The New Math of Church Mergers

An option once seen as a failed strategy is now giving many congregations a new lease on life.

In 1981 Lyle Schaller said, “Mergers are usually losers. We had a rash of congregational mergers in the 60s, and the churches or denominations that pushed those have pretty well backed off; the merger system didn’t work. The feelings of historical identity generally prove to be too strong.”

He wasn’t alone; most pastors saw merging with another church as a worst-case scenario. A dying church would attach itself to a healthy church, dragging both down in the process.

But now mergers are back on the rise. Thanks in large part to the innovations of the multisite movement, they have become a viable, even positive, option for churches on the brink of closure—and for many that are doing just fine. According to a 2016 Barna study, 89 percent of churches that underwent a merger or acquisition reported a positive result. We spoke with Jim Tomberlin, founder and CEO of MultiSite Solutions, about why more churches than ever are entertaining the merger Read More

Among Schaller's findings was that when two weak churches merge, the result is a weak church. Yoking two or more weak churches together with one pastor serving the yoked churches--a common practice in mainline denominations--led to one church receiving more attention from the pastor than the others.