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Every church starts with the desire to be a healthy, growing church that helps change the community around it with the gospel. No church begins with the desire to be an insular community that has “a country club mentality.”

The longer a church exists, the more difficult it becomes to keep the original vision and excitement. Families grow up, leaders get older, and communities around the church change. Slowly, the leadership team that was bustling with new ideas starts to recycle old ones. What was once new starts to feel stale. 

And many times, the church and its leaders are unaware of the shift that has occurred within them, the church, and the surrounding community. 

The question becomes, what is a church supposed to do? If a church is beginning to decline, can it reverse the decline and return to the glory days? Or are those days past? And if you are in a church that isn’t declining, how do you know if it will begin to decline?

Can a church reverse the decline? Or are the best days behind your church?
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If, as Jim Collins says in Good to Great, “Leadership begins with getting people to confront the brutal facts and act on the implications,” then we as church leaders must confront the brutal facts about our churches and act on the implications. 

Often, the leaders of churches in decline do not want to face the brutal facts. This can happen for several reasons. One, the brutal facts are uncomfortable. It means admitting that what was once a thriving church no longer is. It might mean admitting that they led the church into decline. Two, it means acknowledging that the community around the church has shifted and changed, and the church didn’t change with it. Third, it means facing grief and loss—the loss of influence as a church, the loss of staff and members. Facing the brutal facts means facing reality, and for many people within churches, that brings a lot of discomfort, and we’d rather focus on the positive. 

3 reasons we don’t confront the brutal facts in our churches.
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However, the second part of Collins’s challenge is equally difficult: Act on the implications.

Not only are we to face reality, but we are also to act on what those facts reveal. As we will see, this means praying and asking God for what He has for the church’s future, dreaming together, and experimenting. It might mean ending specific ministries, changing how you do small groups and make disciples, or it might mean changing how the people in the church relate to each other. It is just as uncomfortable as, and possibly more painful than, facing the brutal facts because acting on the implications is the moment of change. 

Acting on the implications is challenging for a church and its leaders. For many leaders, the culture shift is difficult because they are often unaware of it or unprepared to address it. They are blind to the change happening in the community around their church and to the needs of those people. 

How do you face the brutal facts? How do you do that, especially if you are a new leader at your church? Charles Stone says there are five ways to define reality:

1. Take your church’s pulse. 
2. Decipher the unwritten code.
3. Discover the wounds from the past.
4. Clarify the church’s overall health stage. 
5. Match strategy to situation. 

5 ways for pastors to define reality for their church.
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These steps of defining reality help pastors understand the first steps of revitalization, how to move forward, and how to help their people navigate the steps to rebuilding. 

How to define reality for your church when no one wants to see reality.
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Looking at most churches in decline from the outside, the decline seems obvious. But when you are inside the decline, it is easy to miss.

The same is true when it comes to our health or relationships. We don’t see ourselves putting on 20 pounds, but those around us do. We don’t see our marriage grow stale or difficult, but those around us might see it.

The same happens in churches. Those within the church who show up weekly don’t always see the signs of decline or even feel it. Those outside of the church or those who visit see it.

When I interviewed with CCC, I received an almost 200-page report from the organization they used for the intentional interim time. At its peak, CCC had nearly 600 people in 2013, but then it began a decline. Many of the comments from people within the church led to the reality that most people were unaware of the decline.

This happens in many different churches for different reasons. People move away, retire, change churches, or stop attending church. But as you show up week in and week out (or, as the most recent stats say, “1.8 times a month”), you might miss when people are gone.

What turns the tide? 

How do you lead so that this does not happen or so that you are aware when it begins to happen?

How to avoid church decline.
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The first is to define reality and never lose sight of it, even when it is painful. Jim Collins says, “The leader’s first job is to face the brutal facts and not lose hope.”

This is easier said than done. 

The leader’s first job is to face the brutal facts and not lose hope. -Jim Collins
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Often, we don’t want to face reality because we allow it to happen, and it reflects poorly on us. Or, as leaders, we think we need to constantly be positive and optimistic about the future. While your mood does determine a lot for your team and organization, you must face the brutal facts and not lose hope. 

Another piece that can be difficult when facing the reality in front of you is if you are new to your church or role and didn’t cause the reality you are facing, but your predecessor did. This situation is fraught with landmines. As a new leader, you come into the church with fresh eyes and see what many others no longer see or no longer want to see. And while you might be correct in how you see reality (at least you think you are), it is only your perspective. For this leader, ask curious questions and listen. The best way to help a church face reality is for them to see reality on their own, not because you tell them reality. 

