Those of you in the business world are likely following the housing bust where the market is at its lowest in years. Americans who have purchased homes at “teaser rates” have expired only to find themselves unable to afford the higher rates forcing foreclosure. Last week while I was in Florida, it was a common site to find a house in almost every neighborhood with tall grass, overgrown shrubs, and a sign posted on the front yard. Americans more than ever are buying more than they can afford, hoping that in the end, the promised income would meet the financial demands they have created.
On the flight back to Atlanta, I sat next to a gentleman who works for Remax in Richmond, Virginia, and we talked in great detail about the housing market and foreclosure. For someone looking to buy a home in the next year or so, this upcoming season in the housing market is the perfect time to buy. You see, the bust of those who have bought high and forced to sell low afford others the opportunity to buy low and sometime hopefully sell high. Makes sense to me. But I am not as concerned about the state of the houses in America as much as I am the houses of worship in the Southern Baptist Convention. We have businessmen and reporters who are readily prepared to share about the failures of the housing market, but who is willing to speak to the massive reality of ecclesiological foreclosure in the SBC?
Just this past week a researcher state that close to 4,000 churches close their doors every year. In the SBC, it has long been reported that nine out of ten churches are not seeing any conversion growth, and this during the church growth movement. One in four SBC churches did not baptize a single person last year. In the past two years in the SBC where there has been a significant push to baptize a million people each year, in those same two years we have seen a decline in baptisms. What does all this mean for us today? I take it to mean that we are experiencing ecclesiological foreclosure – and nobody is talking about it.
Now we can all speculate as to why this is taking place before our eyes, and I will perhaps bring some of that up in another article this week. But take for example, my home state of Alabama. Bob Terry, editor of The Alabama Baptist, recently lamented that Alabama Baptist start somewhere around 30 churches each year. Then he goes on to state,
Unfortunately few of these are purposeful, intentional church starts. Most of them result from church fights and church splits. So common is the practice of starting new churches through church splits that jokes are often made about church fights being the Baptist plan for church growth. . . . Much of what we call our ‘church growth strategy’ may be of the devil rather than of God. That good has come out of some of the messes Baptist have created through church fights and church splits only attests to the fact that God works in all things for good to those who love the Lord, just as Romans 8:28 affirms. Still our overall history in church starts is something to confess, not something to celebrate.
While I agree with Terry that this woeful state merits heart-wrenching confession, we need to repent of this “church growth” strategy before our churches die. It might just be that when the Boomer generation passes, if they don’t reach out to their succeeding generation of Southern Baptists, their churches will die with them. And I am afraid that some would rather die than change.
I do believe there is an intrinsic relationship between the foreclosures taking place in homes and the foreclosures taking places in churches. Families who purchased homes with the short term satisfaction have ended up long-term regret with greater percentages of their overall income being spent on their increasing mortgage rates. Is all that house necessary or justifiable? Probably not, but hey, we are in America, and that’s what Americans do.
Let’s look at the average financial situation of an SBC church. Most churches with paid staff have that portion of their budget to amount to 50-60% of their annual budget. I remember hearing of churches justifying the addition of another staff person for every 100-150 church members to stay within that target percentage. Not only is added staff tailored to the church growth movement, so is the building of additional buildings. Let’s just say that another 15% is for maintenance, grounds, office equipment, etc., and another 15% for debt retirement or future building projects. Of course, we cannot leave our LifeWay Sunday School material and other ministry resources used from children all the way to senior adults. I would put that at another 10%. Do you see how all this adds up? Leaving out the Cooperative Program, church planting efforts, and missions, this typical church has 90-100% of all its annual budget already spent! Like the family who invested in way too much house with too little money, SBC churches have financially structured themselves with the same mentality, only at a larger level. Therefore, money is spent out of necessity, not so much out of priority. Missions, church planting, and evangelism are accessories which, when push comes to shove, are discarded because of being in survival mode.
I know of churches in every town I have lived in that this is not a hypothetical situation. And these are churches who are not liberal, rejoice in the Conservative Resurgence, believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, and preach out of the KJV version of the Bible. When churches have invested 75% or more of their budget in staff and debt retirement/building projects, it is a situation of our own making, a crisis where we are culpable. The short-term successes of building projects leave long-term slavish debts, much like the teaser interest rates only later come to compound to an insurmountable financial obstacle.
But there is good news. In the same way that this next year is a great time to buy a new home in the housing market, this is also a great time to plant new churches and re-plant old churches in the SBC. Both are needed. Ecclesiological foreclosure can be prevented, but we must be willing to change the way things are being done which I talk more of in my next article. My heart grieves when churches fail, falter, and die. I love the local church. I believe in the local church. And the ecclesiological foreclosure is an opportunity to wipe the tears out of our eyes and catch a glimpse of the glory of Christ in the church and be free from the pragmatism and professionalism that has paralyzed us for so long. Programs cannot fix foreclosure. We need the breath of God on these dry bones that they may live. May God once again do that in this generation.
