500 Fewer Congregations of the Churches of Christ

A few weeks ago on a Saturday morning, I sat at the kitchen table scanning the obituaries in our local paper, the Amarillo Globe-News.

"I want to know what happened to them," I said.

"Who?" said my wife.

"All these people who just died. I mean, I don't want to be crass or voyeuristic or whatever. I just want to know how they died. Especially the young ones."

"I know what you mean," she said. "They never give the cause of death."

I had that same sort of feeling last week when I read for the second time that story in the Christian Chronicle, the one that reports the recent decline of Churches of Christ in America.

So many things come to mind. Most of them have been batted around the blogosphere over the last few weeks. Here's the part that I can't get out of my head: Apparently, over the last six years, Churches of Christ have lost over 500 congregations. Five hundred. That's more than one congregation a week closing its doors. I have a lot of questions about that. Don't you?

How did they die? Why did that happen? Where did the people who were still there go? Churches don't just disappear.

Of course, members of a now-closed congregation either became a part of another Church of Christ, or joined up with some other group, or dropped out altogether. That's something I wonder about too. What are the percentages for each category? Where did those people go?

Some of the churches that died had a lone preacher, presumably doing what he could to sow the seed of the kingdom and help others grow in the likeness of Christ. Where did he and his family go?

Some of the congregations that closed owned real estate and cash. What happened to that?

The more I thought about those questions, the more I remembered some of the stories from my past. During my years in New England, there were a handful of small, struggling churches that just couldn't hang on and eventually closed their doors.

One of them, a congregation in suburban Connecticut that had been around for several years, had come to depend heavily on one man. When he suddenly died, the church was at a loss. They closed up not long afterward. The church owned a building, which was sold. Over the next couple of years, the congregation where I preached received in the mail a few sizable, anonymous donations. I always figured that the money came from the proceeds from the sale of that building. But I wasn't sure.

Another church had been started by a group of young, bright, energetic Christians. They had worked for years, establishing an outpost for the kingdom of Christ. One of their leaders, a young man, tragically died. The group kept at it until many years later the congregation finally closed.

In the church closings I know of, the majority of the members went to one particular congregation of the Church of Christ because of convenience (it was the next nearest congregation), because of a studied consensus (that's where people from our group would fit in best), or because of some combination of those and other factors.

We should expect that congregations will die. One of the many things I learned from Evertt Huffard is that, unlike the kingdom of Christ, congregations are like people. They are born, they grow and reach a certain size and maturity. Sometimes they give birth to one or more congregations. But invariably, they get old, start to shrink, and finally die. I still wonder about the closing of more than 500 congregations in six years. Why did this Christian group I love so much lose so many churches in such a short time?

Turning to the future side of my question, if the cutting edge of the kingdom is the local congregation (a Phil Slate-ism), and if Churches of Christ want to do better than we have of late, wouldn't one of our main concerns be the planting of more new congregations?

Yes, as well as exciting, that sounds kind of scary. And it's got to be a lot of hard work. And, no, not every newly-planted church survives. But I believe that any emphasis designed to help us become more faithful and effective will include the intention to plant more, viable new congregations in places where there are lots of people.

That's what I'm thinking about today. What do you think?

1. Have you been a part of a congregation that made the decision to close? How did it come to that?

2. Have you been a part of a new church planting? What's that like? What are the ups and downs, the dos and don'ts of that process?

3. What are some of the church-planting bright spots among Churches of Christ today?

4. What does it take to adequately shape and train successful church planters? Who's doing an especially good job of that these days?

Latest Christian Chronicle and the Shrinking Globe

The July issue of the Christian Chronicle arrived in the mail a few days ago. A story on the front cover, Scout's death latest in string of tragedies, reminded me of the unspeakable pain in our world. Even those who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, says Paul, grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. There is a real, undeniable sense in which none of us have been saved. Not yet.

While I wait, I can't help being irritated by the story Teachers quit over music document. It seems that if you're a faculty member at Columbia Academy in Tennessee, you have to sign a document in which you affirm your belief in God as Creator and Jesus as God's son. Fair enough. Columbia Academy is a Christian school. Oh, but you also have to affirm "a cappella singing in worship assemblies" and "weekly observance of the Lord's Supper." And if the congregation you attend happens to host a Good Friday service that includes instruments? Well, read the story and see what you think.

I was glad to see the story OVU steps up recruiting efforts in the Northeast. It would be great to see the number and vitality of the Churches of Christ in the northeastern United States growing right along with Ohio Valley University. Of the Christian colleges affiliated with the Churches of Christ, OVU, located in Vienna and Parkersburg, West Virginia, is the only one that far north and east.

I love the Christian Chronicle. It's one of the few publications I just have to read as soon as it arrives.

Speaking of newspapers, the front page of today's Amarillo Globe-News includes a note from the publisher, Les Simpson. Prices for everything are going up, he says. And that includes newsprint, the single largest expense of the newspaper. So, the Globe-News will no longer provide a full page of stock listings. Instead, we'll get a short list of stocks of local interest. Instead of two pages of editorials, we'll get one. And, last but certainly not least, the comics will also go from two pages to one. I haven't checked to see if "Zits" has been cut. I hope not.

As I read the notice, I was reminded of how the Chronicle recently had to reduce its size because of skyrocketing costs. All this makes me wonder about the future of newspapers.

Got any ideas about that?

U.S. Churches of Christ at a Standstill

The latest issue of The Christian Chronicle includes a story about the marginal numeric growth of the Churches of Christ in the United States.

From 1980 to 2006, the U.S. population rose by more than 32%. In the same period of time, Churches of Christ grew in number; but only by 1.6%. You can read the article here.

Naturally, a lot of insiders are talking about the causes of the stagnation. Some of that analysis is found at the end of that first article. You can read additional responses and comments here.

A teacher-n-preacher type within this group, I've had two main thoughts about all this:

1. It's obvious that the strong and sweeping doctrinal consensus that once characterized the Churches of Christ and that, more importantly, is/was constitutive of its identity, has disintegrated. It certainly feels like that trend will continue. And it doesn't seem like Humpty Dumpty will ever be put back together again.

That's the dire side of it. In spite of that observation, though, what continues to amaze me is the stubbornness of tradition (ours and everyone's). I'm not saying it's a good or a bad thing. I'm just saying that it is. I mean, for all of the positive differences that "progressive" Churches of Christ see in themselves, are they really that different? I don't think so.

2. Increasingly, I have little patience for the idea that I've heard so many times now: "We've got to start evangelizing so that we (our congregation, our world-wide group) can survive." Is that ever a motivation for Christian mission in, say, the Book of Acts? When does that sentiment cross the line between "wrong-headed" and "idolatrous"? Why don't more of our church leaders recognize how unChristian it is to try to attract and convert people to Christ so that we can have more people in the pews and, above all, more givers? How would you like to be the target of such "evangelism"? Lord, deliver us from self-centeredness.