Books: The Role of the Minister in a Dying Congregation

Sunday morning worship concluded, the last person left the sanctuary, and I was ready to go home and enjoy a relaxing afternoon. Another challenging week of pastoral care demands from the aging congregation of Southampton Baptist Church had left me feeling drained. Instead of leaving, though, I hung up my coat and tie, grabbed paper and pen, and headed to the fellowship hall for lunch and a meeting with the study team.

I had urged the church to form this team of ten volunteers for the purpose of completing a study that would record the church’s past, describe its present, and provide insight into its future. The team had worked for eight months collecting information, searching documents, and poring over records to amass a twenty-five-year history of the church. After sharing their study with a congregational health consultant and meeting with him twice to discuss their findings, they were now gathering to process what they had discovered. The consultant had confirmed their findings.... Read more