This book debunks a bunch of persistent myths about mergers. One myth says, “A merger is just a takeover.” No, in successful mergers, the joining church is involved because it wants to merge. Successful mergers today involve a lead church and a joining church. The merging of churches is a delicate dance where one leads and the other chooses to follow.
Another myth says that mergers are always between a big church and a small church, or a strong church and a declining church. While many are, certainly not all are. Instead, the new “always” for healthy mergers is that the healthy, successful merger is mission driven. Successful mergers today are more mission-driven and future-focused than the failed mergers of the past that were more survival-driven and focused on preserving the past.
Although all mergers involve a lead church and a joining church, not all mergers are the same or look alike. They vary by many factors including size, whether they change or keep their name, whether they remain single site or become multisite as part of the merger, and whether they function as a new church plant.
Perhaps the most important way mergers differ is in the model they follow. As chapter 1 explained, not everyone uses the term merger. For many people, the word merger contains a lot of emotional baggage, mostly negative. Instead, we’d like to introduce a set of family-related terms to describe the various ways churches can merge.
Here’s a quick summary of the terms. Then the rest of the chapter offers a more in-depth description, profile, and pros and cons of each one:
- Rebirth mergers. A struggling or dying church gets a second life by being fully absorbed and restarted under a stronger, vibrant, and typically larger church
- Adoption mergers. A stable or stuck church is fully integrated under the vision of a stronger, vibrant, and typically larger church
- Marriage mergers. Two churches, both strong or growing, realign with each other under a united vision and new leadership configuration
- ICU (intensive care unit) mergers. Two churches that know they’re in trouble try to turn around their critical situation but are survival driven. Such mergers often fail.
Figure 5.1 visualizes these four models, and then tables 5.1 and 5.2 compare them. The narrative that follows explains each model in more detail.
Table 5.1
What Is Your Merger Profile?
| Merger Model | Health Level | Avg. Adult
Age in the
Congrega-
tion | Worship
Attendance | Church
Budget |
| Marriage | Strong | 30–50 | Growing | Growing |
| Adoption | Stable | 40–60 | Static | Static |
| Rebirth | Struggling | 50–80 | Declining | Declining |
| ICU | Dying | 50–90 | Declining | Declining |
Table 5.1 cont’d
| Number of First-Time Guests as Percentage of Weekly Attendance | Number of New Members in the Past Year as Percentage of Weekly Attendance | Number of Annual Baptisms as Percentage of Weekly Attendance | Primary Benefit of the Merger | Primary Challenge of the Merger |
| 2% or more | 5% or more | 5% or more | Synergy | Alignment |
| 0–2% | Less than 5% | Less than 5% | Revitalization | Integration |
| 0% | 0% | 0% | Salvage | Absorption |
| 0% | 0% | 0% | Life Support | Survival |
How do these “family” terms relate to each other? Each has distinctive elements but they’re not exclusive from each other. If placed on a spectrum, an adoption merger is in the middle between a rebirth merger and a marriage merger. An ICU merger is usually a merger of two near equals, both on life support. These are more reflective of the typical failed mergers of the past.
Every church merger introduces potential gains and losses. There are no guarantees. There are pros and cons to be prayerfully evaluated with every merger type.
Every church merger has potential gains and losses. There are no guarantees.
The potential gains are dramatic. Church mergers can multiply church impact, increase outreach, produce synergistic ministries, revitalize churches, restore facilities, offer facilities to new churches, serve communities better, and revive new hope for the future. These potential gains are driving the church merger movement today.
The potential losses can be equally dramatic. A church can lose its name and facilities. The pastor, staff, and favorite ministry may not survive the transition. Not all members will stay, and some good friends may leave. What is most painful is the potential for the heritage and identity of a church to get lost in the merger process. These are all very real and very difficult possible outcomes of a church merger.
In the following section we share examples of each merger model followed by commentary describing the pros and cons of that particular model. But first, we need to make an observation about finances. Being financially stable isn’t the same as being healthy. Sometimes churches that are financially stable are in a more precarious situation because their financial strength gives a false sense of security. Thus, not all declining churches are financially struggling; many are actually financially strong. In our consultations, we’ve seen far too many churches that have been lulled into a false sense of security and a lack of urgency, as Merger Fact 4 documents.
Rebirth Model
Rebirth mergers occur when a struggling or dying church gets a second life by being restarted under a stronger, vibrant, and typically larger church. In our view, the majority of mergers are rebirths, even though they might not use that term.
The majority of mergers are rebirths, even though they might not use that term.
Example
In fall 1917, a small group of residents in Fairbanks, Louisiana, gathered in a one-room schoolhouse built of rough lumber to organize a church. Three years later a local business built a small structure to be used as a community building. Over time it came to be known as Union Church as different denominations took turns on Sundays leading church services in it. In more recent times it became Fairbanks Baptist Church. Members bought additional property, built newer facilities, and called various pastors over the years. Attendance peaked in the 1990s at around three hundred.
In March 2011, after Fairbanks Baptist Church had declined for years, its leadership called a membership meeting, which about twenty-five people attended. They discussed where they would be in a year. They decided that they could be proactive about their church or they could let circumstances determine the church’s future. After discussion, they voted unanimously to ask First Baptist Church of West Monroe, Louisiana (known today as First West), to enter into what they called a “partnership” with them.
A feasibility committee was created composed of representatives from both churches. Together they recommended a plan in which Fairbanks Baptist Church would dissolve and rebirth as a multisite campus of First Baptist Church of West Monroe, Louisiana.
The recommendation was approved twenty-eight to one by a congregational vote of Fairbanks Baptist Church in August 2011. The church was immediately dissolved, the assets were deeded over to First Baptist Church of West Monroe, and the plans for relaunching the campus began. During the renovations, the members began attending the First Baptist Church of West Monroe and were part of the launch core team of the new First West Fairbanks campus in January 2012. By 2020 First West Fairbanks has grown to a flourishing campus of three hundred people. The success of the merger inspired First Baptist to birth a third campus and create a strategy for church multiplication across Louisiana.
The dying church of twenty-five had been rebirthed with new hope and the adopting church of a couple thousand was reenergized with new vision!
Pros and Cons
Candidates for a rebirth merger can come from the nearly quarter million Protestant churches across the United States that are struggling, in decline, or dying. The majority of these churches have fewer than two hundred people in attendance—a good portion fewer than seventy-five people weekly. Too many of them are more focused on maintenance or survival than on making disciples and transforming their communities. Roughly four thousand of these churches (1 percent of all Protestant churches in America) will close their doors permanently n...
