Three Bold Challenges for Churches of Christ
Dr. Stanley E. Granberg・07/17/19
A disturbing prospect looms before us as the fact of ourdecline of Churches of Christ (CoC) has moved from unbelievable to undeniable. Thequestion we must answer is no longer, “How are we doing;” our question is now,“What shall we do about it?”
Last year I published an article describing the decline of CoCin the Great Commission Research Journal (Fall 2018).[1] This year, Tim Woodroofand I wrote a paper that looks into the crystal ball of the possible future of CoCin 2050[2]. At the present, the bestanalysis is that each month six CoC congregations close their doors. Given thecurrent trends, we expect that rate to double—or even triple—before we arriveat 2050. If this does occur, we could see the fellowship of CoC drop from justover 12,000 churches to under 3,000.
There are several responses leaders in our fellowship havemade to our challenge of decline. Some say its time to leave and join forces ina broader, more ecumenical fellowship, advancing the unity plea of our heritage.Others are hanging onto the ways and traditions of the past for dear life,leaning into the restoration roots of our fellowship. The majority of churchleaders are struggling to find some way forward that satisfies both the desire oftheir members for the safety of what we have been in the past and the need topresent a relevant Christianity to our increasingly unbelieving world.
For the past fifteen years, as the executive director of Kairos Church Planting, I have worked extensively within Churches of Christ, promoting, calling and pleading with churches to engage the future through the planting of new congregations. From this perspective, I present here three hard challenges I believe we must address to set a foundation for our future and three bold strategies that could change the course of our future.
Hard Challenges
The following three challenges are hard because they aredeeply embedded, DNA level aspects of CofC that seem to hold us back, evencripple us, from engaging 21st century America, confident that wecan be useful ambassadors, harvesting new souls for the kingdom of God.
Challenge #1:reorient our hermeneutic from a closed to an open perspective. The CofC throughthe 20th century have practiced a case law hermeneutic described underthe rubric: Command, Example, and Necessary Inference.[3] While “thus saith theLord” is an appropriate operating principle, we have added a subtext that says,“what is not addressed is not allowed.” Our case law hermeneutic requiresexplicit permission to do something. Without explicit biblical command, exampleor necessary inference we are forbidden to do anything different, a situationthat keeps us stuck within our own past.
To change our course of decline in the 21stcentury we must explore the other side of this hermeneutic coin, the side offreedom and openness. On this other side, unless something is expresslyforbidden, we are free to explore it based upon biblical principles. Thishermeneutic approach is based upon a narrative-historical interpretation ofscripture, most readily expressed in our faith stream through the writings ofJohn Mark Hicks. This is part of our faith heritage. Our cousins, the ChristianChurches and Churches of Christ, operate with this open hermeneutic. On themission field of Kenya, I discovered that, at our best, CofC are a fellowshipthat deeply desires to obey the God of the Word, implicitly trusting the Wordof God to guide us to creatively engage the world of God. We are at our bestwhen we live out of this open hermeneutic perspective.
Challenge #2: restoreapostolic leaders as part of our leadership system. For a non-centralized,non-denominational fellowship, CofC have a strongly held congregationalleadership system. In our most traditional form, a congregation is led by acommittee of elders with deacons and teachers as permanent workers. Pastoralstaff are hired to work under the oversight of the elders, who can also fire onany pretense or personal discretion. This structure creates a maintenanceorientation designed to keep the system stable. This maintenance, stability-orientedleadership system is not capable of creating or releasing the innovative,growth producing activity necessary to change our decline trajectory. We mustadopt the Ephesians 4:11 understanding that restores the full circle ofbiblical leadership.[4] This will mean arecognition of the personal leadership giftedness God provides the church.
Challenge #3: enliventhe experience of God among us. CofC have typically been a heady,intellectually oriented movement. Both our places and practices of worship aredesigned to strip out emotional content and symbolism. The rule of “decentlyand in order” (1 Cor. 14:40) has been used to emphasize hearing the word of Godto the neglect of experiencing the presence of God. Creating a worshipexperience that recognizes the power of the human senses as vehicles throughwhich God makes himself present challenges our rejection of anything thatsmacks of the danger of entertainment. If we expect “not-yet” believers to findanything of worth in the sacramental event of our gathering together, theexperience of God must become our new scorecard of our worship. When God showsup, lives will never be the same.
