Houses Of Worship Tackle ‘The Challenge Of The Empty Church’
MISSION VIEJO, Calif. — Spiritual earthquake, meet holy imagination.
That’s one way to characterize the cultural and societal forces that brought together about 140 leaders representing 40-plus Churches of Christ on a recent weekend.
From Orange County to the Inland Empire, ministers, elders and other concerned Christians flocked to back-to-back seminars focused on “The Challenge of the Empty Church.”
“We had to put out more tables,” Scott Lambert, one of the organizers, said on a 63-degree Saturday morning as he welcomed about 60 leaders to the Mission Viejo Church of Christ’s fellowship hall.
Then on Sunday afternoon, an even larger crowd — about 80 — showed up at the Magnolia Center Church of Christ in Riverside, nearly 50 miles from Mission Viejo.
Attendees came to hear church growth expert Stan Granberg expound on research contained in his 2022 book “Empty Church: Why People Don’t Come and What To Do About It.”
“If we don’t talk about the future, then what are we doing?” asked Carolyn Power, a Magnolia Center worship team member and deacon’s wife.
The history educator and mother of three did her doctoral dissertation on how Churches of Christ connect with Gen Z.
“We have to have a holy imagination to turn it around,” said Power, taking a break from working the registration desk at the Riverside meeting.
Speakers and attendees alike embraced the concept of a holy imagination.
Mike O’Neal — a founder and trustee of the national church renewal ministry Heritage21 — said the idea intrigues him.
“Using the creativity that God has placed in each of us but keeping it holy — biblical and Spirit-led — is what we need to reach 21st century souls,” said O’Neal, a former Oklahoma Christian University president who spent 26 years as an administrator at Pepperdine University in Malibu.
“We can circle our wagons and continue our decline — or we can energetically embrace the mission of God to proclaim Christ to our neighbors. We must take the core values of our Restoration heritage and package them for today’s skeptics and self-absorbed people.”
Grey Powell, lead minister for the Long Beach Church of Christ, baptizes a newly converted believer in the courtyard outside the church building. (Photo provided by Grey Powell)
‘Renew, repurpose and replant’
Shrinking church attendance. Closing congregations. Minister shortages. Post-COVID upheaval.
All those factors contributed to the strong interest in the dialogue organized by Heritage21, which partners with churches to — as the ministry puts it — “renew, repurpose and replant God’s kingdom in these challenging times.”
Mission Viejo, population 91,000, is a city in Orange County — a densely populated region of 3.1 million people, south of Los Angeles.
Riverside’s 320,000 residents make it the largest city in the Inland Empire — a growing area of 4.7 million people, east of Los Angeles.
The seminars occurred before Los Angeles-area wildfires killed at least 25 people and destroyed more than 12,000 buildings — including the meeting places of Churches of Christ in Pasadena and Altadena.
Rejuvenating the Lord’s body in Southern California will require planting new churches, said Jason Haygood, senior minister at Mission Viejo.
“There are some areas south of us here where young families are moving like crazy, and the Church of Christ has no presence,” Haygood said. “I think we’re going to see a renewed movement of house churches in Southern California, specifically because real estate is so prohibitively expensive.”
Originally from Wisconsin, Haygood has served Southern California congregations for 14 years.
“Most of the guys that were in ministry when I started have left Southern California,” he said. “Watching the churches shrink has been unbelievable.”
Attendees listen to speaker Stan Granberg during a seminar on “The Challenge of the Empty Church” hosted by the Mission Viejo Church of Christ. (Photo by Bobby Ross Jr.)
‘Renewal of spiritual imagination’
Haygood previously served the Yorba Linda Church of Christ, also in Orange County. That church found it impossible to hire a new preacher.
“Jason got hired away from our congregation, and we searched and searched and searched,” elder Donny Sherman said. “We had lots of people apply, but for different reasons, none of them fit. … We said, ‘Maybe God wants us to look in a different direction.’”
Elsewhere in Orange County, the Newland Street Church of Christ in Garden Grove was grappling with a post-COVID decline in attendance, minister and elder Richard Shields said.
The Newland Street and Yorba Linda churches decided to merge, despite the 20 miles between their buildings. Now known as the SoCal Church of Christ, the combined body is remodeling a meeting place midway between the original locations.
