Ewduar R Parra
When is it right to close a Church?
The body of christ will endure forever,but no local expression of the body will. It is estimated, notes Dr Gary McIntosh, that a minimum of 1% of all protestant churches close each year in U.S. It means between 3.000and 4.000 churches are closed anually. He goes on to point out that, in general terms,the following four types of churches are ones that close.
- New church plants that fail
- Churches that lose their vision
- Churches with serious attendance loss
- Churches that became ineffective
I would like to know your point.
Ewduar from ColombiaSee More May 18, 2009 at 12:28am
When is it right to close a Church?
The body of christ will endure forever,but no local expression of the body will. It is estimated, notes Dr Gary McIntosh, that a minimum of 1% of all protestant churches close each year in U.S. It means between 3.000and 4.000 churches are closed anually. He goes on to point out that, in general terms,the following four types of churches are ones that close.
- New church plants that fail
- Churches that lose their vision
- Churches with serious attendance loss
- Churches that became ineffective
I would like to know your point.
Ewduar from Colombia
If the work of evangelism is not the greatest priority of the assembly and If Pastoral ministry is not in evident them Assemblies will close.
I was asked by many assemblies to advise them on their future. In most cases they were in need of being planted all over again.
Steve
August 31, 2009 at 10:11am
Is it possible that an assembly can simply die of old age? I don't mean that in a disrespectful way, just as a fact of life.
In this life don't we all die? (Unless the Lord comes for us first.)
Just like our physical body, there are ways to prolong life with proper diet and excersise. Pastoral leadership is important (diet) as well as evangelism (excersise). if you are looking at only one local body, but the best way to perpetuate life in the universal body is to replicate ourselves in new areas. We need to have a vision wider than our four walls and send out fresh shoots of life that can become new bodies, reaching more people, spreading the truth and broadening Christian influence.
The fact is that bodies die. We need to reproduce ourselves before this happens.
David
January 31, 2010 at 3:34pm
I have recently heard of the closing of another assembly. While this saddens me initially, as I reflected on this, I realized that this assembly did exactly what I have stated above. Years ago, there was a hive off that formed an assembly in an area where there was no assembly. That assembly is still going strong today. In addition to this, families from this first assembly came along side another smaller assembly, giving it new life and that assembly is still going strong today.
Can we imagine if every assembly had done this over the last 30 years? Even if the older assemblies died off, there would be two assemblies in its place. Something to think, or more importantly, pray about.
November 16, 2010 at 11:47am
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