Most churches are on life support.

They are 2 or 3 tithers away from closing their doors.  By that I mean if a key member dies, or has a sudden financial hit (lost job, etc) and quits giving to the church, it will make an impact on finances.  In small churches, it doesn’t take many to create a significant burden.

The wise church looks ahead and either changes, or dies.  But change is hard, which is why we see so many churches closing.

Thom Rainer is a leading voice in understanding church dynamics.  He is now out of the publishing management business and is consulting full-time.  His primary focus is on restoration and replanting existing churches.

In his latest post, he gives nine steps to take to prevent closing the doors. The dominant theme is to stop using words casually, and stop meeting for the purpose of meeting.  Instead, there needs to be more doing of the right things – evangelism, Bible teaching and prayer.