Experts project an estimated 100,000 churches in the US will close or be repurposed over the next decade.
Many churches will be unable to escape this “tsunami” of closings — a grim trajectory one pastor described as, “Every year the pews are getting emptier and the collection plates getting lighter.”
I would say “good”, but I’m sure this will somehow not affect megachurches
It’ll probably increase attendance at (and payments to) the megachurches as the smaller community churches close and people who can’t face life without a church look for a new place to go.
I keep thinking about all that property and buildings already there and people being hungry for third spaces and how I could start some kind of movement that was like open source for software but something for third spaces and done as non-profit.
Something that could host things like makerspaces, quilting groups, book exchanges, swap meets, reading clubs, game day/nights, still rent out for meetups and even weddings/wakes, things like that.
Seems to me that people are dying for third spaces that don’t involve having to cough up money just to be somewhere that is not home, school, or work.
And many people don’t want to be involved in a church per se.
Finally some good news
Agreed, except this is mostly going to be small community churches and not the predatory megachurches that are much more problematic.
People quit believing in fairy tales and magical sky wizards, people quit paying for the god and pony show.
Turn them into homeless shelters or community centers so they can actually help the people!!!
Shouldn’t they have already been these things? Im no Bible pro but I feel like Jesus would have wanted that.
uplifting news!
is this still true of the mega churches?
Repurpose them as community centers
Probably not
Hell yeah
Jesus never went to church.
Church are the people, this is just property with a steeples
He did go to the temple.
What did Jesus do at the temple?
Based on the modern definition, sure
Won’t someone think of the children?! They aren’t going to molest themselves.
Younger folk see the grift.
A lot of older folks, too. A lot of people used to go to church for the social aspects, but today, everything is about grifting more and more money, and people get tired of constantly being tapped for money.
Also, a lot of people don’t like their church ordering them to vote for evil pedophile traitors, or they’ll go to Hell. The first time my pastor told me that I had to vote for Trump, would have been the last time he ever saw me.
But that didn’t happen to me, because I know better than to welcome Zombie Cannibal Death Cults into my life.
IIRC, it’s mostly that mega-churches are taking over.
It’s the smaller (ostensibly) community focused ones that are dying.
The bigger the grift the closer to god - or something like that
The might be getting the larger share of a dwindling pool overall. The percentage of Americans that are xtian has gone down a lot.
From early 90s being ~90% to ~63% around 2022, anyway. That’s quite a tidal shift.
I have been thinking for a while that so so many of these churches sit on prime real estate that they would have to give up if they actually had to pay property taxes. Same with cemetaries. Like, you got acres of land sitting in my city where sfh go for millions of dollars.
My wife’s is one that is. They’ve got no new blood coming in and a pastor that was intentionally sabotaging them, driving their most dedicated and supportive members out. No attempts at community outreach or retention. Also our state conference literally cares about money more than the god they supposedly serve.
They just got told that they can either sell the church and parsonage, keep some of the money from its sale to bring to the church they’ll merge with, or the conference will shut them down, sieze the property, sell it, and force them to merge with the other church anyway, but without the money.
It’s no wonder people have been bailing for decades. Totally sounds like something worth being a part of and associated with, right?
