dealing with dead or dying churches or church splits

NewCreation435 · Apr 4, 2018

I went to a church many years ago in Texas to speak one Sunday. Before I got up to speak, the music minister motioned to me and said in my ear, "This church has split three times and these are the people who are left." There was a huge Baptist church down the street that many of the members of this church went and joined and that church was growing, but this church was dying. I saw numerous big Sunday School rooms that were empty.

I've also experienced a church split as a member. People taking sides and the church turns inward and it starts to die. The people in the church get their focus off the Lord and on to each other and who is to blame. It seems that if God's idea of his most important command is for us to love HIm and love each other then Satan's idea of how to destroy a church is have us turn on each other and engage in jealousy, slander and division.

So, if you were in the middle of a situation like this where people are taking side, pointing fingers and blaming each other, what advice would you give to a person stuck in a church like that? When is it time to stick it out and when is it time to leave? What would you tell that person to do to help the to grow their faith when it is being tested?

tango · Apr 4, 2018

I think a lot would depend on the reason for the split.

Obviously your discussion isn't aimed at the churches that split in two when some leave the first church to help plant a second church.

If a church is going to split over a disagreement in theology the obvious thing to do is invite the different groups to present an appeal to Scripture and discuss things, with a view to finding whether there is any common ground.

I know a church that lost a lot of members over the issue of homosexuality and from what I could tell much of the discussion was one side thumping the table and pulling select verses from Leviticus while the other side wrung their hands and said little more than generic stuff about moving with the times and being inclusive. Neither was really doing anything useful - an appeal to nothing more than carefully picked verses in Leviticus achieves little because we ignore so much of Leviticus these days, and something that's nothing more than an appeal to be inclusive doesn't work because it fails to address the issue of avoiding sin in the first place.

For a time I attended a church that was off the scale as far as being on the silly fringe of the charismatic movement was concerned. I struggled to reconcile what they did with Scripture, so asked the minister and the council. They never once gave me an answer to any of my questions. The last discussion I had with the minister before I left the church was one I didn't really want to be having, because I really felt it necessarily to ask him whether he truly believed his church was being blessed (my view was that God was withholding blessings from the church) - the church preached prosperity but couldn't pay its bills, the minister frequently went without his salary due to lack of funds, the church preached healing and wholeness yet remained broken and needy, visitors would come for a couple of weeks and leave without trace, and so on. Frankly when that church split I wasn't surprised at all - what does surprise me is that it seems both halves are still limping along. Frankly the only advice I could give to anyone attending that church would be to leave.

I think key issues within the church are, as one writer put it years ago (I forget who it was), division where there should be unity, and unity where there should be division. Some things should unite us and we should be able to put small issues to one side where larger issues are concerned. If the church takes up the offering before communion and we think it should be the other way around we really should ask whether it matters. On the other hand the people who endlessly preach about unity are sometimes the ones who are looking to gloss over major theological differences in the hope of pushing a message of "can't we just all get along?". There are some matters where we need to put aside our differences, and there are other matters that are sufficiently severe that the only sensible option is to break fellowship and leave.

Albion · Apr 4, 2018

jsimms435 said:
I went to a church many years ago in Texas to speak one Sunday. Before I got up to speak, the music minister motioned to me and said in my ear, "This church has split three times and these are the people who are left." There was a huge Baptist church down the street that many of the members of this church went and joined and that church was growing, but this church was dying. I saw numerous big Sunday School rooms that were empty.

I've also experienced a church split as a member. People taking sides and the church turns inward and it starts to die. The people in the church get their focus off the Lord and on to each other and who is to blame. It seems that if God's idea of his most important command is for us to love HIm and love each other then Satan's idea of how to destroy a church is have us turn on each other and engage in jealousy, slander and division.

So, if you were in the middle of a situation like this where people are taking side, pointing fingers and blaming each other, what advice would you give to a person stuck in a church like that? When is it time to stick it out and when is it time to leave? What would you tell that person to do to help the to grow their faith when it is being tested?

