Day: October 31, 2018
The Church Today is Facing Some Serious Issues
Increasingly world trends penetrate that traditional safety barrier of the church. Whether it’s the “Me too” movement, marital infidelity, financial scandals, etc.; church staff need to be prepared. In fact, a recent Christianity Today article listed the top 5 reasons people file lawsuits against churches:
- Property Disputes – A Minnesota court recently ruled a local congregation could keep its church after leaving (PCUSA)…It was a dispute between liberal and conservative factions.
- Sexual Abuse of a Minor – While this has declined recently, for the previous decade this issue made up more than 1 in 9 church lawsuits…
- Personal Injury – Church improvements in handicap accessibility and property maintenance have decreased such suits, but pastors still need to be vigilant.
- Insurance Coverage Disputes – This covers a whole host of issues, so pastors should be sure that policies are as comprehensive as possible…fire and water damage, abuse allegations, building use, personal injury, liability. HR and more.
- Zoning Issues – Church neighbors now sue for noise, Sunday morning traffic, free speech, or just plain bias.
In most cases these issues were not part of the seminary curriculum. Therefore, few pastors know how to deal with all of this. They need advice and help from well-equipped members. There are also other concerns emerging that include but aren’t limited to the following:
- A Lack of Planning – On a fairly regular basis churches come to us to help them raise millions of dollars. Often when we begin to ask questions about their planning, they don’t have answers. In fact, a few of them haven’t even discussed what we’re asking. We’ve found that effective fundraising usually comes from a planning process. People who may support a capital campaign, also want to know that you’ve thought about this up front and you’ve done your due diligence.
- A Lack of Gospel Centered Preaching on Stewardship – The need for increased church operational funding is growing. Yet we often find that pastors avoid preaching on stewardship, even though it’s part of the full counsel of the Gospel. People need to understand Christ’s call for us to give and to help others, and it’s the pastor’s job to ensure that’s happening.
- A Tendency to Allow Politics to Invade the Pulpit – In any given church members have mixed political views. However, when pastors share their views it tends to polarize the church. Sure, some may agree with the pastor, which makes it friendly and inviting to some, but potentially that can extract a huge price. Others, who may disagree with the pastor’s political positions, can find the culture unfriendly and hostile, which defeats the purpose of the church. The church should be a place of respite, where people find spiritual guidance and support while learning to put things in perspective through Gospel teaching and community. The church was never intended to be a political action committee used to mobilize Christian forces. Instead, churches tend to flourish when they keep the Gospel front and center and apolitical. In fact, there is a direct correlation between a pastor’s political pronouncements from the pulpit and their loss of spiritual authority.
- Our People View Traditional Christian Morality as Extreme, Antiquated and Hazardous – Rising tides of individualism in the US are clearly affecting the church. It’s all about “looking out for number one,” regardless of what happens to others. Witness the political bickering, pleasure seeking and public confrontations we see daily. Such individualism has now entered the church and challenges Christian morality. How often have people rationalized, “I know the Bible says this, but that was written for another time?”
Can the church survive this? No doubt, but it will take prayer, awareness, insight and vigilance on the part of pastors!
Why Churches Decline, Fail to Grow and Sometimes Close
Over the last several years there has been an increasing amount of research studying churches. Consider a few facts:
- 62% of all churches in America have experienced either no growth or declines in their congregations.
- 65% of churches have less than 100 congregants including children.
- More than 2 million people have left the church every year for the past 7 years.
- In just 8 years the percent of Americans calling themselves Christians has decreased from 78% to 70%.
So why do people either leave church, fail to return after a visit or not attend at all? Research demonstrates and our work with churches confirms at least 12 conditions that negatively affect attendance. These include the following:
- Churches are not united in prayer…1 Timothy encourages us to make petitions, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving for everyone. Encouraging collective prayer not only brings answers, it also builds unity around common purposes. Churches that don’t preach, teach and practice prayer don’t unify their people around it. Therefore congregants have less of an incentive to stay.
- Churches are places of conflict, gossip and judgmental attitudes and actions and refuse to deal with sin…This is the number one reason people leave. Often there are factions, disagreements and dysfunction that get ignored. It festers and grows, resulting in disunity and gossip. In one study, 78% of the people who left church cited this as a problem.
In our church leadership consulting, we once worked with a church that was dealing with an abundance of issues. The elders didn’t trust the pastor and eventually fired him. Meanwhile, the staff didn’t trust the elders, and the elders didn’t trust the staff. Needless to say this all had a negative effect on congregants. In fact, they lost members left and right, and still the political bickering and finger pointing continued. Elders openly gossiped about other church members, and a spirit of humility was definitely lacking.
Not surprisingly, when we conducted a church survey, the ratings were well below average on almost every item we measured. Likewise, the open-ended responses regarding church weaknesses and critical issues were just as bad. The results offered a clear explanation of why people were leaving. They lost confidence in the leadership and they were tired of all of the drama.
3. Churches are not friendly…Some 66% of people who leave churches report that the lack of hospitality and concern caused them to feel as if they didn’t belong. Accordingly, they had very little reason to stay. Churches, above all other organizations, should be places of caring and hospitality.
Leviticus 19 tells us…”When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger…as the native among you…you shall love him as yourself…I am the Lord your God.”
And then there’s this in Hebrews 13…“Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.” Being friendly and hospitable is not a suggestion; it’s a mandate.
4. Churches do not empower their people…a lot of pastors talk about the importance of engagement of members but few actually do that. You can have engagement or control, but you can’t have both. The more control pastors attempt to impose, the less people will be engaged. People want an opportunity to use their gifts to serve others, and if the church doesn’t provide an outlet for that, they leave. In fact, a study of people who left their church revealed that 66% left because they couldn’t fit in.
These are just 4 of the 12 reasons. We’ll look at more next week!