All churches and other organizations will at some point experience decline. In Reaching the Summit I have identified five phases every church will encounter if corrections are not made. Denial of reality is phase three.
A church (or other organization) moves into phase three when the evidence of decline becomes obvious to those inside and outside the church. In this phase church leaders often enter a stage of denial. It is hard to ignore when church attendance drops from 300 to 200 or from 125 to 84. If Home Depot lost one third of its customer base, someone in leadership would take notice. In an organization such as Home Depot, action would be taken long before this size loss occurred. Yet in some churches the realization of the denial phase may not happen until the church has lost up to half their attendance.
Jim Collins states, “There is a tendency to discount or explain away negative data rather than presume that something is wrong with the company (organization).”[1] In the church this is all too common. Church leaders are busy. With weekly services, visiting the sick and grieved, ministry programs, committee meetings, sermon and teaching preparation, there is so much going on in the ministry of the church that it is hard to accept the data declaring decline.
One way we attempt to explain away the obvious data is to blame outside sources. It is much easier to pass the blame onto outside influences that we have no control over than it is to accept our role in the decline of the church. We need to accept responsibility for the ministry effort and the community to which God has called us. Great leaders shoulder the responsibility rather than pass the blame for decline in the church.
To reverse decline in your church requires strategic planning following an examination of the cold hard facts of where we have been, recent results, and needed changes. Reversing decline is not an overnight turn around, but it can be accomplished. The longer decline is allowed to continue, the deeper into the phases of decline a church will plunge.
Denial – turning a deaf ear or a blind eye to the severity of reality will not bring about the needed change for reversing decline. We must engage in a vigorous face to face summit with reality and continually refine the path to achieving the purpose of our church, fulfilling the Great Commission.
You and your church will be much better off bringing in an experienced coach and consultant to assist you with the assessment of your ministry (Vigorous face to face summit with reality[2]). An experienced outsider trained and equipped in asking the right questions will bring the objective perspective of reality to the table. Without this perspective, you have far less of a chance to succeed in reversing the decline in your church. God has not given any one person all the answers or all the gifts needed to turn a church around. But your church leadership together with a trained, experienced coach from outside your church can realize the severity of the situation and God’s new direction can be found.
It is time to move from denial of what is happening and passing the blame, to accepting responsibility and conducting a Vigorous Face to Face Summit with Reality before your church drops further into the phases of decline.
George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.
[1] How The Mighty Fall, pg. 81
[2] Reaching the Summit, chapter 7