This is interesting to me because I have been involved with several churches that experienced splits, but none of them ever developed into open rows. For one reason or another, a significant number of the congregants chose to leave for another church--and there was no secret about their motivation--but it wasn't fought out in front of everyone, either in a parish meeting or from the pulpit, or anything else like that.

NewCreation435 · Apr 4, 2018

Albion said:
This is interesting to me because I have been involved with several churches that experienced splits, but none of them ever developed into open rows. For one reason or another, a significant number of the congregants chose to leave for another church--and there was no secret about their motivation--but it wasn't fought out in front of everyone, either in a parish meeting or from the pulpit, or anything else like that.

Did those reasons that some chose to leave have to do with theology, issues related to power and control or something else?

NewCreation435 · Apr 4, 2018

tango said:
I think a lot would depend on the reason for the split.

Obviously your discussion isn't aimed at the churches that split in two when some leave the first church to help plant a second church.

If a church is going to split over a disagreement in theology the obvious thing to do is invite the different groups to present an appeal to Scripture and discuss things, with a view to finding whether there is any common ground.

I know a church that lost a lot of members over the issue of homosexuality and from what I could tell much of the discussion was one side thumping the table and pulling select verses from Leviticus while the other side wrung their hands and said little more than generic stuff about moving with the times and being inclusive. Neither was really doing anything useful - an appeal to nothing more than carefully picked verses in Leviticus achieves little because we ignore so much of Leviticus these days, and something that's nothing more than an appeal to be inclusive doesn't work because it fails to address the issue of avoiding sin in the first place.

For a time I attended a church that was off the scale as far as being on the silly fringe of the charismatic movement was concerned. I struggled to reconcile what they did with Scripture, so asked the minister and the council. They never once gave me an answer to any of my questions. The last discussion I had with the minister before I left the church was one I didn't really want to be having, because I really felt it necessarily to ask him whether he truly believed his church was being blessed (my view was that God was withholding blessings from the church) - the church preached prosperity but couldn't pay its bills, the minister frequently went without his salary due to lack of funds, the church preached healing and wholeness yet remained broken and needy, visitors would come for a couple of weeks and leave without trace, and so on. Frankly when that church split I wasn't surprised at all - what does surprise me is that it seems both halves are still limping along. Frankly the only advice I could give to anyone attending that church would be to leave.

I think key issues within the church are, as one writer put it years ago (I forget who it was), division where there should be unity, and unity where there should be division. Some things should unite us and we should be able to put small issues to one side where larger issues are concerned. If the church takes up the offering before communion and we think it should be the other way around we really should ask whether it matters. On the other hand the people who endlessly preach about unity are sometimes the ones who are looking to gloss over major theological differences in the hope of pushing a message of "can't we just all get along?". There are some matters where we need to put aside our differences, and there are other matters that are sufficiently severe that the only sensible option is to break fellowship and leave.

I never would have guessed that you would be in a church that is charismatic like that. It sounds like a Word of Life church. I remember a pastor who I knew in Texas who was Word of Life. He believed that if you were sick then God was somehow punishing you. I wanted to ask him, but didn't, what God was punishing his mother for because I knew she was in the nursing home and had suffered a stroke.

Andrew · Apr 4, 2018

Very interesting topic. Are these big city churches? Not to be confused with mega churches but I live in Texas and these little country churches seem to survive well but again I am just a recent attendee to services. The Church was built on Peter's way of thinking "you are the The Christ Son of God" and it has nothing to do with a second 'pope' or a failsafe church, what denominations are these splits occuring in?

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tango · Apr 4, 2018

jsimms435 said:
I never would have guessed that you would be in a church that is charismatic like that. It sounds like a Word of Life church. I remember a pastor who I knew in Texas who was Word of Life. He believed that if you were sick then God was somehow punishing you. I wanted to ask him, but didn't, what God was punishing his mother for because I knew she was in the nursing home and had suffered a stroke.

