1 – Fewer people are training to work for a congregation.
This used to be an attractive position in society but it has lost its luster. People see the fallout in ministry families. They see the impact on the kids and that adults. People don’t want this for their kids. Many parents steer their kids away from ministry because of all the baggage. This means there are fewer people to staff existing and future traditional churches.
2 – Attendance and Budgets are down (on average).
COVID really did a number on many churches. Churches are closing at a faster pace than pre-COVID. This means existing churches have fewer resources to maintain their own ministries, much less start new churches.
3 – Real estate and construction costs are up.
The cost to buy land and build a church have gone through the roof. This means having a physical location to meet in solely for the purpose of the gathering is getting harder and harder to achieve and/or maintain. Add to this the cost of zoning restrictions and code and the costs just keep going up.
4 – Cost of living has increased and that makes hiring hard.
The idea of having multi-staff churches is getting out of reach for many. The done for you (DFY) church model is not achievable or sustainable for many and that’s a good thing. If you want to hire a preacher and pay them full time so that they will actually come and not work some other job, it is going to be very expensive unless you have them be bi-vocational (which many are having to go to).
5 – New churches must be planted in order for future churches to exist.
This is because churches basically have a human lifespan. 99% of churches don’t make it to 100 years old (Todd Wilson in Multipliers). That means pretty much every existing church will eventually close. They must be replaced with something and (see 1 above) fewer and fewer people have a desire to start traditional churches or are trained to do so.
6 – Cultural trust of religious institutions has decreased.
The traditional church building is connected with the idea of institutions. Institutions are no longer assumed to be trustworthy simply because they exist. Scandals, politics and public failures (which are now broadcast all over the internet) mean new churches start with a credibility deficit. A building no longer signals stability or legitimacy the way it once did; for many, it signals suspicion. It used to be that you could start a church and curious people would come. This happens in the Bible belt on some level but not like it used to. This makes reaching new people take actual relational effort (and many don’t know how to do that).
7 – Online options.
COVID increased the number of churches that started broadcasting online. Many people took this option for a season and (I am assuming here) that some of them stopped attending/watching entirely. The online service was one more step out the door for some.
8 – People are too busy.
Church got pushed out of the way by sports, work, and so many other things. People don’t make time for the gathering like they used to. The stats show (Barna and others) that the average times people attend in a month has dropped significantly.
9 – Church turned into a spectator sport.
And that isn’t attractive or impactful for many (including many men). The programmatic passive church can create a superficial environment that lacks impact. People are busy (8 above) and they are going to choose to invest their time in something impactful. If it lacks impact, many are out.
10 – A Weak church body
Churches hired the ministry out rather than equip the flock to do the work of the body. This makes the body weak and part of why churches are in decline and that decline makes starting new churches nearly impossible for most established churches that are struggling to maintain what they have.
11- Lack of vision for birthing new things.
There is a mentality that you start a church and you did your job. But just like people have babies, churches need to have baby churches. If humans stop having babies, one day there are no more people because people don’t live forever. Churches don’t live forever. They die. They close. Basically all of them do! So we must reclaim the vision of churches starting churches and if the churches won’t do that, then the people need to start…which, by the way, the church is the people anyway!
12 – Churches don’t have a healthy closure plan
Just as many churches didn’t have vision when they were alive, they struggle to have vision when they close. It is consistent in many cases. It makes all the sense in the world that closing churches would leverage their assets to start new works/churches.
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