How Churches Decline

Clayton Christensen argues in The Innovator’s DNA that businesses decline because in the early stages of a business there are many innovators but as the business gets established the innovators are replaced by managers and the innovators essentially go away. As innovators leave, so does creativity. Without creativity and innovation businesses cannot respond to changing times and decline or die.

While churches are different from businesses in many respects, this above mentioned business cycle bears a remarkable similarity to the church life cycle. After all, what is in churches the often heard cry of “we’ve never done it that way before” but efficient managers decrying innovation? I argue that many if not most mainline churches, especially the rural ones, stifle creativity. No wonder our churches, especially the rural ones, are disappearing!

David Olsen in his book The Americdan Church in Crisis argues similarly that the greatest period of growth for a congregation is in the first 30 years. Hence about the time the managers take over a congregation plateaus and in many cases begins to decline. Managers are necessary, but the detail orientation (do the same things the same way) of most managers (read church boards) almost precludes comfortable institutional creativity thus churches often stagnate when the “managers” take over. No wonder innovative pastors are so necessary for congregations, but so fought against. Innovation is messy!

Glen

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