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Why Churches Decline

Orginally published on Thursday, October 11, 2007 at 6:45 AM
by Todd Rhoades

I'm so glad I found this article. It details exactly how churches decline. This Banner of Truth article gives five ways that churches decline. Two of which I'll buy... three are just not biblical. See what you think...

OK… here we go.  Here’s the article...

Reason #1:  Churches decline when Christ’s ministry as prophet priest and king is negated. This never takes place suddenly. It is a gradual process.
Lots of fancy KJVish words here, but that’s ok.  I’d put it like this:  Churches decline when they take their eyes of Jesus.  Same thing.  And I would agree.

Reason #2:  Christ’s kingly ministry is negated when discipline ceases in a local church.
Actually, this is #5 on their list, but I’ll move it up to #2 for my purposes.  I don’t know that I would say that this is a main reason why churches are declining; but I think it could be a contributing factor in some cases.  I think churches don’t use biblical discipline many times today.  Others are legalistic in their church discipline (which also, I might add, causes church decline).  Balance is needed here.

OK… now for the more silly ones:

Reason #3:  Churches decline when the sermon is removed from the services to be replaced by simple visual teaching methods.
Huh?  They write:  “The removal of the pulpit ministry and the sermon is to negate Christ’s ministry as prophet.” If by sermon or ‘pulpit’ ministry, they mean the declaration of truth or God’s word, then I would agree.  But to say that has to happen through a sermon or from behind a pulpit is extra-biblical.

Reason #4:  Christ’s priestly ministry is negated when churches abandon the weekly prayer meeting.
Ahhh… the weekly prayer meeting.  I believe that’s mandated somewhere in Galatians?  Prayer is an important part of church life, but I know many vibrant, growing churches that do not have a prayer meeting.  They must be exceptions to the rule.

Reason #5:  Churches also decline when the evening service is removed which reduces by half the prophetic ministry of our Lord on his day.
This is my favorite one.  They write:  “We rejoice to keep the Lord’s Day - not to keep just the Lord’s Day morning. In some churches evening congregations have increased because the faithful from other churches attend since they have no evening service of their own.” I guess my question would be, ‘what about the Lord’s afternoon?’ To mandate a Sunday evening service is, again, at best, extra-biblical.

I have my own reasons that churches decline.  I hope to share a list here shortly.  Would you like to get us started?  Why do YOU think many churches are in decline?  And what do you think of the five reasons given in this article?


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  There are 15 Comments:

  • Posted by Jeremy Myers

    I agree with you. I agree with the first two (as modified), but the last three not so much. Certainly, strong Bible teaching and prayer must be vital aspects of every church, but to infer that the sermon has to take place behind a pulpit on a platform with few (if any) visual aids is just crazy talk. And to say that a church isn’t praying unless they have a weekly prayer meeting is jaw-dropping silly.

    And what can I say about the Sunday evening service? I can’t find much in Scripture mandating such a practice, let alone Sunday morning services. If a church is accomplishing #1 and #2 on this list, why can’t the church meet corporately only on Sunday night, or Tuesday night for that matter?

    Anyway, I look forward to seeing what’s on your list.

  • Posted by Leonard

    A church needs to be active in three areas all the time at the same time.  A church should always have a plan for outreach.  Figuring out how to actively engage people for Christ, equip people to share Christ and help people find Christ must be huge in a churches priorities.  If it is not in the lead pastor, rarely will it be in the church.  I will often ask a senior pastor when the last time he shared Christ outside of professional duties.  I am saddened by the answers I get.

    A church must seek active ways to develop peoples maturity in Christ.  Most churches focus their budgets here, their ministries here, their staffing here and as a result most churches reach few people at all.  I would also add that what we call mature is a little bit frightening. 

    Finally a church must have a plan to develop leadership.  We cannot afford to let time and experience become our leadership pipeline.  We must always be identifying who our potential leaders are and then LEAD them to leadership. 

    The majority of churches I know only focus on Spiritual Maturity.  If the church is to avoid decline it must do all three of these all of the time, strategically, intentionally and with passion.

  • Posted by Eric Joppa

    Great post Todd!

    I am a big fan of #4.

    It is just a little absurd to say that a church will decline if they don’t have a prayer meeting. I am actually close to a couple of nameless leaders who champion the “fresh and different” prayer meeting, saying that it will cause the church to grow once people buy in.

    Not really the case.

    Don’t get me wrong, I love prayer and in my first church, I learned to pray at our churches prayer meeting. I loved it. but it was about the principle of prayer, not the form of the meeting.

    When we as leaders think that teaching people to pray needs to happen at a specific type of meeting we stop leading and start hand holding. I have actually been told that I don’t value prayer if I don’t value the prayer meeting. IMHO, it’s those statements/thoughts that say if I’m not like them, I’m not spiritual enough.

    I guess If I want to be a leader, I really just need to join the loyal fraternity of clones. (sorry about the sarcasim.)

    It seems like a form of heart felt yet false piety to me.

    -E

  • Posted by Seth

    What does decline mean? Effectiveness or numbers?

    I’d say that when we fail to love God with all our hearts and minds, and cease to pray, a church body has lost their focus.

    For whatever reason, some people are really big fans of the effectiveness of public speaking. Yet, we live in a visual culture where we take in too much communication and have short attention spans.

    #5 shows that though they, like the Pharisees, have forgotten what the Sabbath is all about.

