It was church growth and then the megachurch movement.
Now its church plants, multiple sites, and networks.
Soon it will be multiple churches merging.
At least that is my personal guess.
The landscape is changing and as churches struggle to adapt they will be forced to pursue options for survival. A merge will be in many respects the next logical step.
Denominational and historical ties for church involvement are waning. No longer do most people look for a church based on the specific branch of Protestantism and with the increasing mobility of society they lack any sort of family ties to a local church. In some ways this is the consumer mindset seeping into church that has been a bane for some time, but it is also a matter of people finding vibrant churches. This is not an indictment of the small local church, but there is something to be said for healthy churches that are growing in every sense of the word and conversely those churches that are in decline.
So what would a church merge look like?
- A growing church without a facility being invited to use that of a declining church
- Multiple churches meeting in the same physical space at different times
- Declining communities combining to pool resources, staff, and influence
- Combining efforts for specific ministry initiatives. Why have two VBS programs when you can one great one?
All of this will of course rise and fall on leadership. It will be the leaders who have to set the tone and work through the details and it will be on the leaders to navigate a merge with humility. Because the term “merge” is the term that will be used, but it isn’t completely accurate.
When one church joins another, it isn’t a merge, it is a hostile takeover. For a true merge to occur one leadership culture must step back allowing the other to assert itself as primary. This will be the sticking point for declining churches who will struggle to do this well. Declining churches can of course turn things around, but a merge can be the manifestation of that change.
Like everything with the local church it comes back to leadership. Not just leaders who understand every principle and have read every book, but the leaders who understand they must become humble followers first and that their leadership should reflect that.
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Don’t you think its just more likely that a church would rather die than merge with another church? This is sad, but seems to be more likely.
I have talked to one older guy at a Lutheran church that acknowledges that they have to do something different to reach the younger generation. Maybe this is the beginnings of people recognizing the need for change. But you still have to get the rest of the church on board with this…
I also listened to a sermon recently (and I don’t know where he got his info from) but he said its much easier to just plant a new church than try to save a dying church.
There will be churches that simply decide to cease to exist, but I think reality will sink in for many and a merger or allowing another church to come in is the only way for a legacy to continue.
In many ways starting something new is easier, bit not in every way. Harder to navigate in terms of leadership, but perhaps easier financially or in terms of a space. Which are often some of the biggest struggles of a plant.
I think merges have been tried in the past. I haven’t heard of any of them being successful. It would require great leadership to pull it off. Unfortunately, a church in decline is usually that way due to LACK of great leadership. In my hometown, it was much more common for the small local churches to bleed members to the megachurch until they had only 10-20 left and had to close their doors. Going this direction is actually a lot less painful than trying to perform the open-heart surgery of a merge since it happens slowly over time.
the slow decline towards healthier and/or larger churches has been my experience as well. My hope is that leaders recognize this before the point of no return and are proactive, instead of just hoping that things turn around.
I have seen mergers of different sorts go through with different levels of success. In one case, two churches shared staff members so they both had a preacher and a youth minister instead of having two churches each with only a preacher. The ministers, of course, hope to complete the merge in time.
In another case, a larger church is seeking to bring a smaller struggling church in a nearby town under their leadership as a sort of satellite campus. The move would immediately serve to double or triple attendance in the smaller church as the larger one currently has several families driving in from that town or through it. The current struggle is the pride/possessiveness of the smaller congregation. Of course that is why they are smaller.
Ultimately, at least one part of the merge needs to have it together to an extent or they will just fail together. It seems like a natural response to the issues of increased mobility and expectations of quality, and I have often dreamed of being able to team up with another church in ways large and small to pool resources and overcome certain weaknesses.
Good point that one church needs to be healthy. I can’t think of an example or imagine a situation that two struggling churches can simply combine and succeed.