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Perhaps the idea of a congregational lifecycle is new to you. But think about it: are any of the congregations that Paul started in the New Testament still in existence? The answer is, “No.” The Church, the Body of Christ continues, but individual local congregations go through a fairly predictable lifecycle.
Birth: A congregation begins when a handful of people feel called to join together and start a new community of faith. They are committed to Christ’s mission of making disciples for the transformation of the world. Other people begin to join them. It is a time of high spiritual energy, excitement and “all hands on deck.”
Shared Beliefs & Missional Goals: As more people are attracted to Christ’s mission and join them, different ministries are added: small discipling groups, worship teams, children’s and youth ministry, community service and evangelistic ministries, for example. Eventually, the congregation develops ways to manage their ministries: specialized roles, committees, decision making procedures and policies. The congregation enters the middle adult phase of their lifecycle when they are most missionally fruitful. This is a season when the energy continues to focus outward in reaching new persons and in blessing their community through ministries of mercy and justice. The congregation may start a mother-daughter congregation. New people are coming to Christ for the first time; new small groups are being started; lives are changing; persons are discovering the joy and fulfillment of being in ministry to others. Contagious joy, excitement, wonder and celebration abound.
Nostalgia: At some usually unrecognized point, congregations begin to be satisfied with how they are doing. Instead of constantly seeking to improve how they reach new people and impact their community for Christ, they begin to be concerned with continuing what they have been doing. Continuing the traditions that have been meaningful to them and previously effective slowly becomes their primary focus. The energy moves inward to maintaining programs and caring for their members. This seldom noticed shift from mission to maintenance begins the congregation’s decline. New people may still come and join them, but this is no longer the congregation’s primary focus. The community may still be impacted by their ministries, but no longer is being Christ’s light and salt for their community their primary focus. Consequently, as the community begins to change, the congregation increasingly looses touch with those they once felt called to serve.
Decline & Conflict: As the congregation focuses on continuing their beloved traditions and past styles of ministry in the context of a community that is changing, missional effectiveness begins to decline. It is as if the congregation is frozen in time while time in the world moves on. Slowly people begin to recognize the decrease in fruitfulness: not as many people, not as many children, and few new people joining. Some people begin blaming others for not doing well what used to be quite effective: “We need to build better 8-track tape players!” Some people begin to call for reform: “Why can’t we sing some choruses?” Conflict begins to simmer – and sometimes boil. Because there are less people and eventually less money, programs begin to be cut: the youth director’s position goes part-time and then is discontinued. Families leave because the congregation isn’t what it once was. Visitors still drop by occasionally, but few come back. Just finding people to continue their declining programs and money to pay the bills becomes the congregation’s main focus. Institutional survival weighs heavily, joylessly on the shoulders of the remaining leaders.
Death: If this decline continues, congregational death is inevitable. The congregation clutches for new persons not to share Christ with them and not to involve them in ministries that bless their community, but to get them to help their congregation survive institutionally: help pay our bills, help teach our Sunday School classes, help fix up our aging facilities. Sometimes memorial funds enable the congregation to continue existing for years even though viable ministry -- other than member chaplaincy -- has long ago ceased. Sometimes the lack of funds forces Annual Conference leaders to urge a congregation’s discontinuance.
Possible Resurrection, Not Resuscitation: At any point along the declining right side of the lifecycle, a congregation can go through transformation and resurrection. This is not resuscitation in the sense of returning to the congregation’s “glory days.” Resurrection happens when individual leaders of a congregation reconnect spiritually with Jesus and with His mission for calling them together and sending them out. Resurrection requires letting go of cherished “wine skins” (how we have always done it) in exchange for the “new wine” of a renewed spiritual life and a renewed ministry to the community that now lives around the congregation. The truth is, however, that the further a congregation descends into “decline and conflict,” the more difficult and personally costly their transformation becomes. One very real challenge is that many church leaders (lay and clergy) have not spent much or any time in a congregation during the missionally healthy left side of its lifecycle. As has often been said, “You can’t lead people where you’ve never been.” For this reason, personal spiritual transformations precede congregational transformation.
You might gather together people in your congregation, show them the lifecycle diagram, tell them the story of a typical congregation and then ask them to share where they believe they are on the lifecycle and why. Coming to their senses about where they are on the congregational lifecycle is an excellent starting point for transformation.
You can download PowerPoint slides of the lifecycle diagram and a suggested script to use with them below.
++Lifecycle PowerPoint
++Script: Where is your Congregation in its Life Cycle?
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