I believe one thing is that we have lost our love and affection for the Gospel and replaced it with our love of our traditions. We don’t want to have to change. We have become so comfortable with the way things are that we would rather close our eyes and pretend it’s all ok, while it dies, rather than doing whatever it takes for the sake of the gospel and others. The church has become church centered instead of Christ centered, me centered instead of others, and law centered instead of Cross centered.
The church is not a corporation. We can’t put out the latest ‘strategy’ that our researchers have come up with and expect that to solve our problems. The SBC mindset is that of a corporation. Let’s hold a business meeting and put together a plan, send it out to the local and state associations and the people we think we are boss over will obey the plan. The matter is a matter of unregenerate members in our churches. People don’t care because they are lost. If they are not lost, they are tired of the ‘latest thing’ that promises to turn the church around. The solution is church discipline, ACTION in witnessing and prayer. The movement back to biblical churches starts in the heart of the average Joe at FBC in Alabama who gets on fire for God. People get on fire for God when they have a model to follow in their Pastor who is on fire for God. If the denomination keeps going like it is now, it will be foreclosed on in twenty years or will be absolutely useless if it is still around.
So Rob let me get this right pragmatism is the way to go? That is what has got us where we are today. Man’s plan and not Gods, we Christians need to repent and go back and see what the scriptures say about growing the Church after all it belongs to Christ. Untill we stop trying to fit into the world we can only expect failure according to Gods way of doing things.
There are two ideologies in the SBC, both which are unsuccessful. One is liberalism. The other is fundamentalism. Neither produce converts; the former produces syncretism, the latter sectarianism. In the past 100 years, the SBC has gone through both. I think that is part of the problem. We don’t know who we are or how we fit in today’s culture. The culture of the 1950’s where many of the SBC churches thrived is vastly different in 21st century culture. In yesteryear, programs were developed, ministry compartmentalized, leadership specialized, and growth pragmatized (my word, sorry). We could start with John 3:16 to people and they have a reference point to start with. All this has changed. Churches are being more organic than organizational. We must start with Gen. 1:1, not John 3:16, requiring a worldview and biblical theology that encompasses the full view of Christianity from creation, fall, redemption, restoration, etc. The categories of modernity and Christianized societies where people understood and filtered truth have been removed. We not only have to prove the biblical truth but the lens through which they properly understand it (worldview).
Alright, I am getting ahead to a post I am going to write on the missional SBC, so I will leave it at that.
My point for now is simply that on the one hand, we must have sound doctrine and firm understanding of our Baptist identity and confessional foundation. But we must know how to communicate that to today’s culture. We can have all the sound, biblical doctrine in the world, but if we cannot deliver that in a way people can understand it, what good is it? That’s where contextualization and knowing the culture comes in. Fundamentalists want the truth without culture. Liberals want the culture without the truth. Neither are right, and if we don’t deal with the tension between being biblically faithful and culturally fruitful (as Stetzer puts it), then I believe ecclesiological foreclosure is inevitable.
I fully agree with you on the biblical world view. I see so many churches preaching to people as if they already understood God’s redemptive plan and already have a world view, and they don’t. Not even in the Bible belt. I have realized this even in my own children, that if left with all that the church teaches them in sunday school, they still have to figure out how it all fits together own their own. That is why I am taking a different approach with my childre at home.
We (the church) are missing so much, it’s hard to just name a few. Our people don’t know doctrine, theology or the importance of walking in holiness or what that even looks like. We don’t know our history and the great men and women who have gone before us, that can inspire us. I could go on and on. And the more I think about it the more hopeless it seems, even though I know it isn’t.
Timmy, I am liking this series of posts, but it is not a schadenfreude. I only hope these do not constitute a precursor to you departing the SBC. I don’t hear that tone in your posts just yet. I find your take on the situation to be consistent with what I’ve observed.
Schadenfreude.
Now that is a word I have never seen before! Thanks for that enjoyable experience. So does that make you the SBC O’Reilly?
No precursor here. I am asking questions, sometimes critical questions, because I believe they need to be asked–questions I have found on the minds of other Southern Baptists as well.
Toward the end of the week, some suggestions with an optimistic outlook will be posted (at least I am optimistic about being optimistic). 😉
What does Schadenfreude have to do with O’Reilly? (Remember I don’t own a TV)
Guillaume,
At the end of the show, O’Reilly is known for using some obscure, fancy word, telling his audience to not be a ___________________ (insert word).
But you are spunky and controversial like O’Reilly too. 😀