This is from Leadership Network:
According to Warren’s research at Leadership Network, 2% of U.S. Protestant churches have been part of a merger in the last two years. Another 8% say they will probably merge in the next two years. Those two groups represent 30,000 churches. Conversations and tracking confirms similar trends among churches in Canada, Europe, Australia and other places where churches have been long established.
That’s surprising to me. 10% is a huge number!
My own congregation results from a merger of two Churches of Christ in town. It was extremely helpful to us. It made us more demographically diverse. And that made us more like our community in terms of blue collar and white collar membership. And the merger helped us afford to relocate to a new place with a better facility, which has been a great blessing. I’m big on mergers.
So here are some questions:
* Would the kingdom be better off if more churches were to merge?
* Is your church actively pursuing a merger?
* Do you wish the churches in your town would pursue mergers?
I have mixed feelings about mergers. Just as when two families merge, say a widow marries a widower when both have children – or divorced people marry when children are involved, merged churches face problems adjusting to the new situation.
This is not to say they should never take place – but it should only be after a period of "courtship." It is not a solution to all church problems, just as a marriage is not a solution to all personal problems. Two dying churches that merge just become a single church that is (likely) still dying.
Sometimes a merger can bring complimentary and helpful elements together. When that happens, the result is beautiful. For example, a church I know merged a congregation of the Boston (Discipling) Movement with a main-stream congregation of the Church of Christ. They maintained the evangelistic energy of the Boston group and the stability & wisdom of the main-line congregation and are now a dynamic, thriving congregation where there had been two congregations, one of which was somewhat cultic and the other that had lost some of its earlier zeal.
The same scenario could also play out with disastrous results – depending on the people involved. In the case above, a very wise, experienced minister was able to guide them in the early years after the merger.
If a progressive congregation attempts a merger with a traditional church, there is likely to be frustration on both sides.
Is it never advisable to merge? Never say never, they say – but there is good reason to proceed with caution.
What do you do with two preachers?
AJ:
…You save a lot of money, that's what!! 🙂
Why do we never hear about mergers? Because most writing, speaking, and periodicals are operated by preachers and pastors…and mergers damage their livelihood. …And a lot of people lose control. Some elders might need thinned out.
From a purely business/control standpoint, this is a disaster. So you'd have to have people that can disassociate from them self and focus squarely on the Kingdom and it's good.
I have no research to back this up, but I'd guess that nearly all church mergers that actually occur is to save a financially strapped congregation. Have two healthy, thriving congregations ever merged? I'd guess a resounding "NO".
We also merged a International CoC and a Mainline CoC. It was not only a blessing, it was – actually – the right thing to do, since it had to do with overcoming a schism. we cannot discuss unity without thinking about merging. Or even aiming at merging, so that there will be only one church of Christ in a city, encompassing all Christians of a given city, under one city-wide leadership – but operation in small groups and house churches (in a very local structure/neighborhood oriented) instead of cramming all into one super-facility.
Alexander
JMF,
Are you familiar with the "merger" of Mid County and McKnight Rd in St. Louis? I thought you had experiences with these congregations. I guess they haven't merged yet even though they use the same building and staff.
Josh
Excellent thoughts Alexander. All churches need to merge in the sense of recognizing that we are all part of the same universal church. But when congregations merge to become larger and larger, the every-member functioning aspect of the ekklesia gets harder and harder until it's impossible. Unfortunately most churches have no concept of every member functioning, so Jay's just thinking in terms of having better organized charity work and missions and awesome singing and so forth, which could also be done by city-wide networks of house churches who get together occasionally and work together as all Christians should.
* Would the kingdom be better off if more churches were to merge?
Hard to say. Sounds like some of the cross-split mergers people mentioned above have been strengthening, and that's a good thing. In general, I think increased co-operation is good, but a full merger isn't necessarily best. The only merger I've really observed is West End + Central => Palisades, in B'ham, which does not seem to have resulted in a strong congregation, but I can't say whether the merger had much to do with it, since I'm only there once or twice a year.
* Is your church actively pursuing a merger?
No, we're looking to expand our building, as we're growing enough to need more room without adding another congregation. We have generally good relations with more or all the other area churches, including the one that was planned as a plant and turned into a split. (That happened before I started attending this congregation, so I only have second-hand knowledge of the events.).
* Do you wish the churches in your town would pursue mergers?
The only two I can think of that are geographically close enough for it to make sense are a non-institutional congregation and a larger mainline one. I haven't even visited the former, and I haven't attended the latter in about 6.5 years, although I've been to occasional memorials and celebrations there since. The larger one was formed by a merger decades ago, and seems to have done well, but I don't know anything about the congregations that merged beyond their names.
