Standing on the Promises - Now What?

by Seventy Mary Jean Belrose

If you are concerned about the health or future of your congregation, please contact the Mission Centre President Team to discuss a possible discernment process.
Vonda DenBoer, Dawn Dawson, Mary Jean Belrose

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Times have certainly changed and many of us long for the days of yesteryears gone by when our churches were bustling with activity all throughout the week. Remember the days when there were two worship services on Sundays, a full slate of Sunday School classes, choir practice and prayer service during the week, plenty of potlucks, church picnics, baptisms, and so much more. Now, the reality is that many of us are struggling to keep just one worship service alive with only a handful of people. It’s the last piece of familiarity that we cling to in hopes that something miraculous might happen. Meanwhile, for many congregations, offerings and other income are not near enough to carry the expenses of our empty aging facilities.

In reality, we are in new territory and have been for some time. The hard truth is that no rearranging of our schedule, repackaging our worship or switching the furniture will likely attract enough new people to help keep us moving forward. The fact is that churches everywhere are dealing with the same issues—aging membership, declining numbers, empty buildings, and challenges from the pandemic. According to a study done by Barna in 2014, the top two reasons people do not attend church is that they find God elsewhere and they do not find church relevant.

The $5,000,000 question is how do we now reach people to share this incredibly remarkable community that we cherish? Truthfully, we don’t know any other way than what we have lived and breathed for all of our life. And we simply continued the form from the foundation that we inherited—gathering in our buildings for study, worship, meetings, potlucks, etc. So now what? It may feel like a huge void as we try to discern what the next part of our journey will look like without a map or some concrete plan before us.
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