What do you do if you didn’t lead the church to decline but inherited it?
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What if you are the pastor who led a church into decline, and you are now seeing reality? Is it too late? The short answer is no, but the road ahead is more challenging. 

Any church experiencing decline has been in decline for years, sometimes decades. This means that unhealthy leadership patterns, community, etc., have slowly begun to develop roots and become the church culture or “the way we do things here.” Breaking these patterns is incredibly difficult and takes intentional steps because you will be undoing old patterns and constantly saying, “We don’t do that around here anymore.” 

This leads to the second idea to turn the tide…

The second is to think in terms of years rather than days. Leaders and churches are often caught up in the daily rush of what is next. After all, Sunday comes every seven days. You might be in a season where you need to think in days because your church is in steep decline or you are running out of money. But most churches are not in that situation. 

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said, “Individuals count the days, but leaders must count the years.” This means pastors and leaders must consistently think not only about the coming Sunday or quarter but also about the next five, ten, or twenty years. Where will the church be next year? What does this decision mean five years from now?

Many churches will make decisions around their facilities. These huge decisions can tie a church to debt and hamstring it. Adding that new wing, or not, how does that impact your church in five years? While you can convince yourself about the growth that may come from adding to your building or building a new building (and it might), there will also be some unintended consequences that you must be aware of. If not for yourself, do it for those who will inherit the debt. 

Another one is staffing. You need to hire a new staff member, and finding great staff members is challenging. So, you settle. They aren’t exactly what you want, but you need someone. The hard truth about the wrong hire is that it can dearly cost your church and leadership. The wrong hire can set you back years in terms of vision, momentum, and cost well into the six figures. You are not just hiring someone for today but for the coming years and potentially decades. They will help or hurt your vision and the culture you create or change. 

2 ways to avoid church decline.
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Have you ever seen a church fall?

We’ve seen leaders fall, but what about churches? Once, they were growing, healthy, seeing people come to faith and grow in maturity, and then, seemingly overnight, that wasn’t happening. At first, the people in the church are completely unaware of it. Giving or attendance may dip a little bit, but leaders explain it away. But slowly, if you look closer, you see that the church has lost hundreds of people in a few years.

But why?

Because a church loses its way, they didn’t do it on purpose, but slowly, they did.

Years ago, I read a fantastic book by Jim Collins called How the Mighty Fall. In it, he lays out how companies fall, and often, they fall, and they are completely unaware of it. While the book has a lot of insights for pastors and churches, there are some clear reasons a church falls.

But how does a church fall?

You could say it’s when they lose their purpose, take their eyes off Jesus, and focus on man, buildings, money, etc. But the reality is that a church can do that and not fall. They can keep growing, reaching people, and doing things. It is often, in looking back, that we see a church has fallen. 

We could say it is through metrics. When attendance or giving drops, salvation, and baptisms drop, a church has fallen. But that can also be a seasonal thing, a situation or crisis the church is going through that needs to be weathered. 

The other day, I found myself in 2 Kings 17 in my daily reading. At the top of my building is a heading that reads “Why Israel Fell.” As I read it, the comparisons for churches were striking. The writer of 2 Kings lays out 3 reasons why Israel fell, and I think have profound implications for pastors and churches. 

Here they are: 

3 things that lead to a decline in the church.
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Doing what is right in their own eyes. This is a common refrain in the Old Testament, specifically the book of Judges. The people fall away when they do what is right in their own eyes. When this line appears in Scripture, you know that sin is a major part of people’s lives: idol worship, forgetting the work of God, and moving away from God’s commandments. 

Churches do this when they start doing things to gain a crowd instead of forming people in the likeness of Jesus. This happens within church communities when sin abounds, people are in conflict, and it isn’t resolved, gossip runs rampant, and people are divisive around things they shouldn’t be about. 

Repeating the past and not learning from it. One of the biggest struggles for a church in decline is to try to recapture the glory days or when things were working in a church. The thinking goes if we can get back to what we were doing, then everything will be okay, or we will return to what it was. Or, if we can do the ministries we used to do, we will be where we used to be. And while that can be true, it rarely is. Those ministries and how they were being done can often be what led to the decline. 

