Some years ago I spoke with a pastor about secular outreach, missional culture and the challenges faced by Western Adventism. At one point in our conversation, the pastor dropped a massive bomb. “There are close to 60 SDA churches in the region I work,” he said. “Only two of them are healthy.”

I was bummed out by the news, but not surprised. In my experience, many local SDA churches are struggling to stay alive. The membership is aging, the mission is nonexistent, and the youth are leaving. Adventist Record editor Jarrod Stackelroth described tackling this crisis as dealing with “the very survival of the Adventist Church.”[1]

But the good news is, within this discouraging environment, there are some churches that thrive. Why do they thrive? What is their secret? We’ll get to that in a moment. But first, we need to wrestle with why these struggles are so normative accross our churches. Here are my top 3 observations.

1. We have convinced too many people.

Suppose you write a book. The purpose of the book is to convince everyone that New York Pizza is the best pizza in the world. You do this in a very simple format. You state your case in the introduction and then, for the next 12 chapters, you argue one point after another. Chapter 1, the cheese is richer. Chapter 2, the base is thinner. Chapter 3, the sauce is more authentic. And so on and so forth.

By the time you get to the end of the book, you have argued 12 reasons why New York Pizza is the best pizza in the world. Along the way, you have demonstrated how Boston and Chicago just don’t compare and, of course, how Atlanta and Los Angeles never stood a chance. Your book is published and becomes a huge hit. After a year, a massive convention gathers in Manhattan to celebrate your best seller. Thousands of people who agree with you attend to celebrate with you. You now have a “New York Pizza-Only” cult following that sweeps across the globe. Congratulations.

The above scenario is pretty much how Adventist evangelism has historically worked. Adventists have approached the great commission as a great debate in which we argue for our theological brand. “Here is why Adventism is the best denomination in the world!” we cry. Chapter 1 - We go to church on the right day. Chapter 2 - We alone can explain what really happens when you die. Chapter 3 - We have got end time events figured out way better than everyone else.

When we win people with these kinds of arguments, we fill our churches with those who are convinced by our arguments. And they join our movement because they think we are right and everyone else is wrong. They are not necessarily converted (will come back to this) but boy, are they convinced we’ve got the truth. And what do you get when you have reached people by arguing them into the church? You get a church culture more interested in arguing than in serving.

I’m not impressed by gigantic post-evangelistic baptism numbers. What I’m interested in is, how many of them were won with love and to love? Because so long as we keep winning people with arguments we will win them to arguing. And this, I believe, is one of the main reasons why so many of our local churches are struggling.

2. We have freaked out too many people.

Let’s use our imagination again. Suppose you decide to start a business selling insurance but no one sees the need. Eventually, you discover a marketing trick that works like a charm and with it you are able to scale your business and put food on your table. The trick? Sell to peoples fears. If you market how good your product is, no one cares. But if you market how urgent it is “or else”… well now you have the phone ringing off the hook.

In his article “Why Fear Sells: The Business of Panic & Paranoia,” Martin Lindstrom stated clearly that “fear is a powerful persuader…. [w]hich is why the marketing world uses scare tactics to sell us everything from antidepressants to condoms...”[2] Using this handy information you switch up your marketing campaigns and sell to your prospects fear of death, disease, and financial ruin. And caching! You are rich.

But what does this have to do with why so many local Adventist churches struggle? Because this method of selling to fear is precisely what many ministries use in order to get you to buy their products. Add to this the difficulty of a small Adventist market and a ton of competing ministries, and you end up with new start ups having to develop unique selling points. One ministry exists to warn you about the dangers of x, the other to warn you about the dangers of y, and if that’s not enough a new guy is on the scene raising the midnight cry on how if you don’t understand z you and your children’s souls will be imperilled.

Adrian Zahid captured this issue well when he wrote:

Because they are often competing with other independent ministries for the same number of churches who are open to such speakers, they have to differentiate and establish their “unique selling point” against that of another independent minister. It is a zero-sum game. Either they are invited to churches and they quickly establish urgency in the minds of the members regarding their topic and sell materials at the end of the weekend series or they and their family will starve. Enormous pressure, is therefore put on the independent minister, to present information in such a way as to create a thirst in the mind of the member that can only be quenched by buying the materials on sale after the series is ended. The member then adds the materials to their ‘threat-matrix’ system so that they can see this latest ‘spiritual danger’ coming at them a mile away. Often the member does not have the time to really study the materials in any organised fashion or depth because the next weekend another speaker is ready to present yet another ‘testing Truth’ or ‘threat’ that they have to be vigilant about. And the cycle repeats itself.[3]

This process, Zahid argues, has a “tremendous effect on the local church” in which (among other issues) “every person views the other as a potential spiritual threat to their salvation”. Such a culture quickly degenerates into toxicity. Add to this the already existing foundation of argumentation and you end up with a nucleus of people too freaked out about existing to have any meaningful impact in the world. The church quickly becomes a fortress rather than a hospital.

