Church leaders must evaluate ministries to ensure they align with current and future community needs. Sometimes, this means closing a beloved ministry, which can be met with resistance. Desmond Barrett writes that church leaders must navigate these transitions with compassion, transparency, and steadfastness in the Spirit. Sharing decisions openly, embracing criticism with grace, and serving faithfully to the end allows the church to move forward recognizing that every ending creates space for new beginnings in ministry.
In any revitalization setting, leadership must constantly evaluate the works of the church and how it impacts the community. From time to time, these evaluation periods will lead to the evolution of a ministry by either adapting to new circumstances or closing the program altogether. Recently, my church board chose to close a ministry to adjust the space to an expanded use of another ministry.
This decision did not come lightly, but after months of evaluation, long conversations with stakeholders, and an eye to where the community would be five years from now as our neighborhood is changing. Ministry is not about keeping a ministry for ministry’s sake but serving the current and future needs of the community, and sometimes that means letting go of something loved to see the value in the next season of ministry in the church’s life.
Here are three ways you can lead well when a ministry closes.
1. Share compassion with all who are affected.
Change is not easy, and it’s painful when it affects an area that a person has poured themselves into. As a leader, you must allow emotions, good or bad, to be shared. Allow for compassionate directness to take place where you share why a decision was brought about, allowing for complete transparency. For me, after the announcement of the closing ministry, there was a vicious backlash from a small group of passionate members and nonmembers who supported keeping the ministry open. I received telephone calls, emails, and personal visits from people who voiced their displeasure at the closing.
A non-church member and a passionate advocate as a volunteer and helper in the closing ministry visited me in the office. She gave me a passage of Scripture on love. I thanked her and promised to read it, but I was working on a funeral message and would review it later. She then handed me a little plastic Jesus and I thanked her again. As she turned away, she turned back and said, “Because you need Jesus! As you do not have the love of Jesus in your heart.” And she walked out.
In a moment of shock, I said, “Well, praise God.” Sometimes ministry is like this lady who shared her emotions through guerilla warfare, where she came in and out to shame me. However, she had a right to share her feelings. Let me encourage you to allow God to guide you as you move forward by sharing compassion even when you do not want to. The actions of each person speak to where they are in Christ, not where you stand. Compassion is not a dictate but a lifestyle of heart holiness that is transformed through a deeper walk with God. When the enemy gets angry, move to peace. Allow grief to be shared, but also share the truth of why the ministry had to close and the next steps that will follow.
2. Spirit-led decisions will not free you from the demands or the disgruntled.
Major decisions should not be made flippantly but through data-driven decision-making that reviews raw data and the length of time to where God has moved and whether the team believes that God will move in the future. Data-driven decision-making takes the emotion out of decision-making and focuses on what the numbers say about whether the ministry is effective.
When a decision is made, it must be shared clearly and transparently about how the decision was brought forth. I shared discussion points, financial data, numerical data and the process of what happened in a board room with those who earnestly sought the answer of why this happened. While not sharing names, I shared votes and thought processes in real-time as best I remember them. Why? Because church members deserve transparency in leadership and practices.
However, even being transparent does not persuade everyone from their thoughts and feelings about the process. As a leader, you will have to choose to be led either by the spirit or by self. Sometimes, that means allowing the negative to come and ignoring the gossip because you stand on the truth. While it might be hard, your role is to heal the church, not keep dividing it by arguing one side or the other.
When the disgruntled assaults come, choose peace. Stand as a peacemaker with Christ, explain even 50 times the same reasons to show that you are Spirit-led, will not back down, and pray that healing can come. It is not easy to weather assaults from church members, but in leadership, sometimes it is lonely at the top. Even as the verbal assaults came, people left, and some even withheld their tithes against God and the church as punishment to me; but I trusted God. Trust the Lord that if he leads you to a decision, he will lead you through the decision-making process.
3. Serve with excellence until the end.
As the end comes near, there is a temptation to give up because the ministry will close anyway. But the reality is that you are called not to serve a ministry but the Lord. The Lord wants you to finish the race to the end, not give up because things did not work out as you had hoped. As you lead your people through a disappointment, focus not on the closing but on serving in new ways through the Lord. God has an incredible plan for the local church, but its people are giving up too easily, disappointed by life, and failing to live the calling out. I cannot urge you enough to dig down deep and focus on the main thing: the Lord.
As the end draws near, what an opportunity to remember what God has done through the ministry and reflect on the past while projecting a bright future for the church. Ministry is ever-changing; closing one ministry and opening another has been a fluid cycle of the church. Do not take it personally, but rely on a personal relationship with Jesus, who will guide the church to the next thing he wants the church to focus on. We are focused on expanding a sister ministry to reach more people physically and spiritually with the gospel of Christ. While we faced an ending, we also saw just on the horizon a new beginning, and, well, that is exciting.
Remember this: God’s plans for the local church or even a person’s ministry are far more than a program but a partnership with him and the surrounding community.
This article was originally shared on October 9, 2024, by Outreach.com and is shared here with permission.
Related Resources
- Unclutter Your Church by Dottie Escobedo-Frank
- Why Congregations Sometimes Change by Dan Hotchkiss
- Saying “Yes” to Clear Purpose Can Require Saying “No” to Long-Cherished Ministries by Jaye Johnson
