How to Empty a Church: The Manual

Guidelines for Church-Planters and Pastors Gleaned from a Real Ecclesiastical Saga

John S. Oldfield

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781666702644
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

Many have pontificated about church growth, telling church planters and pastors how to increase the number of attendees and members. Most have spoken authentically from inspiring experiences, and what they've recommended has worked... at least for some. But what about advice on how to reduce those numbers, how to empty those pews? This "manual" provides just that, and its suggestions don't emanate from an ivory tower; they, too, are based on real-life experiences. The insights and guidelines of How to Empty a Church may be expressed tongue-in-cheek, but they're not fictional; they reflect the history of an actual congregation. Fasten your seatbelt; it's going to be a bumpy--but worthwhile--ride!

Chapter 1

The Helpfulness of Heterogeneity

“— a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.”

(Colossians 3:11)

First, I urge you to set out to make your church multiracial and multicultural in constituency. That’s biblical, isn’t it? After all, even the leadership of the church at Antioch, Syria—the first largely Gentile church in the Book of Acts—was multiethnic, multinational, and multicultural. Among the prophets and teachers were a Levite born in Cyprus (Acts 4:36), a Jew of very dark complexion, a North African, a foster-brother of Herod Antipas, and a Pharisee from Tarsus in Cilicia (Acts 13:1–3). Not only that, but one of the big lessons taught by Jesus (e.g., in His parable of the “Good Samaritan” in Luke 10:25–37) and one of the big decisions of the early church (at the “Jerusalem Council” in Acts 15:1–35) was that ethno-religious barriers should not exist in the body of Christ. In his writings, Paul made it clear: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28).1

So . . . regardless of your own ethnic identity, try hard to attract and incorporate blacks, whites, Hispanics, native Americans, Southeast Asians, and others. Try to merge inner-city folks with suburban sophisticates. I did—try, that is. Our first business cards even advertised: “Evangelical, Interracial, Intercultural.” We were serious about this.

Some Success

At first, we enjoyed the semi-regular attendance of some of the multiracial staff and residents of a local, faith-based, rehab facility for women,2 but when their leaders had a falling-out with Dagmar and me (and other board members, who, like us, had found it necessary to resign from our positions) and forbade their staff and residents from attending, there were only whites—largely suburban in orientation. Then, once we had purchased an old, red-brick church building on the corner of College Avenue and Duke Street in York’s inner-city, one somewhat eccentric, older, black male began attending. At some point, one Hispanic family came. Gradually, other blacks entered the picture—in the case of the adults, seasoned believers seeking a church where the word of God was taught responsibly and where they would find acceptance. A black woman up the street started sending her black foster children to our Christian Education program . . . to get a break from them on Sunday mornings. Later, a white family from the suburbs began bringing a large family of Cambodian children. Still later, a few other (fluently bilingual) Hispanics began attending sporadically.

Eventually, as it turned out, one of our four deacons was black, half of our Sunday School teachers were black, our classically trained organist was black, at least three of our vocal soloists were black, and one of our drummers was black. Not only that, but, once my initially unplanned prison ministry to male inmates had sufficiently evolved and stabilized, the core team members were a black brother with a background in York’s streets, a Puerto Rican brother with a history of twenty-seven years as a heroin addict and as an on-and-off prison inmate in New York City prior to his conversion, and I, a white man (perennially desirous of a nice tan). I was ecstatic! It was a dream come true.

Steady Decline

Alas, however, the Hispanic ex-junkie and his family left, amicably, to attend a brand-new, evangelical, Spanish-speaking, Methodist church, where the adults in the family could worship in their heart language and the cultural trappings would be more familiar to them. Although we missed them greatly, we fully understood the reason for their departure and remained good friends. It was a somewhat different story when it came to the black brothers and sisters in our congregation. Some of the reasons for their eventual exodus we understood; some we really didn’t.

We discovered, and understood, that the sincere attempts of our white, worship-team leader to get us all to sing and sound “black” on certain songs by black composer-artists (such as “Soon and Very Soon,” by Andraé Crouch) were considered patronizing and were not well received. We discovered, and understood, that our reluctance—to avoid unintended racial offense—to rebuke, correct, or discipline black children and teens when they displayed poor attitudes or behavior was also considered patronizing and, in a reverse sort of way, discriminatory. We understood, though we were disappointed, why the black foster kids disappeared when they hit their teen years and their foster mother no longer mandated their Sunday School attendance.

We didn’t understand, however, certain other responses of our black adults. In fact, we were totally unprepared for and mystified by some of their reactions. For example, one Saturday morning when our women’s missionary group was preparing for a sidewalk sale to raise additional money for the support of our missionary roster, the only black sister in that particular group arrived to participate in the event. One of the older white sisters, already on the scene, was so happy to see her that she spontaneously embraced her. The black sister recoiled, accusing the white sister of suspecting that she had stolen one of the sale items, was hiding it in her bra, and thereby needed to be “frisked”! The white sister, having never even entertained such a bizarre thought, was both shocked and mortified!

Then, we learned after the fact, that because we weren’t paying the pipe-organist for her services (apparently a custom in black churches and certain others, as well), most of our blacks were offended (since many of them were related to her) and gradually—apparently for this reason, among others—disappeared without offering a word of explanation. Some landed in largely white congregations, some in a relatively new black congregation led by a man of God who became my closest minister-friend in York.

One of the only black families not related to the others left for a totally different reason. Although our families were good friends and our kids spent time at their inner-city house and their kids spent time at our suburban one,3 I had found it necessary to speak to the father and mother about their mounting undependability and an unbiblical imbalance in their marriage, and, although I spoke the truth in love, they didn’t receive it well. Consequently, one of our only two remaining black families left, too—because the mother was the sister of the woman in that marriage (which, sadly, later ended in divorce).

Then one of the finest and most dependable members of our congregation—a wonderful, black, single mother, who had been deserted by her husband when she was pregnant with their son many years earlier—left the church (with no rancor whatsoever) to begin attending the church where her fiancé was now involved. That was because, in an agonizing decision, I had declined the request to marry her to him, since—although he was an impressive man in many ways—he’d been unfaithful to her with at least two other women during their engagement, and I was concerned that the pattern might carry into marriage. (Thankfully, to the best of my knowledge, he has remained faithful to her, they are still together, and they are actively serving the Lord.)

For reasons I don’t remember, the white suburban family stopped bringing the Cambodian children. For a variety of reasons, the other Hispanics stopped attending. When all was said and done, we shook out lily-white . . . to my great disappointment and the death of my dream. Maybe that was the problem: it was my dream, not God’s intention. (In other words, He may have had different reasons for bringing my wife and me to establish a church in York, even if He used our dream of a multi-cultural congregation to get us there.) But it certainly seemed right at the time.

Few Visible Results from Outreach

Incidentally, although we knew and had befriended many, we never saw any significant influx of classic, inner-city whites. In fact, the cultural gap was probably greater between many of them and us suburban whites than between us and our spiritual brethren from ethnic minority groups. I should add that, although we knew and had befriended numbers of spiritually uncommitted black and Hispanic individuals and families, only a few of them visited, let alone became regularly involved with our congregation. Only a relative handful of previously uncommitted inner-city whites, blacks, and Hispanics made professions of faith through our ministries, and only...