5 Questions to Consider Before a Church Merger

Church Mergers: The Complicated Business of Combining Congregations

Contents:

Church Mergers: Legal and Financial Matters

Option 3: Blending by Continuation Merger

This saved us a lot of work and hardship.

Should My Church Merge (with Another Church)?

After finalizing plans for the merger, I expected a five percent rate of attrition in leadership, attendance, and money. No leaders left, nearly every member is still around, attendance is at record highs, and people are giving sacrificially. Throughout the merger planning, we continually asked this core question: We often returned to the questions: Did we really need to merge?

5 Questions to Consider Before a Church Merger.
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Five months into the merger, and looking forward to the exciting plans and vision on our near horizon, I firmly believe what I suspected all along—we are better together than we were apart. This experience makes me think multi-site strategies in general, and mergers specifically, provide a bright future for the church in America.

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Doctrinal, Philosophical, and Relational. We knew going into our merger discussions that we had Doctrinal and Philosophical Unity, but the Relational Unity was something of a question mark.

Church Mergers: Legal and Financial Matters

I was having lunch with a friend the other day whose church is contemplating merging with another church in their area. Their pastor was. Every merger involves a lead church and a joining church. of the church merger movement, but it's becoming a strategy for church planters.

This post is also available in: So, why should a church merge? When I meet with the two involved parties, usually two senior pastors or a senior pastor and a board member, we talk about the following questions they should also be exploring:.

Should my church merge? Would my individual congregation be better by joining with another church?

Questions to Ask;
Some Common Mistakes in Failed Church Mergers?
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Would we be stronger together? Could we accomplish more together than we could separately? Would we find more ministry synergy, created by the two churches joining with common vision and purpose?

Church Mergers: Legal and Financial Matters

Would our community be better served by us working together? By joining forces, can we make a bigger impact in our surrounding community, and not just for our individual congregations? In partnership with Leadership Network, we commissioned the Barna Group to learn more by surveying churches who had gone through a merger in the past 10 years. Mergers can be an effective part of a multisite strategy.

Option 3: Blending by Continuation Merger

Here the overarching denomination is paying special attention to their churches that are in decline. Since a majority of mainline churches are now declining it should not be surprising when blended congregations decline as well. A Psalm for Pastors: This option usually involves an attorney and thus, in many cases, a legal fee will be incurred. What will happen to the employees of the joining church? It is tempting to start with how , but that needs to wait until the why question is clearly answered and all of the others are at least considered.

Every merger involves a lead church and a joining church. We describe it like a dance, with a lead and a follower. Even when the churches are similar in health and size, one leads and the other joins.

Church Mergers Are a Growing Trend

We establish that right up front. Sometimes they may even have a bigger congregation, but they have peaked and are on the way down. And, the smaller congregation is healthier and on the way up.