Mergers and Acquisitions

Good Shepherd Episcopal, Belmont, merged

We've noted the decline in church membership and the attrition of clergy as recently as February. To arrest the closure of churches, one turnaround specialist suggests that merging is the answer:

The good news is that there’s a way to save a failing church: a partnership, or merger, with a thriving one. Most often this means a comprehensive relaunch for the struggling congregation—rebranding the church and giving it a new vision, staff, programming, facilities and training.

with Holy Family Episcopal, Half Moon Bay

This strategy can work, just as it can in business when a growing enterprise takes over a failing one. But just like in business, thriving churches are as hard to find as unicorns.

In our Episcopal deanery (a subsection of the diocese), two hundred-year-old churches have had to merge; they lost their parish (financially independent) status and now share the expenses of a vicar. These venerable institutions sit on valuable Bay Area land, and they could survive a long time financially through judicious sale of now-excess property.

Combining churches is much more common as a tactic to hang on a few more years rather than as a strategy to grow. Starry-eyed seminarians dream about expanding their flock; like freshly-minted MBA's, little did some foresee that they'd become turnaround specialists.