It was technically associated with the Brethren, but the local brethren church refused to share a venue with them because they considered their practices to be evil.

Their theology was seriously messed up - they truly believed that things could be changed by simply declaring something to be so, despite the fact that they still couldn't pay their bills and the people in the church remained needy. They regarded just about everything as being somehow "prophetic" and the more extreme members were into all sorts of weird things - they would go to high places and "break curses off the land". Nobody could tell me just what that meant, or what it achieved, or why they even bothered, but in their world word curses could be attached to someone by the simple fact of a few careless words. The god they followed (small g intentional - part of the reason I left was that I was no longer certain we were even talking about the same deity), apparently wouldn't protect them from someone uttering unknown words against them but would protect them if they chose to ignore the clear warnings in Scripture.

I still believe that the gifts of the Spirit are for today, I just can't accept that every little thing that happens to us is the result of a curse, that we can literally declare ourselves healthy as a matter of routine, and that adding "prophetic" as an adjective before just about any church activity actually changes anything.

NewCreation435 · Apr 4, 2018

DHoffmann said:
Very interesting topic. Are these big city churches? Not to be confused with mega churches but I live in Texas and these little country churches seem to survive well but again I am just a recent attendee to services. The Church was built on Peter's way of thinking "you are the The Christ Son of God" and it has nothing to do with a second 'pope' or a failsafe church, what denominations are these splits occuring in?

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The church I spoke at was probably a couple of hundred people at one time. They were down to about 70 or so when I spoke there. The other church I am thinking of had about 80 in worship. So, no megachurches.
It makes me wonder when I see a small church in a large and growing area why they are still small. Why aren't they reaching people. Or are they so unwelcoming or rigid in their style or teaching that nobody wants to join them? If the growth rate in the area (I will use Houston as an example because I grew up as kid not far from there) is at growth rate that is so high that literally thousands of homes are being built in your area and the church is remaining small it really makes you wonder.

NewCreation435 · Apr 4, 2018

tango said:
It was technically associated with the Brethren, but the local brethren church refused to share a venue with them because they considered their practices to be evil.

Their theology was seriously messed up - they truly believed that things could be changed by simply declaring something to be so, despite the fact that they still couldn't pay their bills and the people in the church remained needy. They regarded just about everything as being somehow "prophetic" and the more extreme members were into all sorts of weird things - they would go to high places and "break curses off the land". Nobody could tell me just what that meant, or what it achieved, or why they even bothered, but in their world word curses could be attached to someone by the simple fact of a few careless words. The god they followed (small g intentional - part of the reason I left was that I was no longer certain we were even talking about the same deity), apparently wouldn't protect them from someone uttering unknown words against them but would protect them if they chose to ignore the clear warnings in Scripture.

I still believe that the gifts of the Spirit are for today, I just can't accept that every little thing that happens to us is the result of a curse, that we can literally declare ourselves healthy as a matter of routine, and that adding "prophetic" as an adjective before just about any church activity actually changes anything.

Yeah, that sounds exactly like the church I mentioned early. Name it and claim it. They would go to points around the city and put stakes in the ground like that was going to do something. I didn't understand it then and don't now. As a chaplain, it was part of my job at the time to go to the ministerial alliance meetings and network with other churches and pastors so that is what I did. The only time they came to the nursing home where I worked though was when I hosted the meeting that week at our nursing home.

tango · Apr 4, 2018

jsimms435 said:
The church I spoke at was probably a couple of hundred people at one time. They were down to about 70 or so when I spoke there. The other church I am thinking of had about 80 in worship. So, no megachurches.
It makes me wonder when I see a small church in a large and growing area why they are still small. Why aren't they reaching people. Or are they so unwelcoming or rigid in their style or teaching that nobody wants to join them? If the growth rate in the area (I will use Houston as an example because I grew up as kid not far from there) is at growth rate that is so high that literally thousands of homes are being built in your area and the church is remaining small it really makes you wonder.

