Hope and Mercy Endures Because the Church Never Dies

If the Church never dies, why do churches close? As one who was raised in
Detroit and attended an urban church, Bethany, my heart broke when I learned that
the church that I grew up in was about to close. She was a big church and I
attended her school. She was financially sound and holding her own. I was
financially assisted to attend Lutheran High School East and then Concordia College
(now University), Ann Arbor, and even the seminary. As I left home for college and
seminary, my brother still attended Bethany and became an elder. Finally, he and
his family moved and joined another church. As a former member of an urban
Church, I have done what I could to help “city” churches. Most recently, I assisted,
along with a couple of pastors, in serving a city church averaging about 20 people in
weekly attendance. During this time, it hit me that schools and churches go through
many of the same things that families do when confronted with terminal illness.

The signs were there.

Numbers

In talking with my brother, for Bethany, the signs were there: a demographic
shift in the community, a dwindling budget, a dwindling staff, a dwindling
membership, and a dwindling attendance. Baptisms were rare, the number of
communicants spiraled down, and the financial woes multiplied.

Meetings

The common topic of the church’s meetings was – money – and how are we
going to get this or that done. Where can we cut the budget? Whom shall we cut
from staff? Over a few years, only a bare bones budget was passed. From staffing,
the topic turns to maintaining facilities. Eventually, the facilities consistently fall into
disrepair.

Neighborhood

The Roman Catholic schools were closing and so were other churches.
Families of the church move out to the suburbs and still traveled 20-40 minutes to
church. The demographics of the area change. The age of members and the
neighborhood increases dramatically with people trying to “hang on.”

Finally, pastors retire. The church looks to pastors who can “afford” to take
the call. Sometimes an unmarried pastor or retired pastor is called because there
are not enough funds to pay the expected salary. Once the school closes, then a
string of part time pastors serve. Those who were traveling long distances to church
aged and finally join a church that is closer to home. As happened with Bethany,
she hung on as long as she could. Building maintenance and dwindling membership
finally brought home the financial reality. Memorial funds and trust money was no
longer able to keep her open.
Grief and tribulation.

Schools and churches share the same experiences of families who are
confronted with terminal illness. The financial facts and obvious demographics of a
church are sometimes like symptoms of – and it is hard to say this - a terminal
illness in a local congregation. However, the difference is measured in decades, not
months.

The time is terribly painful and the path of denial, anger, bargaining,
depression, and acceptance, the very “stages” of grief, become the way of life for a
local congregation. As a pastor and a hospice chaplain, I have seen people go
through these moments of desperation, repeat some of the stages, and then finally
accept the inevitable. Sadly, I have also witnessed schools and churches go through
the same agonizing stages. Even to the point when “false hope” creeps into the
family when a terminally ill patient lives on a plateau of stability for a few days or
weeks (rarely, but possible, months). However, the plateau ends. The cliff appears.
Sometimes the false hope appears in the form of an endowment or trust, which
seems to come to the rescue, only to stave off the end for a little while.

The nagging question lurks in the minds of the membership, Does this mean
the “Church” is dying? No!

Bethany did her best to continue with ministry for 30 years after I went off to
school. The Word of God still endures forever. The life of Christ and His resurrection
are still the cornerstone of the church. The foundation of the Apostles and Prophets
remains regardless of money, total membership, attendance, and fewer churches in
a specific geographical area. The Word and the Sacramental life depend upon
Christ, not man. Yet God gives the congregation and her members the responsibility
to “run” the local church.

The holy, Christian, and apostolic Church endures because the Lord taught us
that the Body of Christ is more than the sum of the local congregation. My second
call to a congregation was to a suburban church in the Detroit area. (My first was in
Utah.) It was obvious to me that Bethany and many of the “city” churches that
closed were still alive because the majority of my members were from the city
churches.

Bethany raised me and her faithfulness to God’s Word and the Church at
large sent me. Many people in Utah, in the suburbs, in Kenya, in Indiana and all over
the country were taught and raised by Bethany. Bethany was my grade school and
she helped me through high school, college, and seminary. Bethany taught me that
the body of Christ is brought into reality through the Word and the Sacraments she
celebrated. Your congregation has done the same thing in so many ways when the
families who move to the suburbs, or the big city, or to other states, join and raise
their children in the faith. The Church continues to live on because of Christ’s
promises to call, gather, and enlighten the whole Christian Church on earth. This is
most certainly true.