3. We have short-sold too many people.

I want to go back to point one here. When we win people by convincing them with arguments we can publish fancy reports about how many baptisms we got, but in the long run, it all backfires The truth is, belonging to the church is a passage that takes place on the heels of conversion. When a person receives Christ and is born again, the Bible says they pass from death unto life, from the headship of the first Adam to the second Adam, from humanity 1.0 to humanity 2.0, from the kingdom of men to the Kingdom of heaven. This conversion experience transcends a shift in worldview. It involves being born a new from above and this is a miraculous, divinely initiated metamorphosis.

But this rebirth doesn’t happen like a physical birth. In a physical birth a person is conceived and then born into the world. But for a rebirth to take place a person must experience death. Death to self.

In other words, we must die before we can be reborn. And this death experience is imperative in the Christian life. It is death my way of being and my way of walking in the world. Death to the old way of power, control, and pride. Death to my nasty temperment, my judgmental moods, and my desire to dominate. But its this death that is, in itself, the portal of rebirth into an entirely new experience as a child of God. And you cannot accomplish this by convincing people that we are right. And while this is certainly the least popular thing I will ever say, I maintain that the reason most of our churches are struggling year after year is because they are filled with people convinced by the truth but not converted by it.

To put it differently, most of our churches are not filled with men and women who have died and been reborn into newness of life. Instead, they are filled with men and women who have re-branded their worldview via Adventists theology. Mixed with the argumentative spirit of our historic evangelistic style and a constant bombardment of fear based sales pitches and you end up with a culture that is unhealthy and unable to have a meaningful impact in the world.

Now, as widespread as the issues above are, there are certainly local Adventist churches that buck these trends and are able to thrive in beautiful and relevant ways. Here are the 3 reasons I have observed for this:

1. Thriving churches focus on Jesus because he is the source of true rebirth. These churches preach Jesus not as a nice idea, but as a living person who is calling us to death and new life.

   Thriving SDA churches are filled with believers who have experienced Jesus and are in absolute awe of who he is. They have died to the ways of empire, the ways of coercion and control. They have laid their wounds, insecurities, and fears on Jesus. And while far from perfect, their gaze is consistently fixed on Jesus. There is no argumentative spirit, but the beauty of compassion and kindness. Christ lives in and through them.

2. Thriving churches focus on emotional health and protect the flock from fear based religion. This is not a difficult thing to do when Jesus is the main focus of your culture. But I have noticed that healthy churches have leaders who simply do not play games with toxic religion. Like faithful shepherds, they constantly point to Jesus and are not afraid to take on the wolves of legalism, dogmatism, or fear-driven theology.

3. Thriving churches focus on the good. Years ago, I interviewed pastor Robert Stankovic about restoring churches high-jacked by fanaticism. He said something so wise I never forgot it. “Focus on the good and eventually the bad will discover it doesn’t fit in anymore.” I think that’s an awesome bit of practical advice. Thriving churches follow this principle intentionally. Focusing on good things like service, mission, intergenerational community, youth empowerment, creativity, diversity, and, of course, the centrality of Christ seems to have a double effect. It builds up the people and it scares off the toxic folk who like to cause problems. Win-win.

The above picture is Christ-centred, emotionally healthy, and focused on good works in the world. This doesn't mean thriving churches ignore the tough stuff like repentance, rebirth, accountability, or prophecy. What it means is that thriving churches filter everything through Jesus and to Jesus for the glory of God and the betterment of humanity.

For them, repentance, rebirth, and accountability are not mere religious exercises, but keys to cultivating safe communities for the vulnerable and thriving families that exemplify love.

For them, prophecy is not a window to conspiracy theories and cynical apocalypticism, but fuel for social justice, humanitarian action, and resistance of cruel pictures of God. This prophetic focus nurtures communities that work to heal the wounds of injustice and protest the parasitic postures of empire and religion.

The end result may not necessarily be a church with 900 members, but it is a church that is full of life, vibrancy, and authentic community. A place where believers and seekers find belonging and restoration. What more could anyone ask for?

So there you have it, 3 keys to a thriving Adventist church.

Do you have any thoughts to add? Feel free to comment below!

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[1] https://record.adventistchurch.com/2018/06/08/growing-young-how-to-save-our-church/

[2] https://brainworldmagazine.com/fear-sells-business-panic-paranoia/2/

[3] https://thecompassmagazine.com/blog/beyond-the-one-project-the-war-over-the-local-church-5b