Recently, I heard about a young man interested in planting a church. He was from a large evangelical church in Orange County, CA. He asked to meet with the pastor of a medium size church in a nearby city that was already full of solid evangelical churches. This young man shared with the humble pastor of 45 years that he hoped to plant another evangelical church close by. This young man wondered about the demographics and asked if he had any suggestions in ministering to this city.
Now maybe this does not sound strange to you, after all, you may have family in the area, a tree that you and your wife planted together, a gift for reaching a certain demographic, and a top-notch school for your children… but truth-be-told, I find this extremely perplexing.
My husband is a pilot for an aviation company that keeps us traveling most of the year. Our latest trip required us to stay in many smaller cities (around 50,000 people or less) throughout the Northeast states. I prepared for each move by looking for local churches in the area and was distressed to find few, if any, solid evangelical churches. In fact, as I drove around these cities I found beautiful abandoned churches that were now used for Bingo and atheist social gatherings. I would not be so naïve as to believe that this is a simple problem, but what I wished to find were pastors from solid evangelical seminaries and churches reaching out to these areas. I’m not talking about big cities or rural farmlands… I’m talking about the thriving suburban cities where thousands of people appear to be giving up on church.
Growing up in Orange County gave me the luxury of being surrounded by incredible Bible teaching, solid doctrine and thriving churches, but I was a bit removed from the reality of what was happening to churches around the country. I won’t bore you with statistics; for this article’s purpose it’s just simple enough to say that the church in North America is in decline.* On one end of the spectrum there are churches that are trying so hard to be relevant that they are falling into the trap of letting the secular culture’s values infiltrate and sabotage their doctrines; on the polar opposite are the churches so afraid of the culture’s infiltration that they find themselves stuck in a “holy huddle” unable to be effective witnesses, but instead would rather do “drive by tract handouts” (I’m not anti-tracts, but I strongly feel that if you are not willing to put in the effort of building a relationship… you are missing the point).
However thick and sticky and unanswerable the problem of church decline is, the fact still remains that we are hearing about a significant number of people trying to plant their solid evangelical churches next to other solid evangelical churches. I see a few possible reasons for such behavior. Perhaps there are some local denominational needs? I recognize the value of various secondary doctrinal points that lend themselves to eclectic forms of worship, but can this and should this be an excuse? Is that somewhat of an elitist attitude? My fervently Calvinistic husband regarded our Baptist church of the last 3 years as a wonderful family of believers excited about growing, worshiping, and reaching out with the good news of Christ. We enjoyed growing and being stretched by members with many denominational backgrounds. We have since moved to a different state and are attending a similar church: messy in nature (as all churches will be) but full of unique people with unique backgrounds all seemingly growing and stretching each other with the essentials of the gospel kept pure and charity for unity’s sake in the rest.
Another possible reason could be the reality that it is easier to just plant a church and start fresh than to attempt the revitalization and renovation of dying churches. Many of these churches are in great need of Godly leadership, purity of the gospel and guidance towards what Scriptures shares to us about the value of the local church. I admit that it would be a daunting task for any pastor to have to come in and deal with the struggles of failing churches… but shall we abandon this call for the easier path?
So now I am imploring us to challenge the way in which we approach church planting and seeking head pastor positions: Where are the greater needs? Is God somehow calling an astounding number of us to the amazingly nice, comfortable and demographically safe areas? You are the God-ordained shepherds and together we are the body of Christ and family of God. Are we abandoning our brothers and sisters to the wolves in the more “uncomfortable” places in this country? Rise up future pastors! Be willing to say “Where You lead O God, I will follow!” When I read about the ministry of Jesus, of Paul, of the apostles and disciples, there is a cost. Let us not candy-coat the uncomfortable and often persecuted nature of ministry. Sacrifices should and will need to be made. So, to the young, fearless, faithful pastors-in-process, let me beseech you to start your pastoral search in places like Plattsburgh, New York, and see if we can be a part of what God wants to do outside the realm of our safe comforts.
Sara (Roberts ‘00 Biola, ’10 Talbot) Sherman has 17 years of youth ministry under her belt and is now undertaking the amazing call of wife and mother (yet still enjoys pursuing all things related to church edification).
*For interesting statistical findings:
http://www.thearda.com/rcms2010/r/u/rcms2010_99_us_name_2000_ON.asp
http://religions.pewforum.org/reports
http://www.gallup.com/poll/153479/Mississippi-Religious-State.aspx
http://www.churchleadership.org/apps/articles/default.asp?articleid=42346&columnid=4545
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