Major Surgery

It is true that when the church burns down or is otherwise destroyed, it motivates the congregation to do something. This is like major surgery. Sometimes it is necessary. Most churches and Presbyteries will not consider ‘preventative medicine’, i.e amalgamation. Many congregations spend a disproportionate share of their inadequate resources to keep a church open that is at 30 – 35 % capacity. The Presbyterian Church [and other traditional churches] depends on bottom up requests for change from the local church. It rarely happens. Church organizations with a central authority decision making process [a Bishop] can cause change to occur to maximize scarce resources. It is long overdue for Presbyteries show leadership in this respect rather than ‘waiting for something to happen’. A good management practice would be to institute guidelines to congregations with an unsustainable membership level and have Presbytery act on them.