Mark Clifton, Reclaiming Glory: Revitalizing Dying Churches (Nashville: B&H, 2016).

Does a local church have a right to exist? I don’t mean, legally. I mean, in the eyes of God.

In Revelation 2:1-7, Jesus dictates a letter to the church in Ephesus, warning them that if they do not do the works they did when they first loved Him, He will come and “take away their lampstand,” which most scholars understand to mean they will no longer exist as a church. Indeed, that is what happened. There is no church in Ephesus.

Local churches can die. Indeed, in Reclaiming Glory: Revitalizing Dying Churches, author Mark Clifton gives us some sobering statistics about dying churches:

• Approximately 70-80% of churches are either plateaued or in decline (p. xv).
• In 2016, 900 Southern Baptist churches closed per year
• Only 15% of SBC churches were healthy, growing

Why do churches die? I thought Clifton’s reasons were a thought-provoking checklist to evaluate the relative health of my church. Perhaps you can benefit from it as well.

1. “They value the process of decision more than the outcome of decision.”

“Dying churches love to discuss, debate, define, and describe. They live for business meetings—even if few people attend them. In the absence of meaningful ministry through the church, they often spend their time meeting together to make oftentimes meaningless decisions…It must also be said that sometimes their insistence on maintaining highly structured processes reflects a lack of trust in each other or certainly a lack of trust in leadership” (pp. 22-23).

2. “They value their own preferences over the needs of the unreached.”

“Dying churches tend to make their preferences paramount. Those preferences can include music, programs, preaching styles, uses of the building, resources shared with those outside the church compared to resources used for those within the church, and a host of other things” (p. 23).

3. “They have an inability to pass leadership to the next generation” (p. 24).
4. “They cease, often gradually, to be part of the fabric of their community.”

“Members of dying churches rarely live within walking distance of the church. They have typically long ago moved to other parts of town. What was once a community church has become a commuter church” (p. 25).

5. “They grow dependent upon programs or personalities for growth or stability.”

“Declining churches reach for programs and personalities they believe will turn the church around without embracing the changes needed to become healthy again…dying churches often think that applying programs and hiring personalities will be easy fixes to their problems. They quickly discover that neither fixes anything” (pp. 25-26).

6. “They tend to blame the community for a lack of response and, in time, grow resentful of the community for not responding as it once did.”

“Declining churches are often slow to believe the problem lies within” (p. 26).

Do you recognize your church in any of these descriptions?

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Send your questions or comments to shawn@freegrace.in.

Read his latest book, The Myth of Tithing and the Joy of Grace Giving by getting it from us or from Amazon.