Asking for a Friend…The “Bigger Picture” of Church Closure
Asking for a Friend is an anonymous advice-column where the Good Friday Collaborative answers real questions from real people about church closure. No question is too embarrassing, too big or too small. If you have a question you’d like us to answer in a future installment of Asking for a Friend, simply click here to submit.
Dear GFC,
How do you help individuals who just want a congregation to stay open until they pass away?
How can I help them to understand the bigger picture?
Thinking Big,
Jay in the UK
Dear Jay in the UK,
Oh. We’ve been there. Each of us at the GFC have experienced someone (and often, more than one someone), who just wants the church to hang on until they have finished their own earthly journey. For our purposes today, let’s call this someone Pat.
Whether Pat makes their desires widely known (and engages in unhealthy coalition-building by doing so), or whether Pat expresses this desire only to you, we know how easy it is to assume that Pat just doesn’t get it. They don’t get how much time, energy, money, and talent it requires to keep a dying church going. They don’t get the spiritual and emotional drain it can be for leaders who are ready to move on. And when Pat only speaks in terms of their own needs, it’s tempting to assume that Pat needs help understanding the bigger picture.
But we also understand that the “bigger picture” likely means different things to different people. And when it comes to abstract ideas like “community,” “faith,” and “church,” we find that this diversity of understanding can present some major communication challenges, especially when it comes time to make concrete decisions.
The process of congregational closure touches on and impacts innumerable bigger pictures at each of the Five Stages of Closure. There are personal bigger pictures. Bigger pictures of the community itself. And the bigger pictures of the wider community and context. And then, there’s the bigger picture of the gospel itself. Each of these competes to be the central focus as church closure becomes imminent.
The truth is that there is no single “bigger picture” when it comes to ending ministries.
This is what makes church great. No single person has a monopoly on the function of a community (at least, in a healthy context). Each person’s gifts, talents, vision and call shape the life of the community. And so, it stands to reason that this would be the case in the shaping of its death, too.
The question then becomes, how do we do the work of discernment well?
How do we make space for all the big pictures to be shared, named, grieved, and sifted as we make decisions about congregational end-of-life?
Like Pat, there are many people who equate the congregation’s ending to their own mortality. Which, to be fair, is a pretty big picture.
In Pat’s case, their bigger picture likely relates to their own mortality, to their sense of closure about their life’s journey, and to community. And those are pretty big pictures. It may be that this big picture is an important piece of congregational discernment.
We know of churches who have done precisely what Pat requests. We know of a community that continued ministry with a membership of only three people. Everyone agreed to the work of preserving the ministry, building, and legacy of the community until a particular living saint died. When one died, the other two undertook the work of ending congregational life.
We’re not advocating for this option. But we do acknowledge that it is one. Which is a part of the task of taking into account all of the bigger pictures and trusting that good decisions can be made when we listen to each other and to the whisper of the Spirit in our midst.
In our experience (and Family Systems theory teaches us, too), trying to convince others that their bigger picture isn’t the “right one” is often less effective than doing the old-fashioned work of allowing people to be heard.
That’s why we believe the most important task of healthy church closure is listening.
When people feel heard, relational trust blossoms. And when trust blossoms, creative solutions can emerge. As Jon Fox writes in his poem When Someone Deeply Listens to You, being heard “is like holding out a dented cup you’ve had since childhood and watching it fill up with fresh, cold water.” (Which sounds an awful lot like Jesus’s words in Matthew 10:42).
Fox goes on to say that “when someone deeply listens to you / the room where you stay starts a new life…”
And isn’t that precisely what ministry ending is about? Allowing the room you share, the church itself, to start a new life?
Perhaps this is the bigger picture you hope Pat comes to see. But we also think it’s worth listening to yourself to examine your own sense of the bigger picture. Because it’s impossible to get another person to understand your perspective if you don’t fully understand it yourself.
What is the bigger picture to you?
Color your view with as much detail as you can. And then, get curious about it. Get curious about why Pat’s bigger picture doesn’t jive with your own and what that teaches you about your bigger picture. And then, get curious about the ways Pat’s picture complements yours–the ways where your pictures may overlap and share common ground.
Because that’s the generative place of understanding where discernment can happen.
You don’t need Pat’s view to be the same as yours. You just need to experience enough overlap to know that you’re puzzling out the same picture.
As the urgency surrounding church closure mounts, we know it’s easy to look for quick and easy answers and for shortcuts to getting everyone on the same page about closure. That’s why we believe it’s so important to have companions on the journey.
That’s why we offer coaching for leaders–because we believe that leaders need space to articulate their own bigger pictures about closure. They need space to discern their own sense of giftedness and call so that they can ask for help in the arenas where they are limited. And they need a space to vent when Pat is being stubborn and refuses to see any big picture other than their own.
It’s also why we offer consulting services focused on fostering healthy communication and group discernment processes like retreats, Circles of Trust, or group coaching. By being a non-anxious presence and offering listening space, we can help your community really hear each other and to grasp a sense of the bigger picture together.
Know that we’re always here to chat and to offer resources or support. But if you’d like to get started independently, we recommend checking out the Courage and Renewal Approach to community dialogue, or checking out our list of Recommended Resources to see what speaks to you. And next week, Diane’s got a resource-rich post full of 10 Actions You Can Take When You Think Your Church Might Close.
But Jay, more than anything, we want you to know that you’re not alone. Ending a ministry is a gargantuan task, and one that none of us felt entirely equipped to take on at the time. And we believe that by listening and by seeking support when you need it, you can find a way to experience the bigger picture of the Christian faith, even in the midst of congregational closure.
Faithfully yours,
The Good Friday Collaborative
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