We try to live that out on a small scale: We are about 120 souls (kids, youth and regular vistors included), but we meet every other sunday in five different hose churches throughout the city. on the other sundays most of us meet at one rented place. We have one leadership for the whole church, but each house church has some freedom to do things as they seem fitting in their circumstances. Also our finances are put into one acount from which benevolence, mission work and our own – very low – costs are paid.
We don't have the problem Alabama John mentioned: What shall we do with two prechers. In fact we have about 10 brothers who are capable of teaching, and all are serving in the various house churches; and we take turns on the sundays where we all come together. This is a blessing we enjoy.
Alexander
Burnt Ribs:
I was not familiar with that proposed merger! But that is exciting! I'll try to find something out this weekend and post something in a couple days.
Living where I do, there are probably more congregations in town than are absolutely necessary. The one I attend is skewed toward the graying end of the membership to a dangerous degree, and resources are dwindling, but the building and land are paid for. We need to merge, the elders have floated the idea, and the congregation is in favor. Finding a willing partner is difficult. Unfortunately, the impression that has been given is that the congregations that have been approached are healthy and growing and settled in their facilities, rather than struggling yet complementary congregations where the merger would allow one congregation's strengths to account for the other's weaknesses. I think mergers can be a blessing, but sometimes there are a lot of egos that have to get on board first.
Jerry,
Which congregations did this? And when did they merge?
Alexander,
What two congregations are you talking about? Are they the same two that Jerry mentioned. Your "one church, one city" comments are raising red flags in my mind because that's the only church model that can exist in the traditional McKeanist theology.
I once proposed a merger with another Church and was told "Thanks but no thanks". That hurt! It left me thinking what's wrong with our people that they want no part of us? So, be careful about proposing mergers and keep knowledge of initial proposals limited. I would have hated for everyone in our Church to have needlessly felt the hurt that I felt.
I do not know the two churches prior to the merger. The current congregation is the Bay Area Church of Christ in Mango, FL (Tampa suburb). I know the current church; it did not know them prior to the merger. I was given this history by Joyce Massey, widow of the minister I mentioned above who helped them transition in the couple of years following the merger. They are currently, I think,, about 300 or a little larger in size.
Cathy, I'm near B'ham and attend Crossbridge Church of Christ just down 280 a short way. You'd sure be welcomed.
I personally have never seen a merger. Sadly, the churches around here are mainly too different in some small belief if you look hard enough.
As printed above if 30,000 churches merged, just one with one, it would shrink the church number to 15,000 and there would be 15,000 church buildings and paid for preachers houses for sale plus 15,000 preachers out of work.
Not counting how many office workers, etc.
What a blessing it would be to only have one or just a few that encouraged and supported each other.
Think of the good that could be done for orphans, widows, aged, those in prison and many others with the money from all those buildings and salaried preachers plus the houses.
Maybe someday!
Alabama John,
I know three solutions.
* Sometimes both preachers feel the merger is so important that they voluntarily resign to let the new church form a new identity.
* Sometimes both preachers stay on. Sometimes one changes roles, such as to a minister of spiritual formation or involvement or her becomes a staff counselor.
* Sometimes one retires or chooses to leave.
It may have happened, but I never known of a church that fired a preacher in order to merge, which gives a sense of how important it is that the preachers support the merger.
steven and Alexander,
An alternative to a city-wide network of house churches is a multi-campus congregation. That’s what the church was like when Constantine allowed churches to own dedicated buildings.
jpmccarty wrote,
Mergers are, in my opinion, one of the truest tests of whether a church has the heart of Jesus. You see, when two churches merge, the power structure radically changes. The most influential people in each congregation will find their influence diluted in a merged church. The old alliances may no longer be enough to block this or that change. The informal power structures will likely collapse.
People with influence will often, therefore, fear the merger and even resist it, because there is no way to assure that they will remain as significant in the life of the larger church. Even elders will feel this way.
But as noted in my comment to Bruce re husbands and wives, someone with the heart of Jesus will not care about power.
On the other hand, this does mean that it’s critically important that the leaders of the two churches sort out their theology before going ahead. I know a church that merged with a smaller, more conservative church in order to gain financial advantage. And over time, the leaders from the smaller church gained control.
Rather than sorting through their differences in advance, they left future decisions re grace vs. legalism up to nearly random events, so that the merger has actually shrunk the church and is greatly harming the church in every way.
Because old power structures will not necessarily survive the merger, just as in a marriage, you can’t merge hoping to change the other church. It just might change you.
Church of Christ, Vienna Austria.
