Closing Churches: What (Not) to Say
What to Say and What Not to Say: Fail. Conclude. Lay Down. Disestablish. Complete. Close.
“End.” “Finish.” “Complete.” “Die.” “Fail.” “Shut down.”
When I walked this journey with my congregation, I didn’t have time to think about vocabulary. I had a church to merge! (Or maybe close. Or maybe relocate. Or maybe restart. There were lots of options).
I wasn't quite sure what to say and what not to say. All I knew was that I felt punched in the gut when a denominational official told me that my beloved church “Failed.” I knew that I couldn’t trust him to guide my congregation into their next season.
And now, on this side of the merger, I can see how much our language matters. What we say about congregational endings reveals our approach to them — and it shapes how others perceive this time of holy transition.
Some people sugarcoat the situation. They say “Resurrection Churches” — especially when emphasizing the potential of a church restart. But this feels to me like a refusal to acknowledge grief. While I appreciate the emphasis on the eternal hope we have in Jesus Christ, it reminds me of saying someone “passed on” instead of “died.” Since I avoid euphemisms when discussing human death, why would I use euphemisms when discussing the end of congregational life? A ministry has ended. A church has closed. A congregation has died to itself — pouring itself out for the sake of the gospel — and will experience resurrection in forms we cannot predict. (Listen! I tell you a mystery…)
Out of my desire for plain speech, I tend to use the most common terms: “Closed Church” or “Closing Churches.” This is straight-forward and clear — when it is the appropriate descriptor. However, some churches, like mine, merge, consolidate, or amalgamate. Others end their current ways of doing things before restarting, replanting, or relocating. When churches pursue legal endings, they can be dissolved, disbanded, disestablished, discontinued, or declared abandoned — or they can simply cease to exist.
Buildings can be deconsecrated, decommissioned, or secularized. Some traditions have a consecration revocation before the legal disposition of property. (The phrase “church asset disposal” personally gives me the shudders — it sounds too much like taking out the trash, rather than the wonderful feeling of sharing an inheritance with those who will carry on a spiritual legacy).
Specific communities may also use terms appropriate to their tradition — like when Quakers “lay down a meeting.” A churchy phrase used by one conference in the United Church of Christ is “Omega Churches.” (See the Good Friday Collaborative’s denominational resource list for more).
Since “closing” doesn’t encompass the full variety of ways that churches end, we at the Good Friday Collaborative frequently say “congregations concluding ministry.” This phrase is not limited to one particular type of congregational endings. We also say “churches completing ministry.” To me, this emphasis on completion echoes that beautiful prayer by John Henry Newman, asking God for support
until the shadows lengthen,
and the evening comes,
and the busy world is hushed,
and the fever of life is over,
and our work is done.
How and when our work is “done” — completed — will look different in different settings. And in each setting, the language of “completion” and “conclusion” can offer wholeness (and holiness) to that sacred work. In this way, Newman’s prayer reflecting human mortality can apply to the death of an institution.
Unfortunately, people rarely talk about the death of churches in a way that honors the holiness of that transition. I do not believe it is possible to use these phrases while unpacking enough of our cultural assumptions about institutional death. (More on that in the next post!).
For this reason, these are our recommendations for talking generally about congregations that have completed ministry:
Avoid:
“Failed church”
“Redundant church”
“Deceased church” (complete with “autopsies”)
“Dead church”
Try:
“Holy Closure”
“Sacred Endings”
“Legacy Church”
“Saint Congregations”
“Ending Visible Ministry”
“Ending Shared Ministry”
“Completed Ministry”
“Concluded Ministry”
What language do you use when churches conclude ministry? Join the conversation on the Good Friday Collaborative’s Facebook page to share your best practices, pitfalls, and preferred language.
This is the first in a three-part series on how to talk about closing congregations. Sign up for our newsletter to make sure you don’t miss Part 2 on Dying Churches (What NOT to Say) and Part 3 on Struggling Churches (What TO Say).
In this series (and throughout our website), we are using “church” and “congregation” interchangeably to mean “group of gathered believers within a particular context.” The universal church, which is the Body of Christ, always continues — even when local congregations do not!
