Your Church Will Die (Part 1)

I think that your church will die. I don’t mean in the metaphysical die-to-self sense. I mean in the cease to exist, disappear from the planet, pushing up daisies sense. And not just your church; I think all churches will eventually die.

I don’t think it is because church leaders are doing anything wrong. If that were the case every church planter who lived before you did it wrong too. Check the records. Every local church planted in the last 2000 years has eventually died. (The building may still stand, but now tourists pay to see the corpse. A building is not a church.) The Apostle Paul was a master church planter, and yet none of his churches survived. There are remnants of dead churches all over the world, and your church will die too, trust me on this.

Here is the ironic part; I think God wants your church to die. If he wasn’t ok with dying churches it seems at least one would have pulled through. We’d get a flyer in the mail saying, “Come celebrate First Church’s 250^th anniversary this weekend. Help us break the 10 million attenders barrier.” The reality is that churches, all churches, have a life cycle. They go from birth to maturity to decline and eventually death. We can live in denial, we can lament the reality, or we can embrace the truth. Churches die. Read more