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Our church is also made up of predominantly older saints, several of whom have adopted the unhealthy mindset that “I’ve done my time now it’s the next generation’s turn”. Very few of them invite people to church, believing that to be part of the Pastors responsibilities. I have concluded that unless we have a major attitude shift back to personal accountability, we will cease to exist in a decade or so. We do a lot of things in our church to bring visitors in and we are doing pretty well at that. The problem we have is that most don’t stick around because they are looking for a younger crowd with newer music etc. There is no perfect answer so we keep trying hoping to turn the tide________________“Hell will be filled with people that didn’t cuss, didn’t drink, and may even have been baptized. Why? Because none of those things makes someone a Christian.”

There are many reasons why, which have been shared already, but the results are the same. Dwindling and aging church members, who meet in a building they sacrificed to build forty years ago. Their children and grand children have stopped coming and if they are going to church, the grandparents long to be with them, no matter what the music or style of church.Many of us have set through seminars, or at least read the books of John Maxwell. As he says, Everything rises and falls on leadership, or something along those lines. If you have an aging ministry who have fought their battles make their sacrifices and given their all to build churches and congregations, that might be a problem (I may be speaking of myself, Lord help me!). We just want to get to retirement without another mountain to climb. I will point to one source who said a church should move its location every 20 to 30 years, perhaps to the newer communities where your people and new people are moving (but that sounds like a lot of work and struggle with members). Finally, denominations develop a culture, and culture keeps you cornered. It you only developed well educated ministers, they often look for positions which with packages that match their knowledge (experience seems to be trumped by education now a days). Gone are the days when those called to the ministry would leave their family, hometown and jobs to plant a church where they knew there was a need (this was common culture in the Pentecostal Movement up until a generation ago). However, members have developed expectation of experience, in that they want their church experience to be more macro than micro. They want the bells and whistles of a large/mega church with less individual accountability. I blame Disney for the church being a theme park for the lukewarm (the mouse never died for anybody’s soul to be saved, his eye is on your wallet and he’s watching you).

I think WAY too much is expected of pastors, in terms of building and maintaining a congregation. They have most of the responsibility, but almost none of the control. Our numbers are dwindling pastor, what are you doing about it?I can’t tell you how often I’ve been asked why, a certain family isn’t coming to church. Have you called and checked on them?.Yeah, I have. And they don’t answer the phone. They don’t return my calls. They don’t answer my texts, or emails. Or they tell me flat out, We’ll be there when we can. We are really busy with camping, travel ball, and dance competitions. Pastors can’t fix priorities.It bugs me when people suggest that pastors aren’t doing enough, when people don’t come….or they leave the church…. for reasons that are outside of a ministers control.We go camping and to ball games on weekends

It is EVERYONE’S job to try to bring in new sheep. It so happens, though, that the pastor has an ADDITIONAL job–that of feeding and shepherding the sheep. In a sense, everyone in a congregation is responsible for the church. It seems quite foolish for a sailor to let a ship sink because of something that wasn’t my job.HOWEVER, there are additional considerations….Like neighborhoods, churches have lifespans. What used to be the up-and-coming side of town eventually will become older, worn, and the such, while other areas are now doing most of the growing. I have never heard of the need to MOVE a church every so often, but that actually makes sense! It has been my thinking that a church must renew itself in some way–it may be a new pastor, a building program, an outreach program, etc., but doing so keeps it on the radar. North Cleveland, along with having its traditional attractiveness to nearby Lee students and COG leadership, has also upgraded its facilities every 20 years or so, since the 1970s (maybe earlier), I believe.But there’s still more to it….Churches, over time, can get a reputation. All it takes is one pastor to tarnish a church’s image. In some cases, however, it has to do with the traditional hardness that we holiness folks exhibited back in the day. People were hurt and run off, and that gets around.If a pastor has a moral failure, that often gets around, and that damages the church’s reputation. Add to that the fact that not only do churches have lifespans, so do towns/areas. There are places that used to exist that don’t even show up on a map any longer…or have just been swallowed up by a larger city. When places change, people often move on for any number of reasons: Jobs, to be closer to the children/parents, to move to another better part of the city, to get away from higher crime rates, etc. And that church that is still there often gets left behind (which is a good argument for moving every so often).Also, people age. As they get older, they cannot do all they used to do. They may now be on fixed incomes. On and on. And a church loses what I call critical mass. To simply that, I simply mean that it’s not enough to have a match. You must also have something to strike it on. You must also have something available to set fire to. if any of these are missing….And because of a lack of critical mass, church programs/ministries begin to fade, attendance begins to fade because they don’t have available the things that people would want (e.g., a good Youth Group), the congregation’s average age is older, this, in turn, affects the sort of music that might be played, affects that number and/or quality of the music program, income, etc.In my small neck of the woods–Jasper, FL–we have three good Churches of God in our county. Ideally, we would merge, since we all kind of lean the same way and love each other. But the problem is that these churches are a minimum of 10 miles away from each other, and that almost certainly ensures that, no matter where we merged to, there would be a number of people who simply would not travel that far.This also creates problems in areas like…who will be the pianist, who will lead the choir, who will teach the adult Sunday School, which pastor will be the head pastor? Even though there is love among our three churches, I imagine that there would still be some fitting issues. Pastors can do things differently, and that can create some friction. Ideally, if the other facilities were sold, this would enable one the newly-merged church to have significant fund for the future.

It always seems easier to find somewhere or someone on which to fix the blame, than it is to find understanding, and develop solutions to the situations we face. I think we feel that pointing a finger of blame frees us of the feeling of responsibility for what is, and removes us from the list of those who need to do something about it. So we blame. And nothing good comes from it.Early on as Covid was ravaging our nation and world, and as communities and churches were shut down for an extended of time, I participated in Zoom meetings where the issues we were facing were discussed. We were told back then (Spring/Summer of 2020) that an extended season of shut down would likely result in a loss of 30% of our pre-covid congregation. For most of the pastors I know, they were right, if not low in their estimate. Some people aged out, becoming too old or physically unable to return to in-house services. Some people chose not to utilize the different methods offered to stay connected to their church during the shut down time. Weeks became months, and for some, now years, and they disconnected from church. At first they answered with, we are just trying to stay out of environments that put us at risk for covid. But at this point, they mostly just admit that they have gotten out of the habit, and are struggling to get back in. And some saw the opportunity to graze in new/other pastures, and have moved on. Who/what is to blame? Everyone. Life. An uncontrollable, extended situation. Imperfect responses to an unpredictable, drastically and constantly shifting environment. Life… Everyone…Should pastors be engaged in the growth of the church? Absolutely! Should members be engaged in the growth of the church? Absolutely! Should everyone in the church embrace the responsibility of the church being a place where people feel welcomed and wanted? Absolutely! But the reality is, some have simply chosen not to return. And our lead team decided at some point in the journey, to focus our efforts and energy on opportunities for growth through visitors that show up, through ministries that reach out, and through providing focus and care to those who attend. We decided that to continue to try to find some method that would bring back those who have not returned (for whatever reason) is to not make the best use of our ministry resources. They know, because we have told them, they are wanted and welcome. But our focus has become ministering to those searching, needing, and wanting what the church has to offer through its ministries. Maybe you could say we kicked the dust off our shoes. I prefer to think that we decided to do ministry that is productive and effective. And we are seeing the positive results (spiritual and numerical) of that refocus.

That may not be the BEST way to choose a church, but what you say seems to be how it is today. Life today, I guess we must live with it or lose (IF that is the case, and it looks like it is)Very good points my friend. ________________Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/