3 Essentials for Moving Your Church from Hoarding to Healthy

Moving a church from hoarding to healthy requires a season of renewal fueled by active repentance and returning to the Lord.

By Daryl Crouch

Do you have a “junk drawer” in your kitchen?

It’s that drawer where things that have no clearly defined purpose go because we have no good place for things with no purpose. Over time, that drawer fills up with gadgets, nick knacks, cables, pens, and a lifetime supply of birthday candles. We build emotional attachments to things that were once useful.

One crowded kitchen drawer poses no threat, but what happens when the drawer is no longer big enough to contain all the things we want to keep? We take over other drawers, cabinets, and closets. Then we move to empty nooks and crannies, tabletops, and stair steps. Unable to release the things that no longer serve a purpose, we become hoarders, buried under the weight of our misplaced affections.

This is the story of a declining church.

It’s buried under unhelpful programs that were once effective but now just keep volunteers busy. It’s suffocating under traditions observed out of a sense of joyless obligation. And it’s crowded with complex and clumsy administrative structures and processes. And we hold all these things tightly in our grip with a pseudo-spirituality that seeks to justify their value.

The hoarding church

The church hoarder mentality, however, is not without consequences. It depletes resources of time, energy, and money. It creates camps that divide and work against one another, quenching the Holy Spirit. And it discourages the pastor and the people who are called to make Jesus known. Most of all, it distracts the church from the gospel mission, leaving too many of our neighbors “without hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12, CSB).

What we need is a “cleaning day” where we throw the junk away. But it will take more than a day. Moving a church from hoarding to healthy requires a season of renewal fueled by active repentance and returning to the Lord. Very simply, church renewal requires a fresh encounter with God.

Jesus said to the church at Ephesus, “I know that you have persevered and endured hardships for the sake of my name, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then how far you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent” (Revelation 2:3-5, CSB).

Occasionally, a church declines or even dies because of factors outside of its control, but most churches stagnate, decline, or die because they abandon their first love and tie their affections to things that are not central to God’s heart and purpose.

“Most churches stagnate, decline, or die because they abandon their first love and tie their affections to things that are not central to God’s heart and purpose.” — @DarylCrouch Share on X

So, what does it mean for a church to renew? Or in Jesus’s language to the Ephesians, what does it mean to “repent, and do the works you did at first” (Revelation 2:5, CSB)?

Let’s consider three realities that move the hoarding church toward health.

1. Spiritual power

First century Ephesus was a spiritual battlefield, but God worked in power to heal the sick, deliver the demon-possessed, and save souls. And in all this, He established a church where the gospel was proclaimed in power.

The Word of God and prayer stood in the center of the fellowship so that teaching sound doctrine, opposing false gospels, and walking in the ways of God in the power of the Spirit marked the life of the congregation.

Your church’s greatest need is the manifest presence of God. When a church hungers for God’s presence, it returns to God in tenacious, expectant prayer and joyful obedience to His Word.

This is the church that has a heart shaped to know the voice of God. This is the church that’s prepared to catch the fresh wind of God’s Spirit. And this is the church that joins the work of God in saving souls, restoring broken lives, and transforming communities.

2. Pastoral leadership

Through people like Priscilla and Aquila, Apollos, and then Pastor Timothy, the church at Ephesus had a leadership culture that elevated sound doctrine, unified the church around the gospel, and then equipped believers for the work of ministry.

Paul wrote to Timothy, “Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of eternal life to which you were called and about which you have made a good confession in the presence of many witnesses” (1 Timothy 6:12, CSB). Rooted in his life in Christ, Timothy overcame his fears and led with courage.

Paul also encouraged the Ephesians to recognize and stand against the spiritual forces of evil. Courageous pastors are spiritual leaders who teach the Bible, care for the people, and lead the church toward the mission of God. They also stand against false doctrine, divisive factions, sluggish structures, and distracting priorities in order to keep the congregation focused on the mission of God. 

A colleague recently told me that it seems many pastors lead with ADHD. Instead of focusing on the essentials, they constantly chase down new programs and gimmicks. This ambiguous leadership creates anxiety in the heart of the pastor, confuses and wearies the congregation, and leads the church into decline.

Dying churches are often marked by either a pastor who’s unwilling to grow into his calling or by a leadership culture that discourages the pastor from fulfilling his calling. Either way, the repentance and return of pastor and people to a clear focus on the mission of God are essential requirements for and evidence of church renewal.

3. Community impact

As Paul shared the gospel in Ephesus, so many people came to Christ that it threatened the idol-making industry. This young church became a powerful disruptive force against the evil schemes of the devil in the city.

It wasn’t just about church growth. The light of the gospel pushed back darkness and affected the economic, religious, and social structures in the community.

The enemy creates havoc, and sin steals hope. But a church that returns to the Lord is also a church that returns to its mission to take the gospel to every dark corner of its community. A church moves toward health when it cleans out its unnecessary priorities and turns its prayer, energy, influence, and money toward the salvation of souls and the flourishing of the city.

“A church moves toward health when it cleans out its unnecessary priorities and turns its prayer, energy, influence, and money toward the salvation of souls and the flourishing of the city.” — @DarylCrouch Share on X

There’s a temptation for a struggling church to turn inward in hopes of surviving. It’s also common for struggling churches to view the community as merely a tool in their strategy for growth. But Mark Clifton reminds us, “The community is not there for the church; the church is there for the community.”

It’s the healthy church that seeks to understand its community, pursues its success, and engages and makes disciples of neighbors in every domain of the community. The renewed church is the community’s disrupter of evil and restorer of hope for every neighbor.

Only Jesus can build a healthy church. But we join His work as we repent of our hoarding and return to Him to do the things we did at first.

For permission to republish this article, contact Marissa Postell Sullivan.