A Sneak Peek At Research On Church Mergers by Warren Bird, Church Smart Magazine-April, 2011
“I am working with Warren Bird at Leadership Network on the rising phenomenon of church mergers.
We crafted an unprecedented survey to get feedback from those who have experienced a church merger or have an interest in this topic. Below is an article from Church Smart Magazine that shares some of our initial findings.
We are still gathering information so if you haven’t taken the Church Merger Survey, logon and help us learn as much as possible before we conclude our research. I believe this survey will be a tremendous resource to the Body of Christ in the years ahead. Your input will make a big difference.
Merge ahead,
Jim
A Sneak Peek At Research On Church Mergers by Warren Bird
Leadership Network has noticed an uptick in church mergers, so we commissioned a national study.
It found that 2% of America’s 300,000 Protestant churches have been involved in a merger and that 8% are looking into the possibility of a future merger. While 2% may sound like a small amount, that adds up to 6,000 churches! We also did another study and found that for multisite churches, one in three of the campuses is a merger church.
We then held a focus group and listened to enough stories to find that there seem to be new rules for how to do a successful merger. The old model was for two or three struggling churches to merge together, but unfortunately that typically resulted in a new church that still struggled. A year or two after the merger, total attendance had settled back to the level of the larger church, and it wasn’t growing. The new model seems to be a stronger church, which we call the lead church, uniting with a smaller church, called the joining church. More of these seem to be healthy and growing. We think of this as “redeeming space and history” by changing leaders and giving the church—instead of just a sad ending—a new chapter in their story. More declining churches are contacting larger churches and asking for help.
LifeChurch has been asked to intervene a few times, and they’ve found that it’s important to make it clear to the requesting church that it’s going to be painful, and it’s going to involve loss of identity at a deeper level than they think. Current staff may have to be let go, or moved into different positions. You need to get attorneys involved in looking at constitutions and bylaws to make sure everything is done properly. Some of the conversations have to be more blunt than churches may be used to.
Is it right, and how will we know?
Few veterans of multiple mergers framed their metrics in terms of increased attendance or finances. It was more important for them to measure, “Is the result a healthier environment for growth?” or “Are we moving a greater percentage of people into serving roles?” or “Is the culture of each church now stronger and more aligned for mission?” One church took a tiered approach to measuring financial progress: the first step was meeting local expenses for the church that was merged; the next step added sharing a percentage of their giving back to the “central service” expenses at the sponsoring church; and then finally taking the step of giving above and beyond so the cycle can be repeated in other merged congregations.
We’re eager to hear more about how this all works, so we launched a survey, which will be open until May 9, 2011. We welcome readers to use it to tell us their opinion of church mergers, whether or not they have actually been part of a merger. To date over 250 churches have completed it – about half having been involved in a merger, and the other half offering their view of mergers.
Warren Bird is Director of Research and Intellectual Capital at Leadership Network, and co-author of 19 books on various aspects of church health and innovation.