Sometimes it's hard to know where things like this are concerned. If a church has thousands of members it could be because they are doing something right but it could equally be because they do little more than tickle peoples' ears and tell them everything is just fine and they don't need to change anything.

Andrew · Apr 4, 2018

jsimms435 said:
The church I spoke at was probably a couple of hundred people at one time. They were down to about 70 or so when I spoke there. The other church I am thinking of had about 80 in worship. So, no megachurches.
It makes me wonder when I see a small church in a large and growing area why they are still small. Why aren't they reaching people. Or are they so unwelcoming or rigid in their style or teaching that nobody wants to join them? If the growth rate in the area (I will use Houston as an example because I grew up as kid not far from there) is at growth rate that is so high that literally thousands of homes are being built in your area and the church is remaining small it really makes you wonder.

Parent apostates I believe. For example my parents never go to church but on good Friday they at fish and I asked them why... because we are Catholic lol. Some teachings at the church I attend kind of scare me away for a week or so but that's just the way churches are, I mean I wont agree with everything and they wont agree with everything I believe either.
Sadly I see no desire in people to want to go to church, its a tragic loss but sometimes I cant blame them, no church can save and its not a losing battle its just well... people seem well off enough as believers not to go to church, I like to keep in mind that its the afflicted that need healing and not the well off... I could never go door to door to try to win them over for God, but they will come to him as I did. My parents I wish would go to church at least once a month but they are quick to attend when something is damaging the family, fair enough they are good children of God in my eyes.

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MennoSota · Apr 5, 2018

jsimms435 said:
I went to a church many years ago in Texas to speak one Sunday. Before I got up to speak, the music minister motioned to me and said in my ear, "This church has split three times and these are the people who are left." There was a huge Baptist church down the street that many of the members of this church went and joined and that church was growing, but this church was dying. I saw numerous big Sunday School rooms that were empty.

I've also experienced a church split as a member. People taking sides and the church turns inward and it starts to die. The people in the church get their focus off the Lord and on to each other and who is to blame. It seems that if God's idea of his most important command is for us to love HIm and love each other then Satan's idea of how to destroy a church is have us turn on each other and engage in jealousy, slander and division.

So, if you were in the middle of a situation like this where people are taking side, pointing fingers and blaming each other, what advice would you give to a person stuck in a church like that? When is it time to stick it out and when is it time to leave? What would you tell that person to do to help the to grow their faith when it is being tested?

The summary of the question is this:
On which hill are you willing and ready to die for the faith?

Albion · Apr 5, 2018

jsimms435 said:
Did those reasons that some chose to leave have to do with theology, issues related to power and control or something else?

Theology. Always theology. I am aware that many congregations do split over personnel issues or something else like that, but it has not been the case in my own experience.

Albion · Apr 5, 2018

jsimms435 said:
It makes me wonder when I see a small church in a large and growing area why they are still small. Why aren't they reaching people. Or are they so unwelcoming or rigid in their style or teaching that nobody wants to join them? .

I'll tell you one reason. People want churches to be all things to all people like some club.

If the form of worship is traditional and sacramental, they say it is boring. If the music is not accompanied by electric guitars, they say the church is dead. If the people tend to come to worship dressed in something other than tee-shirts and jeans, they call the members uppity and unloving. If the congregation or parish does not offer couples bowling leagues, social events for the recently divorced, and lots of youth activities divided by age group...

They choose a different church where religion is more enjoyable.

tango · Apr 5, 2018

Albion said:
I'll tell you one reason. People want churches to be all things to all people like some club.

If the form of worship is traditional and sacramental, they say it is boring. If the music is not accompanied by electric guitars, they say the church is dead. If the people tend to come to worship dressed in something other than tee-shirts and jeans, they call the members uppity and unloving. If the congregation or parish does not offer couples bowling leagues, social events for the recently divorced, and lots of youth activities divided by age group...

They choose a different church where religion is more enjoyable.

Very true. I remember reading about a man who said something about lots of people finding a wide easy path and not very many people finding a rocky narrow path. There are times I think he may have been on to something.

