After the funeral for yet another member of Richfield United Methodist Church earlier this year, nine of the 12 remaining members of this rural 111-year-old church (the other three are homebound) got together to discuss their future.
By many metrics, the church was still vibrant. It had a healthy $90,000 balance in its treasury; it regularly contributed to the local community, collecting food and school supplies; it was proud of its near-perfect attendance record. Unless someone was sick or in a nursing home, every member could be counted on to be at church on Sunday mornings.
But the colonial brick building in the central region of North Carolina had not drawn new members in more than a decade. The two textile mills in nearby Albemarle had long closed, and a mill in the town of Richfield had shuttered. With no industry and few jobs, the small community of 600-plus residents was unlikely to grow.
Fortunately, the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, to which Richfield belongs, last year launched a project funded by The Duke Endowment to help declining congregations take a hard look at their future prospects and consider their options.
The Church Legacy Initiative, as it's known, is a novel experiment that helps declining churches chart their end and leave behind a lasting gift. A sort of "hospice care for churches," a dozen or so similar programs have started in various United Methodist conferences across the country, and other independent
nonprofits have begun to offer similar services.
These programs meet a critical need. A 2012
study by Donald R. House found that while the United Methodist Church has suffered through decades of declining worship attendance, the rate of decline has increased markedly since 2002. By 2030, an estimated 30 percent of the denomination's churches -- or about 10,000 congregations -- will have closed.
