Life Cycle of the Church

One of the resources that churches use to determine their vitality for continued ministry is a study written by George Bullard, The Life Cycle and Stages of Congregational Development. (This link will take you to a PDF of the study document.) Bullard suggests that churches go through a life cycle that can be compared to the life cycle of a human being. (See the diagram below,)

Just as we move from birth to death, a community of faith can do the same. Each congregation has a story of its birth, whether it is 150 or 10 years old. The founders had a vision and planted the church. Some congregations find themselves at a place of strength and vitality and other congregations have nostalgia for the way things used to be when times were good. And sadly, some congregations are currently deciding whether or not to continue; they are facing death.

Bullard writes that at each life stage of a church four core values shift in importance. The values are:

Vision: The purpose for the church and an understanding of where the church is headed. This is the heart of the church.
Relationship: A value placed on connecting with people. This symbolizes the embracing arms of the church.
Program: The ministries and programs that accomplish the purpose, the hands and feet of the church.
Structure: The guiding system that gets things done, the skeleton of the church.

When a church begins life, the strongest value is vision. It is what drives those who are creating the new congregation. As the church matures, relationship and connection become important. To carry out purpose, programs are created and to avoid chaos, churches create a structure. (Or in the case of the United Methodist Church take on the structure as guided by the denomination.) At the peak of health and vitality, the church balances all four of these values. In the diagram below a value is capitalized (VRPS) it is a driving force in a particular life stage.


If attention is not paid to keeping all four of these values before the people, the church slips into maturity and then retirement. The vision slips from view and the purpose for the congregation's founding becomes unclear. Eventually, programming begins to decline and the desire to create authentic relationships with newcomers fades. Eventually, in the final years of a church's existence, the only thing holding the church up is a familiar structure, Sunday worship and committee meetings.

The prescriptions of Vital Church Initiative are designed to reverse the aging process of the church, to keep a church from forgetting its purpose and the importance of relationship and vital ministry. Members of Brighton First, who have attended Vital Church Initiative workshops, place our church at either the adult, retirement or empty nest stage. (See Bullard's work for characteristics of each stage.)