What if your Church Closed?

Every Friday the PinPoint team goes out to lunch. Essentially for 2 reasons. 1) Team building — to hear weekend plans and 2) to eat ice cream. Everyone needs ice cream on Friday. But I digress…

This past week we decided to go to a local sub brand. I explained we’d have to go across town to eat at the chain. Which actually surprised someone.

See, our local sub shop burned down about a year ago. And one of us didn’t even realize it.

Imagine if your church decided to close. Here are 3 sobering things to consider:

1. Would your community even notice? What does your church add to your community? Are you salt? Light? Or would someone several months from now not even realize you’re gone.
2. Would your congregation miss you? I was talking to someone a couple of weeks ago about their church. They said, “I’m not sure if I’ll stay at our church. I think some of the other churches in our community ‘do it’ better”. If your church doesn’t offer a specific, unique benefit that will leave a “hole” if you disappeared; you might as well close your doors (because I bet you’re battling attendance issues!).
3. Would your staff be wanted by another Church? This is telling. It’s a hard economy and I hear that ministry leaders are wanting to move to another ministry; but they’re have difficulties. Is it just the economy? Or is your staff not up to a hiring standard? How do you motivate them? Do they strive to be the best? Would you re-hire if you could do it all over? Leadership is critical to church success.

Some churches have no idea what specific benefit they can offer the community (outside of “discovering God”). Sadly, the unchurched doesn’t want to know God (thanks often to the Church’s reputation); so your church has to let them know the benefits of “discovering God”. Or you end up not being relevant to a community that needs you. And needs God.