Blessing In Church Closure

Revelation 2:4  Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. 

5  Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. 

They are tearing a church down in my town. I knew it was dying when I visited it nine years ago. The pastor was much older than me and lived in a town over an hour away. He came on Sundays, took a nap in the church and left after the evening service. It seldom works when a pastor lives in a different town especially when he gets that old. The church was 112 years old. It seated 350, but there was less than 30 when I visited.

I am fairly certain that there are others in town that will be torn down or repurposed in a few years. I was recently in a church that might seat 250-300. There were 15 folks there. I know one that would seat 100-150 and there might be 12 there now. I have visited quite a few. Many were like these examples. I saw an ad for a pastor for a church that was 110 years old, but there were only 7 members. These are expensive small groups.

I know that many people will bemoan this closing and others, but I do not think it is that depressing. What was depressing was the years they kept themselves on some sort of ICU life support hoping for a revival that would bring back the glory days. People staring every time the door opens hoping for some new faces with kids and it is just one of the old-timers. Then watching as the door opens less and less as members leave, move to nursing homes or the grave. The stress over trying to maintain the building with less and less funds. Each Sunday joy lessens, faith fails and the aging pastor struggles to instill false hope in the people.

There are many reasons that churches close. Jesus had high praise for the church at Ephesus and good words about others as well as words of reproof or rebuke. Yet, Ephesus and the other six eventually closed. Did that cause the world to end? No, because the kingdom is more than buildings or specific congregations. Indeed, their closing and scattering of the members may well have spawned other churches or needed experience and gifts were added to existing churches somewhere else in the kingdom.

Someone once said that churches are like people. They are born, become adolescents, young adults, middle age, geriatric and die. A church that survived over 100 years is awesome and we rejoice when people get to 100 or older knowing at some point they will die. Rather than bemoaning the death of a church that is over 100 years we should rejoice that it lasted that long.

Too many try to keep it going as if God cares about 100 years when He deals with eternity or that buildings are so necessary when we are the temples of God, not the building. We make our buildings far too ornate and costly to build and maintain when we should be beautifying our souls and using our money and energy turning fleshly sin shacks into beautiful spiritual temples through salvation. We should be building up each other rather than constant remodeling of a place that will probably die at some point and will definitely be burned up when this world is destroyed by fire.

When churches close it gives the people who lived in despair and false hope an opportunity to find a vibrant congregation and get refreshed. Indeed, their gifts unused for years may be exactly what is needed in the church they join. There will be one less church for unbelievers to look at and mock because there are 80+ in a town of 30K. They do not understand how there can be so many churches of the same type in a small area. It gives them a reason to blaspheme God and justify their sin because of the people who say they are going to the same Heaven, but cannot sit on a pew in the same building.

The one being torn down spawned six other churches. So, it was a mother and as we all know whether they have one or eighteen children all mothers die. I do not know the state of the children churches. Some may have died and others might be thriving. Still what work was done in Him will last forever.

If we knew what caused the death it might help extend the life of another church or maybe not. Maybe it was sin or not but the greater sin was keeping it alive longer than it should have because there was refusal to pull the plug. Jesus said of one church that it had a name but was dead. There are quite a few of those. In my youth, we talked about someone being dead but too dumb to drop over. Some churches are dead, but the people are too arrogant, deluded or in building idolatry to let it drop over.