Josiah · Apr 5, 2018

I've never been involved in a parish that had a "split"....

But it seems the great majority of parishes are either "flat" or declining in membership/involvement. Many parts of California are Christian "ghost towns" with far more closed or now tiny churches than the many, vital, growing churches that was the norm 30+ years ago. There are MANY closed schools (the decline seems to have "hit" schools even more than churches). -HERE, it is obvious the secular/non-churched culture is winning fast and organized Christianity is in fast decline. It's obvious and undeniable. There are a FEW huge, new, non-denoms that seem to "buck" this but they by no means "make up" for the declining and closing churches... they get a lot of attention but are simply a huge exception. And (truth be known) they have HUGE losses each year, they just gain more than they loose, the "turn around" is enormous.

My own previous church (Catholic) founded in the early 60's still is large (I don't know if it was once larger but it's been "flat" for a long time now) BUT a huge paradigm shift has happened: once it was a European based church with lots of Catholics of German, Italian, Polish and Irish backgrounds.... many donating generously in terms of time and money and including the church in their wills so that until recently the parish had no debt. But in the past 20 years, it has transitioned to a mostly hispanic church of a much lower economic class. This has resulted in a lot of cuts to things simply to make the budget balance and the church had to borrow all the money for a major refurbishing that was required to the facilities - the mortgage for that meaning more cuts. As long as Hispanics join as fast as the German/Polish/Italian members die off - attendance is "flat" but we're already seeing that decline.

My own Lutheran parish is TINY (we worship in the 50's and 60's).... and we're very flat. We'll gain 10 members in a year, and loose 10 in a year (some by death, some by moving away, some by joining a couple of HUGE non-denom mega churches in town). Our converts INTO the church tend to be almost exclusively Catholics (last year, ALL the new members were former Catholics) but there are exceptions (my wife being a former Reformed Christian). What seems to attract people is the theology and the strong "family" and caring sense in the parish. What takes people away is that we offer few programs and don't have much of a youth group: We lose people to a couple of huge non-denoms that have HUNDREDS of programs for men, women, kids, teens - theatre companies, sports of every kind, singles groups, senior groups, men groups, lots of "how to" classes and worship that some think their kids will prefer.

- Josiah

tango · Apr 5, 2018

You make an interesting point here Josiah, about turnover within a church. I remember reading something a while back about some cult-like "church" (I think it may have been IHOP but can't be sure) that was reckoned to have a huge rate of burnout among its youth but also had a huge rate of people looking to sign up and be a part of the movement.

However large the church is, I'm not sure that losing large numbers of people who have become burned out and disillusioned with what you're offering represents anything to be proud of even if every single person who leaves is replaced twice over.

tango · Apr 5, 2018

Another point - a friend of my wife's is the secretary for a Lutheran church in rural Pennsylvania. She makes no pretense about the fact that people typically don't join the church - children raised in the church may stay (although at least some leave) but those not raised in the church typically don't join and as the older members die so does the church.

Andrew · Apr 5, 2018

tango said:
Another point - a friend of my wife's is the secretary for a Lutheran church in rural Pennsylvania. She makes no pretense about the fact that people typically don't join the church - children raised in the church may stay (although at least some leave) but those not raised in the church typically don't join and as the older members die so does the church.

It seems like they wouldnt win any converts, i never heard "I was saved so I became a Lutheran". I could tho understand a Catholic going Lutheran but probably because they were raised Catholic as most of us were.

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Albion · Apr 5, 2018

Aside from the impact of immigration, something is afoot when it comes to church membership. We all know that people are not joiners in the way they used to be, but beyond that fact, I think that in the future we will have only one or a few churches in any town which will host several very broadly-based, merged or non-denominational churches together in the way (and looking like) the few hospitals we now have. Nothing like the small and highly specialized ones on every street corner we have known.

dealing with dead or dying churches or church splits

Have you ever been in a church that died or split?

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