Bold Plans
History and research have proven true C. Peter Wagner’sassertion, “Planting new churches is the most effective evangelisticmethodology known under heaven.”[5] Timothy Keller furtherexpands Wagner’s view about church planting,
The vigorous, continual planting of newcongregations is the single most crucial strategy for (1) the numerical growthof the body of Christ in a city and (2) the continual corporate renewal andrevival of the existing churches in a city. Nothing else—not crusades, outreachprograms, parachurch ministries, growing megachurches, congregationalconsulting, nor church renewal processes—will have the consistent impact ofdynamic, extensive church planting.[6]
If CofC expect to make a reversal from decline to growth,church planting must be our core strategic activity. Given this fact, thefollowing three bold strategies would, from my perspective, provide the mostimmediate leverage to accomplishing kingdom expansion through our fellowshipand congregational renewal within our churches.
Strategy #1:deliberately close older, declining churches to repurpose the resources fromtheir lands and buildings for the planting of new churches. CofC can expectto see as many as 8,000 congregations, two-thirds of our total number, close inthe next thirty years. If the average real estate revenue were just $350,000per church (a very conservative amount), these closings would produce $2.8billion. Investing half of that into new churches, supporting each new churchwith $250,000, would result in 5,600 new churches. God has already provided us thefinancial endowment we need to reinvest into our future! Most Christianfellowships and denominations already fund much of their church plantingthrough such repurposing efforts.[7] As a step to accomplishthis strategy, the Heritage 21 Foundation (Heritage21.org) was founded in 2016,“To partner with declining churches to help themfaithfully preserve and repurpose their resources for new kingdom work.”[8]
Strategy #2: developan apprentice leadership system to train next generation leaders to plant newchurches and missionally lead existing churches. Experience in healthy,growing churches is the most predictive factor for successful church planters.We need to create a pipeline for missional leaders through apprenticeships inour healthiest churches. If our top one hundred churches would keep fourapprentices in training on a two-year rotating basis, graduating twoapprentices each year, in twenty-five years we would produce five thousandexperienced, missional leaders. The Southwest Church of Christ in Jonesboro,Arkansas has trained apprentices within the church and its associated campusministry which have resulted in those apprentices moving to Boston, Phoenix andSeattle to start new churches and campus ministries. A backbone of resourcesfor apprentices called Emerging LeaderTraining has already been developed by Kairos Church Planting.[9]
Strategy #3: worktogether in regional network relationships to plant new churches. TheChristian Churches and Churches of Christ effectively practice this networkstrategy through over fifty evangelistic associations across the United States.If CofC would work together in networks of four to six congregations, thesenetworks could pool resources, provide a new church nucleus from members, andreceive the benefits of learning how a new church engages its community. Suchnetworks would create pockets of regional church planting.
The fact is we are at a crossroads between decline and advancement.Our generation, those of us who currently sit as elders within our churches orstand as preachers in our pulpits, have one, vital question to answer: Whatwill we do with the inheritance which God has given us? We have been giftedwith a valid spiritual heritage, a storehouse of financial resources and spirituallyendowed leaders to use for His great purposes. While we could debate the needof God’s kingdom for a continuation of the entity we know as Churches of Christ,I believe God has invested Himself deeply in us. I would rather stand beforeGod’s judgment throne having used well these talents God has given us ratherthan burying them in extinction.
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
[1] Stanley E. Granberg, “ACase Study of Growth and Decline: The Churches of Christ, 2006-2016,” GreatCommission Research Journal, vol. 10, no. 1 (Fall 2018), 88-111.
[2] Tim Woodroof and StanleyE. Granberg. “Churches of Christ: Losing Our Hope, Seeking a Future”. Availableto read at http://www.kairoschurchplanting.org/cocstudy2019.html,2019.
[3] Williams, Stone-Campbell Movement, 159.
[4] This idea of APESTleadership from Ephesians 4:11 is thoughtfully engaged by Alan Hirsch, http://www.alanhirsch.org/books.A circle model of leadership that has strong research support is described byStanley E. Granberg, “Circle of biblical leadership,” Kairos Church Planting,August 31, 2011, accessed May 29, 2017, http://kairoschurchplanting.blogspot.com/2011/08/circle-of-biblical-leadership.html.
[5] C. Peter Wagner, Strategies for Growth: Tools for Effective Missionsand Evangelism (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1987), 168.
[6] Timothy Keller, “Why plant churches?”Redeemer.com, 2009, accessed May 29, 2017, http://download. redeemer.com/pdf/learn/resources/Why_Plant_Churches-Keller.pdf.
[7] Olsen, American Church, 126.
[8] Heritage 21,https://www.Heritage21.org.
[9] Stanley E. Granberg, Spiritual Formation (CreateSpace, 2015)and Sharing Faith (CreateSpace,2015).