to worry about whether they would be voted down by newcomers. No one could complain, These people are different than us. In these cases, title to the property was transferred to the sponsoring church.
But there was one critically important stipulation written into our negotiated contract. The property must be used for church planting purposes for a minimum of five years before any other disposition of the property could be made!
3. Church Revitalization Assistance Teams (CRAT). Some churches still have a considerable amount of strength. They have faltered primarily because of some serious neglect in their church. It may be the opinion of the church and the mission leadership of a potential sponsor church that the particular need could be met by an Church Revitalization Assistance Teams.
4. Revert to mission status. Right leadership and a transition team was the key.
5. A friendly take over. Baptist Church was formerly a large church of over 750 attendees. The community changed, but the church did not. For a decade, struggling pastors stayed for a diminishing period of months before becoming discouraged and leaving. At the church s invitation, I presented options (one thru four). None of them applied.
5. A friendly take over. What we want, they replied, is for to take over our church. After years of struggle, they were too dispirited to continue. We were asked to make their church plant a mission planting center and provide a pastor for their residual congregations. Oh, but they did not know what God had in store!
5. A friendly take over. A dynamic bi-vocational pastor, was called. Under his very capable leadership, they have more than tripled. A Hispanic church was also started and moved to another location.
5. A friendly take over. Here was church with accommodations for 750 people. There was a fully-stocked library, a gymnasium, a van in the garage, a baptistery, pews, a parsonage (paid-for-infull), and a huge unchurched community. Could we afford to turn it down? Could any soul-loving church refuse to get involved in a great commission opportunity like this?
5. A friendly take over. There are thousands of others like this all over America: Baptists, Methodists, Assembly s, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Congregational, Christian, and many others, waiting for a mission-minded congregation to get involved in offering new life.
6. Watchcare. This instance is my favorite. Baptist Church was not your typical dying church. The community was booming. Over 80,000 people in four huge, new subdivisions surrounded them. When the planter left, made two tragic staff decisions consecutively. Attendance then declined from 250 to 25. Additionally a very large debt was smothering this small group of believers.
Advantages of a watchcare connection are evident: 1. It leaves the property and basic organization intact. In many cases, a sponsor church would not want to be formally attached to a dying congregation for financial or environmental reasons.
2. The congregation continues as a bona fide church, even though they forfeit full autonomy for a set period of time. Morale in the church is positively affected.
3. The transition from autonomy into watchcare and back again, is very simple. Book Referenced: Lyle E. Schaller, Innovations in Ministry, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994).
v Further Assistance with this critical issue can be obtained by studying When a Restart Strategy is Your Only HOPE in Church Revitalization by Tom Cheyney v Available through BoomerangChurches.com
: Should We or Should We Not? By Dr. Tom Cheyney Company LOGO