Recapturing the past or the glory days will rarely turn a church in decline around.
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To move forward and keep a church from decline, it must move into the new season that God has for it. We must celebrate and remember what God did in the past but not cling to it. 

The other trap the church falls into is not learning from the past. Often, when a church goes through a difficult season, it is easy to pin that season on one person or a group of people without looking under the hood of the church to ask how that happened or what is in the DNA of the church that might need to be dealt with. Churches have origin stories, like families, and there are things within the emotional system of a church that will continue to be passed down if they aren’t dealt with. 

Not doing the will of God. The last thing a church that falls does, and this will be obvious, but not doing the will of God. The Bible is clear on what the church should be about and focused on. Yet, many churches find themselves not doing those things because of what they think or want churches to do or because the church down the road does it or has this ministry or that one. Also, churches overlook the season God has their church in and want to fight against it. When that happens, it only leads to hurt feelings and frustrations. 

3 things churches do that lead to decline and frustration.
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Can you believe it is 2021?!

It is almost hard to believe that the calendar has turned and it is a new year, but it does feel good. Even if the cloud of covid is still hanging over us, it has been a few months since I shared a Friday Five, but I thought the first full week of 2021 would be a good time to dust it off.

So here goes:

Favorite books:

I read two books over the Christmas break that were both incredibly helpful and timely. One was The Motive: Why So Many Leaders Abdicate Their Most Important Responsibilities by Patrick Lencioni. It was timely because this a great book to look at the heart behind your leadership. Doing that over the New Year was good for me as I think about where I am in life and look forward to 2021 and beyond. 

The second book was Future Church: Seven Laws of Real Church Growth by Will Mancini. This book, every pastor needs to read and wrestle with as we think about what ministry will actually look like in the future and how to reach people best. 

Favorite podcasts:

One of my favorite podcasts is The Learning Leader. Recently, Ryan Hawk released two episodes (How To Create A Generosity Flywheel, Make The Trust Wager, & Earn WHO Luck and The Art Of Getting People To Want To Do What Must Be Done), Jim Collins. There is so much in both of these episodes, especially for pastors.

Favorite blog posts:

Carey Nieuwhof every year posts his church trends. This week he shared 8 trends that churches need to be aware of as we move into 2021. Some highlights to me: #1 is something all communicators and worship leaders have to think about as they prepare each week and lead from the stage, #2 & #5 closely echoes Mancini’s book about what the future of the church will look like, I love the creativity and possibilities of #4, and #6 is one that cannot be overlooked because that will have an enormous impact on what churches do (especially as it relates to who they are trying to reach and connect with).

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All leaders know that nagging feeling. It keeps them up at night, gives them indigestion. It creates anxiety, stress and even anger. What is it from? Having the wrong person in a leadership role. Sometimes it might be a mismatch of skill, it may be that the person isn’t capable of leading a ministry or team at the size that it is (many planters run into this when they have someone who can lead a team when the church has 50 people but that person isn’t the right leader when the church is 250), or it might be a character issue that has caused your stress. But how do you know? How do you know past a feeling that someone shouldn’t be in the leadership role they’re in?

Jim Collins in Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t said,

Two key questions can help. First, if it were a hiring decision (rather than a “should this person get off the bus?” decision), would you hire the person again? Second, if the person came to tell you that he or she is leaving to pursue an exciting new opportunity, would you feel terribly disappointed or secretly relieved?

But how do you know ahead of time? All of us have led people who shouldn’t be leading, weren’t bought in or weren’t capable of leading in the role they are in.

In his helpful book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Greg McKeown said,

If the answer isn’t a definite yes then it should be a no.

While McKeown was applying that to opportunities, I think it is incredibly applicable to hiring someone, raising up a volunteer leader or putting someone into a new leadership role.

If you have a gut feeling they shouldn’t be there, wait. If a trusted leader tells you to wait, listen up.

If someone seems over anxious to lead something, wait. If someone seems to be hiding something or something doesn’t add up about them, wait.

There is no harm in waiting.

I know. I hear you church planter and pastor. You need someone. Who is doing it if you don’t put someone into place?

Possibly you. Possibly no one. You may need to wait on a ministry or miss a vision opportunity because you don’t have the people you need.

There have been times Revolution has missed opportunities or we’ve not grown or we haven’t done a ministry because we didn’t have a leader. This is hard and sometimes people leave because of it and you lose momentum or people.

Those are never easy, but they are all easier than having to remove the wrong person.

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