The fire and enduring message of the Gospel is never snuffed out. The
burning desire of the Spirit to enlighten the gentiles and to uphold children of Israel
continues. That is the life of every local congregation, regardless of her geographic
location. Regardless of how long her doors were open. Every local congregation is
the presence of the Church at large, the Universal Church of Christ. The resurrection
of Christ is secure. The hope of everlasting life through the mercy and grace of God
goes on.

Just as a family faces terminal illness so does the local congregation. When a
believer is facing the horrors and weaknesses of Alzheimer’s or cancer or old age,
the family takes inventory of the life of the loved one and gives thanks. The family
looks out, cares for the person, plans for medical care, pain relief, living
arrangements, medicine, and prepares for the last days. There is nothing easy
about it. Denial, bargaining, anger, etc. are mixed into the lives of everyone
involved. The pastor visits often and brings the message of forgiveness and the
reality of the resurrection of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. It makes no difference if
the pastor celebrates Lord’s Supper in a hospital room, a nursing home, or the front
room of the house at the side of a hospital bed. Faith clings to the fact that the
entire body of Christ, angels, archangels and all of the company of heaven are there
at the hospital bed celebrating the gathering of the saints before throne of the
Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is the truth of eternity and
marches in to the most dire human circumstances. The victory over sin death and
the devil belongs to believers, regardless of their disease, their finances, their
suffering.

The local congregation, by God’s grace and through faith in Christ, clings to
the same promises and hope of everlasting life. The communion of saints, life
everlasting, and the hope that is in Christ Jesus bursts into (Dare I put it this way? Is
it too harsh to face or accept?) what humanly appears to be – a “dying”
congregation.

There. I said it. A dying congregation is the opposite of what Lutherans

confess. Yet, because of what we believe, we know that it is the death of our Lord
that brings life. The “dying” congregation is one only from a human earthly
perspective. That is exactly how God has called all of us involved in our churches to
function. What I mean is that God DOES work through means, the means of the First
Article gifts of creation. The wise and faithful Christian will use the gifts of creation
wisely and make decisions, even about finances, about staffing, about the ability to
pay the bills.

However, the Lord calls us to faithfulness and hope. The peace that passes
all understanding is the love and hope of Christ that His Church marches on in the
face of sin, death, and the devil. In spite of a local congregation that must close her
doors because of finances (Should we be realistic and accept that churches really
only close because there is no money? Or, is this too hard and we are still in denial
and want to bargain for a few more years?), this does not mean that God changed
his mind about the whole Church on earth or that forgiveness is no longer available
or that God is dead. No, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

If Christ is risen, then why are we facing the financial woes? Why did we have
to close our school, and… well, now we are talking about have to close our church
and sell the property?

Might I suggest that a local congregation think and pray for wisdom about the
whole Christian Church on earth? God does not call His church around the budget
and property. Rather, He calls believers around the Word and Sacraments. When
my childhood church closed, the Church of Jesus Christ didn’t. In other words, take
an inventory and thank God for where your congregation's members now live in
another congregation. It will bring about rejoicing and an understanding of how the
Christ’s Church endures.

Church Inventory?

Where do your old church friends live and go to church?

Can you put together a list of people who are attending a congregation
elsewhere because they moved? Your local congregation raised those people. Just
like any faithful mother and father, the Heavenly Father and the Bride of Christ
raised the born again children of God to grow up and move out of the house. The
Church of Christ does not demand that we live with our parents forever in one
place. Your local congregation, as small as it is, as financially desperate as it is, is
still very active. She is strengthening the family of God in another congregation. Just
as I believe that Bethany, even though the building is closed and the school doesn’t’
exist, still is alive and well and bringing the Word of God to people and proclaiming
Christ’s forgiveness through the many pastors, teachers, and members who are
active elsewhere. This is most certainly true because Bethany was a congregation
of the Bride of Christ in eternity.

Where are your former pastors serving now?