I don't think this is the "only" church model that could exist – but I do say it is the historic model of the Ante Nicene Church.
Alexander
Alexander, I live in a city of nearly 5 million people.. how would that work? One would need an episcopal leadership to manage it. Hey wait.. thats what the Catholics and Angliacns do…
AJ, why would the preachers be out of work? Surely there would be work to do in the merged congregations?
Could you describe this model a bit more, Jay? What was the impact/fruit of this new structure? I remember vaguely that Constantine also paid a salary to the priests – was this part of this new structure or disconnected from it?
Alexander
I think merging is the wrong word. One or the other being dissolved is more accurate. Due to lack of members or so few members due to location, age, or support being withdrawn.
How about "unsplitting" churches?
Alexander
Alexander,
The Jerusalem church met in the temple courts as well as in homes. Thereafter, the churches met in homes, as the Jewish authorities rejected the Christians, making Christianity an unlicensed religion in a totalitarian state. Persecutions came in waves, but the church wasn’t always persecuted. But it was never officially legal until Constantine.
Constantine’s reforms came in waves. He first legalized the church. He later turned over some of the pagan temples to them for their use. Much of what is written about this time in religious literature is incorrect, and a major correction was published last year: Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom by Peter Leithart. It’s a great book — and I can’t find my copy of it, which is very bothersome. I’m working from GoogleBooks: http://books.google.com/books?id=XQmuR9sbsxwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Defending+Constantine:+The+Twilight+of+an+Empire+and+the+Dawn+of+Christendom+by+Peter+Leithart&source=bl&ots=fEj3cpSeRP&sig=109ebOh6rk7EXEqD47WL-ZE-45Q&hl=en&ei=_GO0TfWqLIaCtweUr8zrDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CFAQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q&f=false
On p 112, the author explains how once Christianity was legalized, the houses could not hold the crowds. Constantine built church buildings in the form of basilicas, just as earlier emperors had built temples to gods.
Some pagan temples were turned over to the Christians, as well, but this was not evidently in large numbers, as paganism and Judaism remained officially tolerated and neither group was discriminated against. That came later.
The result was an immediate huge influx of converts. Over the next few centuries, Rome became officially Christian, and northern Europe, Britain, Ireland, and Russia were converted by missionaries (and sometimes by armies). By 1000 AD, Christianity had crossed Asia all the way to Japan.
It’s easy to point out the sins of the post-Constantinian church, and there were many. But it was also a time of the most rapid spread of Christianity until the 20th Century.
I’m no advocate for the merging of state and church, but I think the greatest impetus to this time of Christian vigor was not the emperor’s subsidies as the end of brutal persecution — as well as the efforts to unify the teachings of the church at Nicea, which made the orthodox faith the approved faith and prevented all sorts of heresies from becoming dominant.
Alexander wrote,
Deeply insightful — and amen!
wjc
The work done could be done by the members other than preaching, and in many instances that too.
Full time preachers on salary is in many cases due to old habits, egos, status, in the ones sending as well as those taking support and is a waste of money.
If two churches merge because both are down to a few members and both preachers are getting assistance (support) from good hearted churches, then them merging would not justify two preachers.
If one small member church merges with a large member church, the big churches preacher and organization could continue just like before, just set out a few more seats. The small groups preacher would be out of work
.
If a full time preacher is necessary at all. What I see and I wonder why this has to be way: There is a board of fine elders in many churches, but all the preaching is done by a paid "professional". Church becomes a "one man show". I don't see that in the scriptures, and – as it turns out – it becomes a hindrance when we think about unsplitting. And it does not help to develop the gifts of teaching in the eldership – it reduces them to "administrators" or a "finance board".
Alexander
OK. I think that was formerly the Sunset (or Sunrise?) Church of Christ that was part of the Crossroads Campus Ministry. I believe that it merged after Boston came in and tried to assimilate it into the movement in the late 1980's.
OK. After the events of 2003 where at least half of the ICOC left the organization, the ICOC congregations in Europe haven't been too tied into the rest of the movement. Now that you mentioned it, I believe that the ICOC church in Austria left the ICOC.
Yes and no – we never cut the ties of friendship, although we are more involved with the activities on the mainline CoC. And – personally – I believe the ICoC has some doctrinal shortcomings and a questionable approach to some things (even to discipleship). But they have been an overreaction to other shortcomings in the mainline CoC.
Alexander
Yes, that's the structure that developed from the late 1st century because of the growth of the church: a network of housechurches with their elders, and an overseer (coordinator) forthe whole city who leads the church together withe the elders of the single congregations.
Alexander
and that's the structure the Anglican church has…