Longevity v. Legacy …

What’s more important, the longevity of a church or its legacy?

That was a question posed by a pastor in some reading I was doing some time back. His answer was legacy.

I disagree!

I think it’s both!

I do not believe that God desires any local church to fail and die. So the longevity of a church is important: it shouldn’t cease until Christ returns!

But it’s legacy is also important. The church exists primarily for those who are not yet part of it, so we need to be making a difference in the world around us … and the world!

However, in the United States, 4,000 churches close their doors each year, and only 1,000 churches are started. Often people are initially startled by those numbers. Mathematically, it could quickly spell extinction for the church if that trend continues.

But let me suggest some of that may not be quite as bad as the numbers indicate.

Many of those churches are dying because they have, for many years, been places of strife, contention, bitterness, legalism, liberalism, and as much worldliness as the world they claim they want to serve. Many are indistinguishable from the world around them. And the lack of their repentance is driving their slow death.

That’s the situation for some of those churches. And, in all honesty, if those churches refuse to repent, it would be better they close their doors. That kind of “church” gives a negative, false view of what the church really is to the unbelieving world. A “weeding out” of some of these “churches” that sometimes do more harm than good isn’t such a bad thing.

So how do we handle this situation so that the church in America doesn’t become extinct?

A few thoughts:

1. Save dying churches. Some of those “dying” churches want to live, and could with some help. They may have fallen far enough they need the support, assistance, encouragement, and care of other, healthier churches around them. God can breathe new life into some of these struggling congregations, and other churches should be prepared to help our brothers and sisters in a time of real need.

2. Plant new churches. Adding impact to the American church is a strong new interest and energy in planting churches, being “missional” churches, and developing multi-site churches, with multiple new movements feeding all of these ideas. It’s exciting to see the efforts of building new churches that are committed to parenting additional churches. Birthing healthy new communities of faith may reinvigorate the mission of the church more than we’ve seen in some decades.

3. Be the church. People are looking for real answers for the real issues to life. The church has the answer for them! It’s Jesus Christ. And like Jesus, who came to “seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10), we need to be sharply focused on sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with a lost world, and discipling those who embrace His free gift of salvation.

Every Christian church matters, not just for a while. For what kind of legacy does a church really have if it so fails to be the body of Christ that it dies?

Let’s commit to save every church we can so that the church can be used to save every soul we can, so we can grow whole new vibrant communities of faith.

Scotty