Bill Easums Observations

One of the new realities of new, thriving churches is the less they do the more they grow. Sounds strange, doesn’t it. Here’s what I mean.  I’m seeing more and more new, thriving churches doing only a hand full of ministries, usually limited to worship, small groups, and children and youth worship, and missions- and nothing more. Thus, less is more.

And the converse is true.  I see more and more declining churches with a full calendar of events. The goal of many pastors seems to be “if I can get new people involved in something, I’ve got them.”  So, they heap one program on top of another in hopes of involving more people.  Whereas this method worked when the church was more at the center of society, nothing now could be farther from the truth. All over-programming does today is split up families one more time as if society doesn’t do that enough.

So why not start cancelling all of the programs you have to annually prop up by begging people to attend? Then look over all of your programs and ask “Which ones really contribute to the spiritual or numerical growth of our church? And then discontinue all of those that do not contribute.

You see one of the mistakes most churches make is they tie their new people up in some many church activities that within a couple of years they don’t have any unchurched friends anymore.  Instead of bringing people to church two or three times a week, train them to spend time with their unchurched friends and let them see what it means to be a Christian. You’ll see a marked improvement in the number of new people showing up.   

Bill Easum

For much of the past three decades, denominational officials have been promoting seminars and programs aimed at revitalizing the church. I know because I have been the speaker or consultant to many of these groups. For many of these leaders, their goal was to breathe new life into churches experiencing declining memberships and lack of commitment. Yet after years of trying to revitalize these churches, the vast majority of them are still declining. What gives?

Reformation, renewal, and revitalization assume some preexisting foundation of faith from which to raise up a new church. But what if that assumption isn’t correct? What if the assumption is part of our problem? What if being a member of a church for 40 years doesn’t automatically guarantee any spiritual depth? What if holding every office in the church doesn’t automatically mean someone is a disciple of Jesus Christ? Do we dare look deep enough into our souls to find answers to these questions?

Based on the conversations and actions of the thousands of Protestant leaders with whom I worked over the years, I have concluded that most of them are spiritually dead and their institutions have ceased being the church. They have the form but not the substance of what it means to be the church.

Let me define what I mean by spiritually dead churches. If your church spends most of its energy on itself and its members, it’s spiritually dead.

Such churches are living corpses. They are physically alive; some may even be growing; but they are spiritually dead to the mission of the New Testament church—to make disciples of Jesus Christ. They’ve turned inward and exist solely for themselves. They look for ways to serve themselves, and the kingdom be damned.

They’re like baby birds sitting in the nest with their mouths open waiting for momma bird (pastor) to feed them with no concept that Jesus intends them to feed others. Oh, they might collect money to send away to some distant mission field, but they’re all thumbs when it comes to sharing the good news with their neighbor or community. What growth they might experience is not of their doing—it just happens because of the population growth around them.

Here are eight death clues. Spiritually dead churches:

1. Have lost their sense of mission to those who have not heard about Jesus Christ and do not pant after the Great Commission;
2. Exist primarily to provide fellowship for the “members of the club;”
3. Expect their pastors to focus primarily on ministering to the members’ personal spiritual needs;
4. Design ministry to meet the needs of their members;
5. Have no idea about the needs of the “stranger outside the gates;”
6. Are focused more on the past than the future;
7. Often experience major forms of conflict;
8. And watch the bottom line of the financial statement more than the number of confessions of faith.

Bringing life back

The starting point for unfreezing a stuck organizational system is the development of a solid community of faith that includes spiritual leaders, the absence of major conflict, trust, and a desire to connect with the unchurched world.

True spiritual maturity is approached when people turn their attention to those outside the church and seek ways to spread the good news rather than exercise their entitlements as members. Unfortunately, too many pastors assume their church has spiritual leaders and skip right over this starting point. It has become apparent to me that most church leaders do not understand that the decline of their church is due to the lack of spiritual depth on the part of their leadership.

So, now, I want to go deeper on the spiritual issue. It’s not just that our churches are stuck; they are spiritually bankrupt!

I know. These churches are filled mostly with good Christian people, but there’s no discernable spiritual power, just good Christian people—and we all know what Jesus said about being good. (Mark 10:18)

So it’s obvious. Isn’t it? The only solution for spiritually dead congregations is resurrection. You can’t revitalize something that is dead. They must be brought to life again! And that is resurrection.

Revitalization is a waste of time. You can’t breathe life into a corpse. Only God can do that, and that is resurrection.

