11 Signs Your Church Is Going Extinct
If your church is showing one or two of these signs, some change is in order to optimally position your congregation for the future.
If it’s showing more than half of the signs, then in my view there’s some serious work to be done. If it’s showing most or all of the signs, it’s time for some prayerful and radical repentance and reinvention before it’s too late.
1. No sense of urgency
Growing churches have an exceptional sense of urgency. Stagnant and declining churches don’t.
If every Sunday is just another Sunday—and you don’t have a burning sense that lives and eternity hang in the balance—then you’ve lost the edge that all great churches, preachers and movements share.
Growing churches have an exceptional sense of urgency. Stagnant and declining churches don’t.
2. Urgency about the wrong things
It’s not that dying churches don’t have any sense of urgency. In fact, they will often feel urgency about two things: the budget and survival.
If your motive for growth is financial, you should probably close your doors or open your heart. Unchurched people can smell it a mile away when you see them as simply a means to an end.
Resources and people follow vision. If your only vision is to stay afloat, the end is near.
If your motive for church growth is financial, you should close your doors or open your heart.
3. Decline has made you cautious
Growing churches take risks. Stagnant or declining churches don’t.
Churches that aren’t growing often end up in preservation mode—they try to converse what little they already have rather than risk it to grow again.
This is a critical mistake.
Ask yourself, when was the last time we took a real risk? If you can’t answer that, you’re far too cautious.
4. Success has made you cautious
It’s not just stagnation or decline that makes leaders cautious, success does it too.
Sometimes you become so successful you become afraid to break the formula. So you become cautious. You stop innovating. You risk little.
The greatest enemy of your future success is your current success.
5. Your affection for the past is greater than your excitement for the future
Stuck or declining churches are nostalgic churches. They remember when everything was amazing, which clearly isn’t today.
To figure this out, listen to the way people talk. Is there an excitement for what’s next, or mostly a longing for what was?
When your affection for the past is greater than your excitement for the future, you’re in trouble.