  • Posted by

    I’m struggling with the idea that a church would not even have a prayer meeting. Can a church be a church without the people praying together? This one really shocks me Todd, I don’t think that you can be a “church” without having a time set aside for the church to petition, intercede and worship the Lord.
    Don’t take me wrong I like this site and I am not trying to come across as Johnny Mac on yoga...but are you really implying that their are chrches in excistence that dont have a prayer meeting and they think that is OK? I must be naive but group prayer has been a practice of the church since before Pentecost and it is mentioned in Acts 2 as a church practice.
    What do you do at your church, hand out prayer requests and ask folks to pray at home? I don’t get, help me out.

  • Posted by

    One more thing, I understand that churches can have effective prayer ministries, prayer chains, elders praying for the sick and prayer rooms etc....and possibly not have a church wide prayer meeting. If that is what you are referring to then I can handle that to a degree as long as the people are being encouraged to beseech the Lord regularly.

  • Posted by Todd Rhoades

    Hey Ken,

    Absolutely, the church should be a praying church.  I’m just saying that the traditional Wednesday night prayer meeting and bible study isn’t something that is biblically commanded.  Would you agree?

    Todd

  • Posted by

    I would agree that there is no mandated time for a prayer meeting, we can have one in the morning or in the middle of the night. My belief is that if a church is not praying then it will be true that it is in spiritual decline...Nothing is worse than a church which prides itself on reaching the lost, yet they rely on the flesh and not passionatte times of prayer for help…
    We would both agree on that, yet the legalistic idea that a church has to have a Wednesday night prayer meeting to survive is false. How about 5 mornings a week at 6am and anyone that wants to pop in can pray???

  • Posted by

    Mr. Rhoades,

    You said the following in regards to #3 on the list:  “They write:  “The removal of the pulpit ministry and the sermon is to negate Christ’s ministry as prophet.” If by sermon or ‘pulpit’ ministry, they mean the declaration of truth or God’s word, then I would agree.  But to say that has to happen through a sermon or from behind a pulpit is extra-biblical.”

    In saying this, are you suggesting that the primary means by which God’s Word is relayed to the people is something other than the sermon?  Is that not the primary purpose of the pastor?  To PREACH the Word?  Also, you failed to relay perhaps the most important portion of the Banner of Truth article in relation to this point.  Under their #3, they also write:  “Thoughtful ways of reaching out to the community are needed. With much hard work these can be put in place without negating the place of preaching in the main stated weekly services of the church. To remove the sermon from Lord’s Day services is like inviting people to a gospel feast but when the guests arrive all there is is cakes and cookies.” Is this not a statement that you would agree with?

    Thank you for posting this.  Otherwise, I might not have been blessed by the reading of this Banner of Truth article.

  • Posted by julieH

    I’m with you on your interpretations of number 1 and number 2, and your take on number 3.

    As for numbers 4 and 5, *sigh*. Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, add a prayer meeting, add a bible study time and accountability time, and a night for children’s programming… when does it become too much gathering and not enough going?  Where are all of these “required” programmed events in the bible?  We’ve over programmed the church to the point of not being out among the world enough to actually do the work of the gospel!

  • Posted by Steve Dumas

    Banner’s article is fairly simple:  a church declines when it removes or neglects (1) Christ, (2) prayer (3) preaching, and (4) discipline.  If a church does not see Christ working as prophet, priest, and king, then it will decline.  If it does not take its church covenant seriously, guard the truth, and deal with public sin, then it will decline.  If it fails to maintain a regenerate church membership with an authentic and powerful witness in the community, then it will decline.  If it removes the prayer meeting without replacing it with another time or venue for prayer, then it will decline. If preaching becomes optional, then it will decline. Thanks for the link and the blessing.

  • Posted by G. F. McDowell

    I think your summation of point #2 (aka your point #3) misses the point BOT were trying to make.  Their concern is stated in the context of the seeker-driven church model.  If the proclamation of scripture is taking a backseat because that church does not want to offend seekers, I’d say their concern is well-founded.  Of course, I would extend their point to include churches where the sermons preached are not expositions of scripture, but moralistic Aesop’s Fables based on bible stories, or nine ways to live your best life now.  The Gospel is a call to suffer now and live your best life later, in eternity.

  • Posted by

    I am embarrased to say - when we get together for staff meetings (about every 2 weeks) we spend about 60 seconds praying for so & so who is sick.  We get on with our meeting and get out of there as fast as we can.  If the leadership doesn’t see much importance in prayer - listening for the voice of God, asking for His wisdom in our decision making, asking for Him to move in us and thru us - well, we can’t expect much to happen…

  • Posted by

    Our problem is in our leadership.  We are experiencing an elder dictator led church.  We,"the church” has no input into what happens or goes on in our church.  Where do we go from here. 
    Please keep my name personal, just let me know what “others” think about this, and do they have this problem, or do they know of a church that has this problem?.

  • Posted by

    Churches also decline cause they are in a rut. Service and church school Sunday mornings.

    Carbon copy churches all the same.

    As a previous comment said why don’t churches try servies, church school, bible studies on other days of the week.

    There are some who would like to come at other times than Sunday moring.

    Also Pastors need to do bible study style teaching from the puplits. They say they are getting that in church school so I won;t to it as services.

    Stats show that only 1/4 of a congregation goes to church school at any one time.

    It seems most christians don’t care about the church. God is not first in there lives.
    I think thats the real reason of church decline.

    The Attitude is anything is more important.
    They want a Christianity of conveienous.
    They are not deeply rooted in Christ.

    There are christians that risk there lives and freedom to meet togather. In parts of the world where christians can meet freely they take it for granted.

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