Decline & Renewal, 7: Steve Martin Guest Column

Editor's note: As promised, I have the amazing fortune of being able to publish several guest columns. Over the coming weeks, you'll read thoughtful words from church leaders like Tim Spivey, Andy Wall, Lynn Anderson, Stan Granberg, Aaron Metcalf, Rick Gibson and more. These are all respected church leaders who love God's church as a whole, and they show a deep respect for what God has done and still can do in Churches of Christ.

Our second guest column is from a native Californian and talented minister who leads the Tri-Valley Church of Christ in Livermore, California. It’s a well-known research area just east of Oakland. The Tri-Valley Church began in 1950 when some local church members decided to start their own congregation in Livermore. After a few years’ growth, they moved to their current location on East Avenue. Steve tells a little of his perspective on West Coast church decline through the lens of the Tri-Valley Church.

The View from Steve Martin

When I received Jason’s email invitation to participate in a series about church decline on the West Coast, I was intrigued. It’s an important subject, and one I’ve been looking forward to reading—but not writing. No one that I know in ministry signed on with dreams of managing plateaued or dying churches. But that’s where many of us are. As I gather with other ministers, our conversations of outreach strategies can carry an air of discouragement. What can we try next to inspire, motivate, organize or encourage the Body to engage in new ways? Especially given the climate I see within our congregation—fatigue.

When I arrived in 2001, the Tri-Valley Church was averaging a little over 200 people each Sunday. I remember the excitement I had for this new work. “After all,” I told myself, “who needs Christ more than the Bay Area?” Looking back, I should have seen some of the signs of relational vulnerability when a man in his late 30’s stopped me after my first worship service to wish me well. “Today is our last Sunday,” he told me. “We’re moving out of the area for work.” I didn’t think much of it at the time, but his family’s departure was a sign of things to come.

Suffice it to say, California is an expensive place to live. To compensate, employers around our area will often pay “Bay Area Wages”—a higher salary meant to compensate for the inflated cost of housing. There is a percentage of our congregation that comes or goes each year based on their jobs. Lured by the higher wages, they move out from the Midwest or South in a transfer meant to bolster a career. They come to work in Silicon Valley, or the City, or at one of the two national laboratories in Livermore, but they don’t stay beyond a few years. These new residents don’t intend to make California their home, just a stop along the way. Upon their arrival, we get excited that God has sent us a few more workers. Transfer growth isn’t our preferred path for building the Kingdom, but pre-made workers offer a resource we can surely use.

This shifting membership brings challenges for growth. There is a relational price to be paid when people we’ve come to know and love end up moving away. If they connect with the church, as we hope they will, then their departure in 3-5 years will hurt. It will hurt in terms of ministries they’ve helped lead. But more importantly it will hurt on a personal level. They are friends. Last year alone we had 5 families transfer out of the area. Including their kids, that was 23 worshippers gone in a 6 month period. Two of the families had been involved in leading a small group. Another was one of our worship leaders. Their kids were engaged in our children’s ministry.

Now if church growth is a numbers game, then mathematically I need to help the congregation bring in at least 25-30 new people just to cover their loss and grow a little bit. But what we’re facing isn’t a numbers game—it’s personal. Because of that, I see a measure of fatigue in our long-term members. Why would they want to connect again and again simply to be hurt? We tell ourselves that our co-workers and neighbors are more permanent fixtures in Livermore, so we should connect with them. But in a fast-paced work climate, where you’re lucky to see your neighbor in passing on the weekend, do we still have the emotional energy to put in the time it takes to establish new friendships; especially if those friendships will only end up causing us pain? No, the easier path is to draw closer to the friends we see as consistent and reliable.

In doing so, we create a safer community of relationships—albeit, a closed one. Don’t get me wrong. If you show up at Tri-Valley on a Sunday morning, I believe you will find a very warm welcome. That’s not where the problem reveals itself. It shows up in a lack of follow-up by the Body. Many are too fatigued to invest the emotional energy needed to develop real friendships beyond the Sunday morning meet-and-greet. Unfortunately, it’s those new connections (time and relationships) that become the platform for sharing Christ.

In the meantime, we try to hold our own. Given the shifting membership last year, our attendance averages around 175—a slow decline. It feels like we’re fighting the tide. Not all is lost. I’ve seen God shift the tides of churches, and He can do it again. Unfortunately these kinds of tides don’t tend to shift without relationships—and who’s ready to risk being hurt again for that?

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Bio:
Born and raised in Southern California, Steve Martin sensed a calling to ministry while in college. He is a graduate of Pepperdine University (BA, Religion) and Princeton Theological Seminary (MDiv). Following seminary, Steve served as the youth & family minister (for 2 years) and then the pulpit minister (for 9 years) at the Anderson Church of Christ in Anderson, CA. He accepted the position of preaching minister at the Tri-Valley Church of Christ in 2001. Steve and his wife Casey have been married 25 years. They have three sons, Sam (23), Chris (22) and Nathan (20).