Where are all of your former pastors? Are they serving churches elsewhere?
Even if they have died in the Lord, where did they serve? What has always been an
unexpected gift of being a pastor is how every congregation continued to raise me.
They taught me, ministered to me, and clarified God’s Word for me. In turn, I
learned how better to serve God's people. Each blessed church brought suffering,
hardship, because we are fighting Satan, but in turn was faithful to the hope and
promises of Christ. The Lord used his Bride to “raise me” as a pastor – and just as it
is for every Christian, I am still learning. Bethany is still at work.
 Map it out.

Because of this daily new birth in Christ, each congregation influences the
next one, not only through former members, but also through former pastors. An
encouraging exercise is to put a map of the U.S. (even the world) on a wall. Mark
out your congregation and using a pushpin, identify all of the churches your former
pastors served after he served you. It will be quite a picture of how God used your
congregation to touch the born again lives of so many churches and people
throughout the city, state, country, and likely the world. It is only a very small
picture of the work of the Bride of Christ, but your local congregation was very
much her child.

How can your budget and property serve Christ’s Church?

Is your congregation spending all of her time just trying to pay bills? Are her
meetings always about money and the current number people attending church? It
gets old and very tiring. It is emotional and painful. However, just as a family looks
to Hospice or the medical community, many times its hope is to understand that the
loved one really needs pain relief and comfort. The loved one facing the end
rejoices in the Lord’s blessings that are passed on to the next generation, the next
family, and the grandchildren.

In the “end of life” context, dying patient finds comfort in the family’s
acceptance of her translation from earth to heaven. The patient breathes a sigh of
relief that her family will stop worrying about a miracle and spend the remaining
time giving thanks for what God has given. The last days become a time of rejoicing
in faith (even though there are tears, emotions, and pain) because of God’s
blessings through the dying saint to her family and community. (This is all about our
vocations.) Her entire life was a gift to her and her parents, her husband, and her
family.

This is a pivotal moment. It turns on the comfort of Christ and the light will
not be overcome by the darkness (John 1:3). Comfort and security multiplies for the
patient when the family accepts what is happening and begins to talk and pray.
They turn to God’s Word. They openly pray in thanksgiving to God for the time they
have left, knowing that their loved will live in peace and joy in the presence of God.
Should a local congregation do the same? Doesn’t the congregation who might be
facing the end trust in the Lord, accept what is, and will be?

What I mean by this is that once a congregation that is living in these

circumstances, accepts them, she is often able to breathe life into the remaining
members, not with a false hope of never closing (dying really isn’t the right word
from a Christian perspective), but with the real hope that the Church lives forever in
Christ. The “parking lot” discussions and the formal meetings can have a purpose of
how best to use wisely what the local congregation possesses and use it to go about
her business for as many days as the Lord grants. Then using the “reason and
senses” that God preserves (First Article) hand on Christ’s gifts to His Bride - the
Church throughout the world. The possibilities are endless!

The Whole Christian Church on Earth

Seek out other churches in the area to help that pastor and church welcome
the members from your church

Some churches, when they grasp what they have, will create an endowment
or set up a trust for a specific purpose. Lutheran School; Donate Altar vessels to a
mission church nationally or internationally. Fund a missionary. Etc. etc.

Set up an annual gathering of former members who grasped this vision to

use your churches gifts to extend Christ’s church.

Support seminary students, future teachers, deaconesses, and other church

workers by funding a church worker grant.

As you can imagine, the list can go on and on. Because in the end, what
really counts is Christ and the proclamation of His Word. What really counts is the
continual life of Christ’s bride in the sacraments, regardless of where He offers
them.

You are a saint by faith in Christ. You already died in Christ in your baptism.
You are living the resurrected life in your daily callings. Christians do not fear the
future because we know what it is in the victory of Christ over sin, death, and the
devil. All else is what God gives us the freedom to do in order to be sure the Word is
proclaimed. It is still His sacraments, His Word, and His bride.

Therefore, the peace of Christ that passes all understanding is in the comfort
of His promises. We die in peace. We do know the joy of our salvation especially in
the midst of pain and suffering. It is not a sin to die in the Lord. When it comes to
closing churches, it is not a sin to face the pain and suffering to do so. Rather, if we
need to do such a thing, we do it in the Lord and the Feast of Victory continues
because it is the Lord’s feast the never ends. It only takes place in church, where
ever that church might be geographically however, you are always counted among
the believers on earth and in heaven.