Think that’s scary? I recently talked to an active member in one of North Carolina’s most active, stalwart, healthy Baptist churches. An internal study there showed that 73 percent of the church budget was contributed by members who are 70 years old and up.  And funerals are conducted on a regular basis.

People who love the church — in some semblance of the way we have come to know it in the past 100 years — have cause for concern about how long that model will be sustainable. Attendance is generally down, for one thing, as postmoderns and younger generations show less allegiance to the institutional church, and as older members became less active and gradually die off. 

Where many churches are feeling the pain most, however, is in finances. I know personally of multiple churches that have reshaped their budgets in painful ways, often cutting staff members or reducing their hours, just in order to make ends meet. 

Churches sometimes call a new pastor and make financial promises that they ultimately can’t fulfill unless the pastor is really successful at recruiting new members who tithe. In those situations, the pastor becomes like a missionary who has to raise his or her own funds. 

Large facilities built to accommodate rapid growth in the ‘50s and ‘60s are aging and requiring sacks of cash just for maintenance, even when they’re rarely used. Some downtown churches in big cities have resorted to completely remodeling their buildings, taking advantage of their location and property value to rent out part of the building for office spaces or erect parking garages as a means of producing income. 

An additional truth, obvious to anyone who is paying attention, is that older members attend more and give more in support of the church budget — but they won’t be around forever. A government study in 2005, cited by The Empty Tomb, showed a direct correlation to age. 

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