🕯 Why are So Many Churches Dying? Could it be a Crisis of Integrity, Leadership, and Sending Capacity?
Christianity faces a serious issue with an increasing number of dying churches struggling to stay open and perform their essential functions.
Christianity faces a serious issue with an increasing number of dying churches struggling to stay open and perform their essential functions.
📉 In 2019 alone, North American Protestants lost 1,500 churches. Five years prior, they planted an estimated 4,000 churches while closing 3,700.
📉 Within the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), over 3,200 churches shut down, disbanded, or disassociated between 2020 and 2022.
📉 In New Orleans, seven Catholic churches closed and eleven merged—affecting 10% of the Catholic population in those parishes.
📉 The PC(USA) lost 108 churches and over 53,000 members.
These aren't isolated stats. They represent a deeper shift. So what’s driving this crisis?
The Rise of the Religious "Nones"
One factor comes with the arrival of the religious nones. A 2024 Pew Research study showed that more than 28% of Americans now identify as religiously unaffiliated.
While 37% of those identify as atheist or agnostic, most simply believe "nothing in particular." They may believe in a higher power, but they don’t see the need for church, religion, or communal gatherings. They identify more by sexual orientation, political affiliation, or personal autonomy.
Churches that once relied on cultural norms or attractional methods to draw crowds find those strategies falling flat. The nones aren't curious—they're skeptical, even disinterested. And they’re not just not attending; they’re not contributing, serving, giving, or supporting the Church’s mission.
When churches lose these participants, they lose vital lifelines—and many can't survive without them.
Declining Leadership in the Pulpit
Another massive issue: leadership shortages.
350 churches in Tennessee gather each week without a pastor.
Arkansas has 1,300 churches without a vocational student pastor.
30% of SBC churches in Mississippi lack a pastor.
17% of churches in Louisiana and Alabama have no lead pastor.
1 in 5 Catholic churches have no priest.
This isn’t just a logistical problem—it’s a discipleship one. Seminaries and Bible colleges have seen enrollment drops. Young men aren’t stepping into the call, and older pastors aren't preparing the next generation. The median age of a Protestant pastor is now 54—ten years older than in 1992.
Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few” (Luke 10:2). This reality is playing out in real time.
The Real Issue: A Lack of Integrity
So why are churches closing? Why do more people reject organized religion? Why are fewer Christians stepping into leadership?
Here’s what I believe: many churches lack organizational health and integrity.
If a church is unhealthy, it won’t raise up leaders. It won’t engage in its essential functions. It won’t reflect the glory of Jesus to the world. The Gospel has lost no power—but many churches have lost their integrity by ignoring the full counsel of Scripture.
And when churches go into maintenance mode—focusing only inward—they lose their edge. They stop sending. They stop developing. They stop obeying the Great Commission.
The Cost of a Low Sending Capacity
Many churches celebrate seating capacity—but ignore sending capacity.
Yet the Church exists to be sent. Consider this:
The SBC has 12.9 million members, but only 6,400 missionaries (combined international and domestic).
Only 2.4 million members take a second step beyond Sunday morning attendance.
Barna reports that 83% of Christians either don’t know or aren’t sure what the Great Commission is.
That’s not a seating problem. That’s a sending problem.
A lack of sending capacity reflects a deeper issue: churches don’t prioritize spiritual formation for mission. They’ve streamlined their programs and reduced their spaces for vision casting. They’ve become event-driven rather than mission-focused.
And it shows.
The Fallout: Lost Trust, Low Impact
Trust in church leadership is plummeting.
Barna found more than 80% of Christians believe the U.S. faces a leadership crisis.
Christian leaders scored lowest in traits like servanthood, loving hearts, reliance on God’s wisdom, and follow-through.
When leaders fail to deliver, members get skeptical. When vision disappears, people check out. And when pastors start sounding more like managers than shepherds, trust erodes—even inside the church.
Pastors often feel pressured to measure success through numbers—attendance, finances, buildings. But these metrics won’t create sending churches.
They create busy churches. Comfortable churches. Dying churches.
How Do We Measure Church Health?
Organizational health must go beyond the business-world scorecards. Churches need to ask:
Are we mobilizing people to go?
Are we raising up leaders?
Are we developing disciples beyond Sunday attendance?
In Gaining by Losing, J.D. Greear argues that Jesus measures churches by sending capacity, not seating capacity. The Gospel sends. Every Christian is called—even if the how and where differ.
The Church doesn’t need more events. It needs more missionaries. It needs more obedience.
It needs integrity.
A Way Forward
Not every church avoids sending. Some are faithfully raising up leaders, sending missionaries, and building Great Commission cultures. But even these churches operate in a larger system that still struggles with leadership shortages, skepticism, and stagnation.
We need to start evaluating church health by sending capacity. Not just how many people come in—but how many go out.
Some churches don’t send because they don’t know. Some don’t care. Some are unsure how. But the call remains the same.
If leadership shapes organizational health, then the church must examine how leadership affects sending capacity. That’s where the future of the Church lies—not in its size, but in its ability to send.
Sources
Lifeway Research, “New Report Shows SBC Annual Church Profile Trends,” Lifeway Research, May 2023, https://research.lifeway.com.
Pew Research Center, “About Three-in-Ten U.S. Adults Are Now Religiously Unaffiliated,” Religion & Public Life, January 2024, https://www.pewresearch.org.
Barna Group, The State of Pastors: How Today’s Faith Leaders Are Navigating Life and Leadership in an Age of Complexity (Ventura, CA: Barna Group, 2017).
Gallup, “Confidence in Institutions,” Gallup News, 2023, https://news.gallup.com.
Barna Group, “The State of Evangelism,” Barna Research, 2018, https://www.barna.com.
Barna Group, “The Great Disconnect: Reclaiming the Heart of the Great Commission in Your Church,” Barna Research, 2021, https://www.barna.com.
J.D. Greear, Gaining by Losing: Why the Future Belongs to Churches that Send (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015).
International Mission Board, “Annual Statistical Report: 2022 Ministry Results,” IMB.org, accessed March 2025, https://www.imb.org.
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Number of Priests and Parishes Without Pastors,” Catholic News Service, 2023.
PC(USA) Office of the General Assembly, “2022 Statistical Report,” Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), accessed March 2025, https://oga.pcusa.org.
Barna Group, “Americans Identify a Leadership Crisis in the Nation,” Barna Research, 2023.
Solid article. Man, we need more solid churches faithfully committed to God's Word. We must replat dying churches.