Sometimes I Am Right

A few years ago I was involved in a struggling church. I diagnosed some problems and spoke with the leadership of this church about the problems. Namely they were unwelcome to the community that had changed around them. Decades ago the community around the church had been white and the remnant remaining in the church was mostly old and white and wanted their dead friends to come back to life instead of their new neighbors who were mostly poor and not white.

I told this church it needed to change and become a church for this community and not the one it wished it had. Many of the members were driving in because they had left the neighborhood when the less desirables began moving in in the 1980's. The church had a large facility and endless opportunities, but it did not want to open its doors to the people around it and would rather run what it had into the ground. I told them they had 18 months or the doors would close.

Well, I was off by about six months. The doors closed and the handful of people remaining have gone on to other churches. You would think I would feel vindicated. You would think I am gloating because I was right and diagnosed the problem and even laid out a path to avert disaster if they were willing to do it. I do not feel vindicated. I am overjoyed. Not because one church that had ceased being the church in its community closed, but because another plant that did not have a full time home has taken over the facility.

This plant renamed the location and has come in to minister to the community it is in. They have a large staff and had 250 people on their first day and the pastor is black! This church wants to reach the community it is in, while the other group wanted to minister to the dead they lost over the last five decades. Out of the ashes of failure rose a new creation, much like the old, but better. They remember their first love. I have no doubt they will climb from 250 quickly. The facility will hold 800. It has not had those kinds of numbers in 60 years, but I think it will again.

When one church closes it is not always a loss. In reality they had closed many years before; they just had enough money to pretend they were still open. Once enough people died and moved away and did not come back, their margin for staying open got smaller and smaller until they finally had to give it up and let God back in the building. I am excited. This is exactly what the community needs and God answered the call, once the people who stood in His way were finally removed.