My experience has taught me the resurrection of a church happens in three stages. It begins with a new pastor. Either the pastor experiences a personal resurrection or the church actually gets a new pastor. Next is the resurrection of the leaders of the church either by transformation or replacement. Finally, the church itself is resurrected and turned around through some tactical change. Then, if resurrection happens, our behavior changes:

1. The church turns outward in its focus.
2. Jesus, not the institution, will become the object of our affection.
3. The Great Commission will become our mandate, and we will measure everything we do by how many new converts we make rather than whether we have a black bottom line.
4. Membership in the Kingdom will replace membership in the church.
5. Pastors will cease being chaplains of pastoral care and will become modern-day apostles of Jesus Christ.
6. And those who try to control the church with an iron fist or intimidate the church at every turn of the road will be shown the door.

The primary reason society is shunning the institutional church is because for the most part it is spiritually dead. Spiritually alive churches, no matter what their form or where they are planted, always grow. That is the nature of the beast. That is the kind of church God honors. That is what the church was put on earth to do—spread the good news. When a church faithfully does that, it grows. Period.

Adapted from “A Second Resurrection” by Bill Easum from Abingdon Press  

The American Church in Crises
David Olsen

This is a must read for any Christian leader who wants to play a part in what God is doing in our world at this point in time. Olsen has given us a priceless book. It’s not doom and gloom. It clearly shows the way forward. The hope of the American church lies in planting churches.

Here is some of the information

1) Less than 20% of Americans regularly attend church - half of what the pollsters report. There are approximately 330,000 churches in America; out of those churches approximately 17.7% (52 million) of Americans attend church on an average Sunday. 2) American church attendance is steadily declining.

• Evangelical 9.2%
• Catholic 5.5%
• Mainline 3.1%

3) Only one state is outpacing its population growth. Hawaii. 4) Mid-sized churches are shrinking; the smallest and largest churches are growing.

• Churches under 50 and over 2,000 are growing
• Average attendance of Protestant church: 124
• 1,250 mega-churches in America/one emerges every three days

5) Established churches, 40-190 years old - are, on average, declining. New church starts reach more people better, faster, cheaper than existing churches. 6) The increase in churches is only ¼ of what’s needed to keep up with population growth.

• 3,000 churches close every year
• 3,800 new church starts survived
• Net annual gain: 800 new churches
• Net annual gain needed to keep up with population growth:10,000 new churches

7) In 2050, the percentage of the U.S. population attending church will be almost half of what it was in 1990.

• US Population in 1990: 248 million/20.4% church attendance
• US Population in 2050: 520 million/11.7% church attendance

I’m not prone to using many superlatives when reviewing a book. But in the case of The Multiplying Church by Bob Roberts of Northwood Church. I reached into my bag of superlatives for one big enough to describe the importance of this book and I couldn’t find one.  I tried them all and they all came up short. This simply is perhaps the most important book written for our time other than the Bible.  Roberts has given us a must read.What I like most about the book is that it transcends all planting or institutional models and incorporates the best of the attractional and incarnational conversations and nails the purpose of the church- not to talk about God, but Jesus!Way to go Bob. The Kingdom is much richer thanks to you.

People who have followed my writings know that I was one of the first proponents of churches having a permission-giving attitude and ministry. My book, Sacred Cows Make Gourmet Burgers, clearly defined how churches developed a permission-giving compared to “We’ve always done it this way” attitude.  As a result of this attitude, healthy churches usually developed multiple ministries, and grew because of the variety of ministries offered.

Now, however, I’m finding many strong churches who are doing just the opposite. Instead of lots of programs or ministries, they do only two things- worship and small groups that meet in homes. These churches usually do so for two reasons: one, they believe that small groups is the best way to disciple and retain people; and two,  because of the time crunch most Americans find themselves in.

I just finished reading Sticky Church by Larry Osborne, pastor of North Coast Church in Vista, CA. The premise of the book is that it is more important to close the back door than to keeping trying to open the front door wider. Instead of focusing on bringing in more people it is better to focus on giving great care to the present participants. And the way they have closed the back door at North Coast is by doing sermon-based small groups, and not much else. Worship and small groups seems to be a growing tide in the U.S.

Upon reflection, I feel the two different approaches have to do with type of church I might be consulting with. In most mainline churches that have been around more than 10 years I strongly recommend the permission-giving attitude because most of them are mostly stuck in the past.  However, for a new church plant or a very progressive church I recommend the church only do two things- worship and small groups.

I strongly recommend this book to those who are working with time crunched Americans.  It has a lot of wisdom to share on how to disciple them. The book will surprise many long time church goers.

Bill Easum