In the meantime, SoCal members worship with the Ball Road Church of Christ — near Disneyland in Anaheim.
Shields, who began work at Newland Street in 1996, welcomed the chance to join other leaders in plotting a brighter future for Churches of Christ.
“It’s just a first step in helping us move forward — in bringing about renewal in the church and becoming relevant to the culture around us,” he said at the Mission Viejo gathering. “That renewal of spiritual imagination is something that I think all of our churches need.”
The Church of Christ Foundation — a California nonprofit that supports various ministries and provides scholarships for students to pursue Christian education — co-sponsored the seminars.
Paul Schlosser, a retired educator and traveling evangelist, serves on the foundation’s board and helped greet attendees with his wife, Debbie.
“We are desperately in need of this,” Schlosser said of the dialogue. “When I go to churches, they usually can’t afford a preacher, and I have more churches calling on me than I can help.
“We need to be realistic with ourselves as far as where we’re going … and how to deal with where we are,” he added. “We need to have a good plan of where we’re going to head.”
Heritage21 founding board member Scott Lambert speaks at a seminar on “The Challenge of the Empty Church” hosted by the Magnolia Center Church of Christ in Riverside, California. (Photo by Bruce Bates)
‘Reality is like a bear’
In a paper given to attendees, Heritage21 referenced the steep decline of Christianity in the Western Hemisphere — and applied a metaphor that resonated in this coastal state known as a seismic hotspot.
“We may be experiencing nothing less than a spiritual earthquake in the West,” the handout declared.
As recently as the early 1990s, about 90% of U.S. adults identified as Christians, according to the Pew Research Center.
But that number has shrunk to about 63%, coinciding with a sharp rise of the “nones” — those who report no religious affiliation.
In roughly the same period, nearly 1,300 Churches of Christ across America have closed, consolidated or left the fellowship, according to data compiled by 21st Century Christian, a publisher based in Nashville, Tenn. The number of congregations hit a peak of 13,174 in 1990 but has fallen to 11,905, according to the latest figures.
At the same time, the total number of U.S. adherents — men, women and children in the pews — has shrunk from a reported 1.68 million to 1.42 million, a decline of more than a quarter-million.
While the evidence is mostly anecdotal, the actual numerical outlook may be even worse. The pandemic aftermath has delayed the release of an updated national directory, last printed in 2018.
The Church Research Council — which combines the resources of 21st Century Christian, Heritage21, the Siburt Institute for Church Ministry and The Christian Chronicle — has launched to collect new data. Churches can update their information online by going to crc-coc.org.
“Reality is our friend,” said Doug Peters, a longtime minister who serves as Heritage21’s executive director. He urged the California leaders to assess their congregations’ health and needs as honestly as possible.
“Reality is like a bear,” Peters added. “If you turn your back on it, it’s going to bite you.”
Blair Bryan, chairman of Heritage21, leads a prayer at a seminar on “The Challenge of the Empty Church” hosted by the Magnolia Center Church of Christ. (Photo by Bobby Ross Jr.)
Dynamics ‘changing really fast’
Jon Reed spent 28 years as the lead minister for the Hilltop Community Church of Christ in El Segundo, about 20 miles southwest of Los Angeles.
Although he moved to Hillsboro, Oregon, a year ago to be closer to his children and grandchildren, he remains active in coaching Southern California church leaders.
Reed and Heritage21 have helped the Long Beach Church of Christ — where lead minister Grey Powell and his wife, Sharon, serve — develop a new strategy for sharing the Gospel.
In just over a year, that Los Angeles County congregation has seen its core body — 35 “classic Christians,” as Grey Powell refers to the longtime members — more than double in size.
Some of the change has been cosmetic: replacing the pulpit with a stage.
Some of the change has been missional: organizing community giveaway days for the poor.
The result has been a much more diverse body of believers.
“The thing that’s really cool is that the people that we’re getting are unchurched people,” said Powell, interviewed at the Mission Viejo seminar. “They’re not people who are coming from another church. So the dynamics of our church are changing really fast, and we’ve gone from 35 to about 90 in a hurry.”
This piece is republished from The Christian Chronicle.
Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for ReligionUnplugged.com and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 18 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.