Your Church is Going to Die

“Your church is going to die.”

Those were some of the very first words spoken at a church planting conference I recently attended. Talk about a morale booster. One of the main reasons why church planters attend conferences like these is to be encouraged and pumped up for the adventure ahead. When this particular speaker began with those words, it wasn’t the encouragement I was hoping for. “Your church is going to die.” He said it a few times in a row. Then he asked a profound question. “How many of the churches planted by the Apostle Paul are still around?” At that point the room got quiet. It was like we all got it at the same time – our churches are going to die. Every church has a life cycle. If the churches Paul started didn’t last forever, who are we to think that ours will?

At first it was really disheartening to hear those words, but after the initial shock wore off I began to think about it in a different light. It was kind of freeing to think about it from his perspective. One of the greatest fears of every church planter, including me, is failure. It’s the fear that my church plant may not make it or that it won’t last. But the truth is, no church does. Not forever anyway. Not even the Apostle Paul’s churches lasted forever. So looking at it from this angle honestly took some weight off my shoulders. It also challenged me to look at my church plant in some ways that I hadn’t before. I was really challenged in three specific areas that I’ll share below. If you are a church planter, or a church leader in an established church, I hope this can be helpful to you as well.