My only pushback on this is a question - what if some of that overhead administrative cost, as it is often referred to as, is actually doing the ministry of helping the poor and needy? Or a good portion of it is towards that? Someone has to organize the ministry. Someone needs to be intentional about doing ministry. Someone needs to pull things together. And in my experience, it doesn't happen on its own. Volunteers are great, but they either are unorganized, or they putter out pretty quickly because there is no long term intentionality or strategy. Without some kind of paid staff somewhere, overseeing the use of funds, I'm wondering how the accountability of those funds is handled.

Having said all of this - I firmly believe that the model of the church needs to change. It is not sustainable not practical in its current form. And it doesn't meet the needs of the mission. I think that the model will shift to one of a variety of models actually - a combination of things. Some of what you have laid out, and some of a variety of other things. Anchor churches, house churches, partnerships with non-profits, community hubs, and more. Maybe churches that are churches and something else - like churches that are also non-profits that serve the poor and needy through specific services and have paid staff for this, who happen to have a pastor who serve in both capacities. I've seen this model and it works really well, as one example. We are moving to a time in which there won't be a singular model for the church. I think that's a beautiful thing. And a challenge when it comes to accountability, which is my main concern in the questions above. Because if we are dealing with money, there still needs to be accountability and transparency and intentionality. There are roles for paid staff in the midst of this. Maybe it looks like fewer staff/pastors/whatever you want to call them - who have connection with church bodies and can provide that accountability/checking in. There certainly needs to be a reassessment of the roles of staff/pastors/facility/etc away from a membership organization looking inward to the needs of the membership and looking outward to service. That will require changes. And it will require rethinking the institution.

I've been playing with the notion that churches should have set "death" dates on them - when they will die as a congregation. Maybe it's 25 years, or some other time. The idea is that we supposedly proclaim and believe in life, death, and resurrection. And yet, how many congregations really, actually embrace that? Too often we think that congregations are supposed to live forever. We celebrate congregations living 150, 250 years, etc. Yet none of Paul's congregations are still around. What if the ending of a congregation was baked into the very beginning of a congregation? Death was present at the beginning? I wonder what that would look like and how it would impact the way the congregation lived it mission and calling. I wonder how it would impact the culture of the congregation. I wonder how it would impact how it used its resources. I wonder how it would impact all sorts of things. And I wonder how it would embrace the concept of death looking towards resurrection and the possibilities that might exist - known and unknown for that congregation.

At any rate, thanks for another great article and the opportunity to provoke some conversation.