Thom S. Rainer - Anatomy of a Revived Church: Seven Findings about How Congregations Avoided Death

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Anatomy of a Revived Church: Seven Findings about How Congregations Avoided Death

Copyright 2020 by Thom S. Rainer. All rights reserved.

Previously published in 2020 by Rainer Publishing under ISBN 978-1-948022-17-0. First printing by Tyndale House Publishers in 2022.

Cover photograph of church steeple copyright sharply_done/iStockphoto. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the Christian Standard Bible, copyright 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible and CSB are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-1-4964-7786-6

Build: 2022-06-21 12:10:44 EPUB 3.0

To The Boys:
Sam Rainer, Art Rainer, and Jess Rainer

Incredible sons,

models of Christlike character,

my best friends

And always to

Nellie Jo, of course

You were too late.

It was an unusual statement from a man I had never met. Indeed, I had to pause for clarification. Excuse me? I asked.

You were too late.

There were those words again. I had not misheard them. The expression on his face clearly told me he was not joking. He was serious. Dead serious.

Though I was tempted to begin a conversation with others at the conference who wanted to speak with me, I could not leave this man with the stern expression without an explanation.

So, where was I too late? I asked him.

It was your book, he said. Autopsy of a Deceased Church. I read the book in one sitting. But it was too late.

I waited.

My church had already died. We closed the doors just a few months before I read your book, he said quietly. Why didnt you write something sooner? Why couldnt we have made some changes before we had no choice but to die? I just dont understand.

And then I saw tears. At first I thought his eyes were just irritated. But those were real tears.

He was not angry; he was hurting. Deeply hurting. His church had closed. I would eventually learn it was the same church where he was married and his two daughters were married. It was the church he had attended faithfully. It was the church he had loved deeply.

Now it was closed. But he chose the word died firstthe man was deeply grieving a death.

I asked him to stick around. I wanted to hear his story and his churchs story, but I could not be rude to the others who were waiting. I was grateful he waited on me. We talked for almost an hour after the conference ended.

I heard his story.

In May 2005, Fast Company published a cover story by Alan Deutschman. The article was simply but profoundly titled Change or Die. The responses were so voluminous that Deutschman expanded his work into a full book by the same title. It was released in early 2007.

There were two major reasons the article and the book had such eager audiences. First, the research for his topic was meticulous and thorough. Second, the results were breathtaking. His central thesis was both profound and disturbing. If given a choice between life and death, most people and leaders choose death if life requires substantive changes.

Reflect on that previous sentence a moment.

Most people choose death rather than change.

Even if they have the path to live, the resources to live, and the choice to live, they choose death rather than making the necessary changes.

Deutschman pointed to some disturbing realities that confirmed such an astounding claim. For example, among more than 1.5 million patients who undergo heart bypass surgery each year, a significant number of them can be restored to full health with lifestyle changes in their eating and exercise habits. But 90 percent do not make any changes. They are choosing to die.

Such choices of death, Deutschman tells us, are not limited to personal health. He points to many leaders of organizations who know what changes are needed for the organization to live or even thrive. Yet they do not make those changes, and the organization dies.

Here is the disturbing reality in all these examples: Individuals and organizations do not lack the resources, knowledge, and information to survive; they simply do not choose to make the changes that are clear and available. When confronted with the choice to change or die, they choose to die.

No one knows for certain how many churches close their doors in the United States each year, but its probably safe to say the number is at least seven thousand, and that number is growing. Twenty churches are closing their doors every single day. Most of them did not have to die. Most of them chose to die.

I knowmy words sound harsh. But reality can be a tough taskmaster. As I will explain in greater detail in the next chapter, we cannot begin to change until we accept reality.

Here is another bit of sobering reality: More churches are marching toward the precipitous path of death every year. Ten years ago, about 10 percent of all churches were declining so rapidly that we deemed them terminal or near terminal. Today, 19 percent of all churches in America are in that category.

Stated another way, the number of churches near death has grown from thirty-five thousand to sixty-six thousand in ten years.

Change or die.

A few years ago, I saw this reality up close. A church near death asked me to speak to their remnant of members. As I entered the deteriorating facility, I saw that the church sign was covered by weedsyou couldnt see the name of the church from the road.

The signs of death were everywhere. I decided not to take a restroom break when I opened the door to the mens room. It was filthy beyond words.

In one of the rooms off the sanctuary was an old upright piano that a member had donated to get a tax write-off. But no one had ever played it; the church was just a better dumping ground than the landfill.

But more concerning than the facilities were the faces of the members. They were defeated. A couple of them were angry. They had given up hope, or at least they saw me as their last hope.

I vaguely remember saying a few words about change when I was interrupted by a lady almost all the way in the back. There were fewer than a dozen people left in the church, but she chose to sit in the last pew.

What about the screens? she asked.

The screens? I replied with bewilderment.

Yeah, she said with growing indignation. Will we have words on the screen instead of using our hymnals if we make these changes? Youre not supposed to have screens in a church! The other heads nodded in affirmation.

I wrapped up my presentation quickly. The church members thought it was more important to have dusty hymnals than to be a gospel presence in their community. They had already made their decision. There was no need for me to waste my breath further. They had chosen to die rather than change.