Ageing churches 'face slow death'

Churches in New Zealand are facing a slow death, a pastors' conference has been told.

As the average age of both congregations and ministers was increasing, pastors were "burning out" trying to put growth strategies into practice to encourage newcomers to church.

Captain Richard Dyer, South Island field worker for the Church Army, a society of evangelists within the Anglican Church, told the forum that pastors were "gasping for life".

"I was at a church recently, and they now have no Sunday School, no youth ministry, they have no 30-year-olds in the church, I don't even think any 40-year-olds," Church Executive magazine quoted Mr Dyer as saying.

"That's not unique. I've taken seminars in churches where the youngest average age would be in the 50s."

Mr Dyer told delegates at the conference in Waimate, South Canterbury that a lot of pastoral energy was going into caring for ageing parishioners who became sick and died, and for the grieving people who were left behind.

"In my last parish I buried 50 active parishioners or their spouses over a five-year period.

"That takes a toll on the ministry leadership. It captures a lot of your time, which means you are not available to perhaps be focusing on new life stuff."

If a minister expended a lot of energy trying to put church growth principles into practice, but the church did not grow, it could also be disabling, he said.

There needed to be better recognition that pastors should to take time out when they needed to.

There also needed to be more focus on relationships rather than structure in the church, Mr Dyer said.

A serious hindrance to building relationships was that ministers changed churches every three years or so.

"As a general rule, that has had a negative effect, because it is quite clear that long-term ministry -- and living with your mistakes and working through them -- actually helps a church to grow."

Consistency of theological emphasis was also important for a church to grow, he said.

"If the nature of the leadership is conservative evangelical, the next one should follow the same thrust. If it's liberal, put a liberal in."

- NZPA