The Slow Death of the churches of Christ

Let's be realistic

Are the churches of Christ experiencing a slow death?

Yeah, I think they are.

Before you point out how well-attended this year’s PTP or L2L were, realize we’ve long had events like those and yet we’ve been in decline the whole time. Before you point out how such-and-such congregation is doing great, realize that the big getting bigger often means little to the small getting smaller.

I rejoice in every single soul that’s added to a church in Nashville or Dallas. But for every 500 member church there, there’s a 15 member church in Colorado or Iowa that’s seemingly on its death bed.

Despite population growth, there are fewer churches of Christ now than there were 10-20 years ago. More pulpits become unoccupied all the time. Elderships are getting harder and harder to stock.

In almost every congregation, I’m told stories of how they used to be a lot bigger and did a lot better job of filling up their building that seems to get more and more empty with each passing year. I’ve also been to a number of congregations in which my family and I were the only people under the age of 45-50.

The hard reality of our >50% youth dropout rate is starting to catch up to small churches. And, now that the small churches are running out of young families that big churches can pull away, that hard reality is also going to hit the bigger churches in the next 10-15 years.

I’ve also been to congregations which, if things don’t change, will not exist in a generation. Due to previous closures in the area, these congregations draw people from 45-60 minutes away. What happens to them when the lone remaining congregation dries up? Where do they raise their kids in the church?

There’s no point in sugarcoating it… outside of the strongholds of the Bible belt, things are bleak in the churches of Christ.

And it’s not like this is a controversial claim. Most every religious group has been in decline.

But recently I’ve seen a couple of articles pushing back on this idea that the churches of Christ are in a bad spot; one by Rod Rutherford in Seek the Old Paths, and the other by Dale Jenkins at The Jenkins Institute. (Joel Slater had a good X thread pushing back on the former).

My objections to their articles are not personal, as I’ve seen and heard similar takes from a number of men in the church. It’s about the ideas—ideas which I believe are dangerously wrong.

I’d like to respond to three of the points raised that I find most in need of rebuttal

Doctrinal Compromise

One of the loudest voices pointing to the church’s decline in recent years has been Jack Reese, who wrote At the Blue Hole to argue that we’ve over-emphasized doctrinal distinctives and must learn to look the other way in the name of unity to stave off our decline.

This, of course, is wrong. Setting aside the blindingly obvious Scriptural reasons why we aren’t going to change course to appease the masses, it doesn’t even make sense from a pragmatic standpoint. Making ourselves another community church isn’t some secret recipe for growth. It’s not by simply placing an instrument on the stage that they grow. It’s by going all-in on consumer Christianity. And almost nobody grows by putting a woman in the pulpit.

So yes, we should not hesitate to dismiss someone who points to the church’s decline in order to advocate doctrinal compromise. But just being wrong on the latter point doesn’t make him wrong on the former. Those are two separate claims.

The church’s guaranteed survival

One of the first points raised any time this point comes up is Matthew 16:18, where Christ promised that the gates of Hades would not prevail against His church. Obviously, this is true and should give us some comfort. But it doesn’t answer the reality of our tough situation.

To be clear, when I speak of the “slow death” of the churches of Christ, understand that I don’t mean Christ’s church will ever die.

But I do believe the congregations spawned by the Stone-Campbell movement are on a bad trajectory, and I don’t want us to go back to being a tiny resistance movement that is only hinted at in fragments in the historical record.

And, I believe the churches of Christ could go all but dormant in the United States. History tells us that Christianity had once made strong inroads into China in the 800s. Now much of the Christian activity there has to be conducted underground due to persecution from a Godless government.

Similarly, Europe and all its big, beautiful Cathedrals and church buildings is almost entirely apostate. Even though these men weren’t in the churches of Christ, it wasn’t that long ago that Europe produced believers like C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Martin Lloyd-Jones. Now the Anglican church’s top bishop compromised on homosexuality, then had to step down for a sex abuse coverup.

I think we take for granted how good things have been here and assume it will always be that way. But both Europe and all those dying churches scattered throughout our own country tell us we shouldn’t be so certain.

International Success

The other major objection commonly used is to say that, even though the church seems to be declining here, it’s doing well elsewhere. I’m thrilled that the Gospel has reached people in places like India and Tanzania (though I’m often skeptical of the mission reports coming from those countries), but we must remember two things:

First, much of the success of the church worldwide has been launched by the health of the American church. God has blessed us richly, and American missionaries and contributions have helped spread the Gospel far and wide. We should want to see that carried on, shouldn’t we?

Second, do you realize how uncaring this arguments is? Yes, the church will always exist somewhere on earth… but shouldn’t we want it to exist everywhere on earth? Isn’t giving back hard-fought ground an indictment on us? Don’t we care about the lost in this country, too? Don’t we care about our kids and grandkids?

That’s what bothers me so much about the Pollyanna-ish insistence that everything is sunshine and roses. Whether intended or not, the message underneath the positivity is, “I don’t care if your grandkids have no church to attend or Christians to marry, because Kenya’s putting up some good baptism stats.” I’m sorry, what?

To be honest, it’s not surprising that we lose over half of our youth when arguments like these reveal that even church leaders don’t really care if the church in our country has a future.

I don’t know about you, but I want the church to be strong in America and India. If it falls off in either one, we should mourn that and do what we can to turn the tide. We can’t just give ourselves a pass for our failings because someone else is succeeding.

That’s like the one talent man comforting himself by the fact that he’s got his one coin nestled safely under his tree. It’s also like if Samuel and Elijah and Isaiah decided they didn’t need to care about Israel’s decline because “God will always preserve Abraham and David’s promised lineage.” We can rest in God’s promises for the future while still caring for the lost people right in front of us.

“Christ’s church will never die” shouldn’t be used as a cushion to kneel on as we bury our heads in the sand. No, it should give us confidence to march forth and expand the borders of the kingdom knowing we can’t lose. Don’t be content to just survive when we have the chance to thrive.

So, how do we thrive, then?

As the old saying goes, the first step is admitting there’s a problem. And there is, indeed, a problem. Those who point to the church’s ultimate survival and the church’s success elsewhere in the world obviously agree that things aren’t great here, otherwise they wouldn’t make the arguments they do.

We need to start rededicating ourselves to developing men in the local church. If we can’t consistently restock our leadership cupboard from within, it’s only a matter of time before the small church ceases to be viable. All the preaching schools and Christian colleges in the world haven’t managed to do it for us. We need to keep the supply chain local and anti-fragile (as I wrote here).

We need to start keeping our kids. All the evangelism in the world will still have a tough time replacing the kids we A) aren’t having and B) aren’t keeping in the church when we do have them. Parenting for generational faithfulness needs to be a strong emphasis in our churches, including identifying threats from public schools, social media, and even Christian colleges.

We need to start protecting the purity of the church. I’ve already said plenty on this for now.

Evangelism will come. I fully believe that evangelism will result fairly naturally if we get our own houses in order. But so long as the local church can’t keep and develop its own, it’s only natural that we won’t be able to reach others effectively.

Until we address these problems head on, we’re settling for superficial healing—"peace, peace” when there is no peace (Jeremiah 6:14). Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the rest of the prophets didn’t have to pretend things were ok in the moment just because they would be ok in the end.

It should break our hearts that the American church is starting to have a name for being alive while being dead, and it should motivate us to strengthen the things that remain (Revelation 3:1-2).

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Notes

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Thanks!

-Jack