Editorial: Should a church die? Maybe more than once

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In the introduction to his most recent book, Church Revitalization Checklist, Sam Rainer states: “Some local churches will die. But no church should die.” The emphasis on “should” is his.

Rainer was the featured speaker at a recent event I attended. During one of his presentations, he doubled down on his assertion. To say a church should die is, in his estimation, tantamount to telling people to go to hell.

His contention is “every congregation of God’s people is worth the effort to revitalize.” Thus, his book offers “A Hopeful and Practical Guide for Leading Your Congregation to a Brighter Tomorrow.”

To Rainer’s credit, he acknowledges there is a difference between what will happen and what should happen with a church. Despite his hopeful optimism about the future of American churches, he understands the way to that future is not without significant challenges. Not all churches will overcome them.

Rainer’s statement is provocative, though; it provoked me. The academic in me wanted a clearer definition of “die,” because Rainer also talked about church mergers and adoptions—both of which require a death. Furthermore, there is a kind of dying every church should do, and that kind of dying needs to be clearly understood.

Defining “die”

One way to define “die” is a church closing its doors forever and disbanding because the attendance, membership and income declined below the congregation’s ability to afford staff and property.

This kind of death happens for a host of reasons, such as a church not changing with its community or, in the case of rural communities, a church no longer having a population from which to draw.

Should a church in either of those circumstances die?

Orchard Hills Baptist Church in Garland is an example of a church whose neighborhood changed considerably. Recognizing it didn’t reflect its neighborhood and was on its way to insolvency, the congregation entered into a partnership with Ethiopian Evangelical Baptist Church that has benefitted both congregations and enabled a third to form.


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Mayfield, Texas, isn’t even a wide spot in the road anymore. In the early 1980s, the Baptist church there disbanded because the community all but vanished. Some of the members joined First Baptist Church in Covington just up the road and served that church well until their own health limited their attendance. I was pastor to one of those families.

Did either one of these churches—Orchard Hills or Mayfield—die? Yes, and no. They died in the way a seed dies, serving as life for the growth of something new.

Should they have died? Answering this question gets us into a more philosophical—and biblical—definition of death.

How a church should die

One reason a church should die is encapsulated in the idea of “dying to self.” Though that exact phrase isn’t found in the Bible, the concept is.

Paul describes dying to self in his letter to the church in Galatia:

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

“Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24).

The idea of dying to oneself is also described in Romans 8:13 and 12:1, as well as Jesus’ exhortation that to follow him means to deny oneself and take up one’s cross (Matthew 16:24-26).

“Die” here means putting to death pride, fear, power and anything else that keeps a church from obediently following God.

If a church stubbornly refuses to obey God, that church may need to die the first death—disbanding and closing. To avoid both the first and second death, revitalization for a church like that may be repentance or reconciliation.

For example, a church that habitually abuses its ministers, its members or its neighbors likely has received at least one opportunity to repent of abuse. After a while, an abusive church gains a bad reputation and runs off members, visitors, current ministers and prospective ministers. If such a church continues to rebel against repentance, its death may be God’s grace to its community.

Another example: Some communities have more churches than they should as the result of one or more church splits. In those cases, at least one of those churches never should have existed separate from the first church. Revitalization in that instance might mean reconciliation.

A church that undergoes this second understanding of death probably needs to die to more than one thing and may need to die more than once. Peter Bush studied Presbyterian churches in Canada that died more than once and recorded his findings in In Dying We Are Born: The Challenge and Hope for Congregations.

Flipping the question

Declaring a church should not die may be more rebellious than noble if God has determined a particular congregation should disband and close its doors. Declaring a church should not die also may be an abuse of grace (Romans 6:1-4) if a church that refuses to obey God sweeps its rebellion under the rug of believing no church should die.

I would flip Rainer’s assertion on its head. He contends “no church should die.” I contend every church should die, but not necessarily all in the same way.

Rainer believes saying a church should die is tantamount to telling people to go to hell. I contend that to “save others, snatching them out of the fire” (Jude 23) means a church should die in the right way to the right things so Christ may live in it.

Eric Black is the executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at @EricBlackBSP. The views expressed are those solely of the author.


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