Being Honest About Churches Bill Easum has given his life to the renewal of congregations. Easum is one of our most creative and compelling proponents of church growth. He has enabled hundreds of congregations to reclaim their God-given ministry and to grow. I have found some of Easum's insights helpful in my work with the North Alabama Cabinet. And yet, Easum admits that there are some rare exceptions to his rules for congregational development. He admits that some contexts do exist where no matter what a person does, nothing will change. Easum believes that clergy and congregational leaders ought to do all they can to grow a congregation, but that they ought not to be burdened with inappropriate guilt. Sometimes the most faithful thing is to admit that a congregation simply cannot grow and then to keep the congregation comfortable as it continues to experience inevitable decline. Among those contexts that Easum says are examples of churches that will probably not grow: Congregations located in areas from which most of the people have moved. Congregations with a family system so dysfunctional that it would take the death of most of the leaders for the church to have a chance at new life. This church is terminally ill and it is best to be honest about it. Congregations that don't want to do anything but rot! Congregations where almost all of the people are related to one another. Sobering words about honest assessment of congregational prospects from a proponent of growth. My goal is for every congregation in our Connection to be challenged with Jesus' call to grow. Yet, if for any of the above reasons, a church cannot grow, then I think we ought to admit it and move into a ministry of maintenance and care (which is always a prelude to eventual closure). Adequate support and supervision of all our churches, with only eight districts, is going to be a challenge for us. But a much greater challenge is to give churches appropriate support and supervision. If a church has no visible mission, if a church has, in effect, decided to decline and die rather than to grow, then we must be honest about that church's decision and respond accordingly. Churches are born, they grow, they grow old, and they die. Yet some churches are sometimes reborn. The challenge is to be there with the right sort of leadership and encouragement that is appropriate to the true nature of that congregation. William H. Willimon Excerpts from Put on Your Own Oxygen Mask First: Rediscovering Ministry, Bill Easum, with Linnea Nilsen Capshaw, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2004
top of page