Embracing Congregational Death to Birth New Churches

Saturday I drove past Eudora Baptist Church on Poplar Avenue here in Memphis and saw that its 1500+ seat auditorium is being demolished. In June Eudora sold part of its land for $3.6 million. The auditorium and parts of the facility on the corner of Poplar and Perkins, once home to a local symphony orchestra and an important part of local culture, is now gutted, being cleared away so that Walgreens can put a new drugstore on the corner.

It’s been coming for a long time. Over three years ago, Eudora Pastor Richard Johnson told James Dowd of the Memphis Commercial Appeal, “If things don’t change, we’ve probably got a year left… Heritage is great, but you’ve got to move past that because it’s not going to do a thing for your future.” (Room For Change: Historic Eudora Baptist Seeks a Vision for its Future, The Commercial Appeal, 31 July 2004).

Things didn’t change much for Eudora, and although presently the congregation reports that it will continue and build a new facility on the same plot of land adjacent to the new Walgreens, one can only wonder. I wish them well, but if the same congregational culture continues and no new vision comes forth, this congregation will have the appearance of life for a while (an influx of millions will have that effect) but whether that life has any probability of closing the gap between reality and its unrealized kingdom potential is a matter of some question.

There are thousands of moribund churches across America where a few dozen septuagenarians gather each Sunday morning and reminisce, treasuring memories of what it used to be like and wishing the clock could be turned back. The facilities may be maintained if there is money saved, but in some the incoming offerings cannot cover the expenses of maintaining a facility that once was home to a far larger congregation, and the signs of slow decay are everywhere. These churches are like museums. No one updates the bulletin boards any more, and walking through the old church everywhere you can see old pictures left over from when there was some life and vibrancy left. Now the church is on life support. An influx of cash from a bequest or sale of part of the facility may give the appearance of life for a little while, but the reality is something other, like the macabre 1989 comedy “Weekend at Bernie’s”, where living people hang out and party with a dead body (the dead character Bernie Lomax), propping up the corpse and pretending it’s alive so they can continue to have fun.

There is not a single reason one can point to as the reason for the decline of such churches. Generally, though, it is a simple matter of the church living in the past as the surrounding culture marches off into the future. The church slips into irrelevance and obscurity. This phenomenon could easily be the subject of a book, and I can suggest a title: how about _Left Behind_?

In some cases churches have found a way to bring new life. Some moribund churches have had the courage and vision to say, “We might be gone, but we can still advance the Gospel. We might not have the ability or the tools, but we can help those who do.” Such churches – rare indeed – choose to embrace death, close the congregation, and sell the facility, but to give the funds resulting from the facility sale for the purpose of church planting. Ideally, the recipients of the bequest from the old congregation participate in a memorial service honoring the history, tradition, and gifts of the old congregation, and make a solemn commitment to ensure that the honored congregation will not have ended in vain, but that the final gift will advance the kingdom of God.

There are hundreds of heritage congregations like Eudora who have unused facilities in prestigious locations. The facilities may not be useful for churches any more, but the sale of these facilities could easily support many new church plants. Most church plants struggle through their first years of existence. If a fund the size of the sale price of Eudora’s old facility were to be devoted to church planting, how many new churches could be kickstarted? Fourteen churches with a startup fund of a quarter million each? Now THAT would be kingdom thinking.

Church planters, it is really unlikely that moribund churches will be able to even register this type of thinking without help. It is the lack of kingdom thinking that got them in the shape they’re in, and they’ll need help to get a glimpe of kingdom thinking of the sort described here. Frankly very few churches will even consider the possibility of even thinking about embracing death, and using the proceeds of a facility sale to fund church planting, but I suggest that this is one way that dying churches can make a final gift to the advance of the kingdom. Do we as church planters have the guts and the compassion to dare to speak with our older brothers and sisters in dying congregations and set forth this kingdom possibility to them?

More than three thousand churches close each year in America. A majority have facilities to be disposed of. What better end could come for these churches than to fund a new wave of church planting? Sure, it’s an impossible notion. But with Christ, all things are possible. Who knows but that the Holy Spirit can even speak to older Christians in moribund congregations?