What I Read Today - Monday July 9, 2012

From:  The Cumberland Presbyterian Church blog - the cumberlist

On Monday, July 9, 2012 8:17:54 AM UTC-5, KLM wrote:


Before we read too far into my post, let me offset some of the following statements by affirming that many churches close as a result of their community becoming a "ghost town" - when everyone moves away and leaves a church in the middle of nowhere... those closures are beyond our control. Of course, church growth and death are truly in God's hands and beyond our control anyway.

HOWEVER -- knew that was coming did you not?

However, many church closure are a result of the ineffectiveness of judicatories and a lack of accountability among the bodies. There have been churches that closed as a result of a pastor's failure, but more often than not the pastor is blamed for situations over which they have no true effectiveness without the support of the presbytery or denomination. One congregation comes to mind, it suffered tensions over decades of ministry, under the leadership of various pastors the problem remained... and presbytery did nothing over the years and allowed those who were the problem to remain in position and authority and eventually the attrition closed the church. In other cases, Presbytery jumps to the defense of congregations clearly in violation of the Word of God and our Confession. We are not connectional just for the camping and family lineage we are also connectional for the accountability that it brings.

As people who are a part of fallen humanity we will mess up and it is grace to confront the error and restore the person gently - frankly, in my mind, it is sin to allow people to continue to damage the Bride of Christ with impunity.

To turn the closure of churches around we need to hold the congregations accountable the the problem, and find a way to correct it. We need to use people who have actually seen a turn around in their congregation (elders and pastors) to inform and assist the local church and the presbytery. When ever we ask people to do something we haven't done (like turn around a church) there is a ring of falsehood in a declaration that these things will work.

Unfortunately, I seriously doubt that we will take the steps necessary to correct the problem ... it will be painful, but so is a surgery to remove a cancer, letting it remain is foolishness.

Until all know

Keith Mariott