Why Are So Many Churches Closing?

Scotland in 2026 is a country where many church congregations are being linked together and others are entering into unions, to form one new congregation. This is the case in my own denomination, the Church of Scotland, and may be true in other denominations as well. Because of this, a number of church buildings are now surplus to requirements and are being closed and where viable, sold off.

You know it has reached a significant point when stories about this are even appearing with regularity in the secular media. The usual story is a small group of "campaigners" railing against "the Church" for closing down their beloved building. Cue many irrate comment from others about how this is a "disgrace"—almost all of whom have never attended the congregation in question and may never have attended any place of worship for years.

What are we to make of all this? Why are so many churches being closed down?

At a human level, the answer is very straightforward. There are (or were) many more church buildings than could be sustained by the congregations who occupied them. Outsiders may think that the central church has massive amounts of money so that they can subsidise church congregations with so few members that they cannot afford to keep a building running and in repair on their own. In a sense this is true, and one of the strengths of the Presbyterian system of church governance. We are all one church and richer congregations do heavily and generously subsidise poorer congregations. However, even in this system, a point can be reached where there are simply too many separate congregations with their own buildings. The truth is we have now reached that point.

The membership of the Church of Scotland nationally has been in decline for many many years. At its peak in the 1950s, the Kirk had over a million members, roughly one in four of the population. By 1982, the Kirk had over 900,000 members, roughly one in six of the Scottish population. Today, the membership is around 280,000—about one in twenty of the population. That decline in membership has in no way been matched by a rationalisation of the Church's buildings, not to the same extent anyway.

The cost of maintaining buildings, many of which were built over a century ago or longer, is very high for a declining membership to bear.

This is the human explanation. But behind it is an even more important one—the theological or biblical explanation.

Why is God allowing this? 

Well, the truth is made plain in the Letters to the Seven churches in Revelation chapters 2 and 3. Christ promises that the gates of hell will not prevail against his church, but he does not give an unconditional pass to all congregations. Where congregations abandon God, fail to believe the biblical gospel, disobey the clear teachings on God's word, God is under no obligation to bless those churches. That he has permitted so many to survive this long is a testimony to the divine forbearance and sheer grace. Maybe today is a time of reckoning for the Church?

Some, no doubt, will advocate going further down the wrong path, to "keep the church relevant" and "to attract more people". The truth is that many churches in Scotland are healthy and growing, but I can assure you they are not the ones who have gone down the path of theological liberalism and ethical compromise with the world. That route we have been on for most of the last 100 years and it is a slow death march to oblivion. Nowhere are we commanded to be relevant in the New Testament. We are commanded to be obedient.

What the Church of Scotland needs most is a rediscovery of the truths of the Bible and a return to the message of the gospel. Thankfully there have always been and continue to be some congregations, many individual members and plenty of ministers who still hold to the old truths. My prayer is that God will continue to honour those who honour him and continue his work to reform the Church of Scotland according to the Word of God in 2026 and onwards as he did in centuries past.