Few people would disagree that Metropolitan Tabernacle in London was the greatest church in England during the last half of the 19th century. For more than 30 years, Charles Haddon Spurgeon held forth from this Grecian designed fortress preaching the gospel as only Spurgeon could.
The church building contained about 4,500 seats and standing room that sometimes swelled the crowd to 6,000. Every Sunday it was full. Spurgeon’s sermons were heard by thousands, and they were printed and distributed throughout the British Empire and were popular in America, as well.
In the United States, Dwight L. Moody, a contemporary of Spurgeon, built the great Moody Church in Chicago. It was the hub of a great evangelistic witness that reached across the United States and to many foreign countries. Spurgeon and Moody did not agree on all points of theology but cooperated with each other in their public ministries. Spurgeon regularly invited Moody to preach at Metropolitan Tabernacle, and Moody regularly invited Spurgeon to preach at Moody’s evangelistic crusades in London.
Spurgeon was one of Moody’s heroes in the faith. The two corresponded regularly, but Spurgeon never traveled to the United States and, thus, never spoke at Moody Church.
When both men died in the 1890s — Spurgeon in 1892 and Moody in 1899 — both churches went through similar experiences. They began to decline. One author went so far as to write of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, “The church was shortly after (Spurgeon’s passing) all but dead.”
Legacies of Spurgeon and Moody
Today the continuing legacy of both men are the schools they founded — Spurgeon’s College in London and Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.
What happened to their churches? Why did they decline with the passing of their pastors?
Books have been written attempting to answer that question, and research continues on why a church may flourish for a time and then fade. It is a serious issue. We offer only one observation: There is a difference between gathering a following and building a church.
That insight is not original. Some years ago while talking with a seminary professor friend about a popular preacher in his town, he observed “There is a difference between gathering a following and building a church.” He predicted that when the pastor left, about a third of the congregation would also leave. He feared the pastor had done little to build the church.
Sure enough, when the preacher left, the church experienced an immediate and dramatic drop. There was little evidence of sustained growth in any area of church life. Unfortunately, the same occurrence was observed in every church served by this particular pastor.
The tendency of people to flock around a charismatic personality is not an isolated trait. It happens in churches across America. Sometimes it happens because of the needs of the pastor. Some people crave the spotlight. Some people need the adulation of the crowd. Some need to be the center around which all else whirls. Some need to control through the power of their personalities. When such needs are present, the pastor acts to tie people to himself.
In other words, he gathers a following, but he does not build up the church.
Sometimes people flock to a charismatic leader out of their own needs. They want someone to tell them what to believe or what to do. They want a strong personality to follow. It is not stretching reality too far to say that some people make a “god” out of their pastor and almost worship him. That is exactly what happened to Paul and Barnabas at Lystra (Acts 14:8 ff).
When such occurs, the people are not tied to the church but to the pastor.
Thankfully, the percentage of church members who join a church because of the pastor is small — less than 5 percent by one study. Most join because a friend invited them. What most people look for in a church is connection — connection with people who care about them. Church is a personal experience. It is a place where one’s spiritual needs are met through worship and praise. It is a place where one is missed when absent. Church is a place where one is cared for when in need, a place where one belongs, a place through which one contributes to the lives of others.
A recent study by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research found a growing percentage of churches from rural to urban were growing. The reasons were many, but at the core of most was meeting the needs of individuals through worship, ministry and service.
The study found that in such churches, leadership changed and the church continued to grow. The secret? The church was focused on being a church committed to meeting the needs of people in their congregation and community. This included evangelism and worship as well as ministry and service.
We would never insinuate that Spurgeon or Moody tried to gather a following rather than build a church. That would be untrue. Both churches were active all week long, not just places to gather on Sunday for a worship service. Both churches were noted for their ministries to hurting people.
That is why the answer to the question about why some churches decline when the pastor leaves remains elusive. There is more than one answer. Yet the truth remains that our task, our privilege, as ministers and members is to build up the church, not gather a following.
Focusing on the needs of individuals through worship, ministry and service is one way to make sure we are building up the Lord’s church.
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