It’s been almost a year since we closed the doors for good at the First Baptist Church of Mount Vernon, Illinois. I’m still not over it.
It was a congregation established in 1868, one that touched the lives of thousands of people living in southern Illinois. So many people gave of their time and their money to keep the church going through good times and bad times. And I was the guy standing at the pulpit delivering the last benediction on July 21, 2024.
Even as I served as a pastor, I had built an academic career while becoming one of the foremost scholars of religious decline in the United States, writing books including “The Nones” and “The Great Dechurching.” When word got out that my church was in its death throes, several journalists wanted to write about it, and I agreed.
The Associated Press ran a wonderful story that was printed in hundreds of regional news sites all over the United States and across the world. Bob Smietana, a friend and reporter at Religion News Service, made the drive from Chicago to be there for our last gathering, and his article appeared a few days after we closed up shop. Then, I wrote a longer reflection on what the closing meant to me personally that ran in the Deseret News.
This news coverage threw my entire life into a tailspin in the summer of 2024. The response from the public was overwhelming. Because I work for a state university, my email address is publicly available, and the messages never seemed to stop. I got notes that were incredibly kind — people were praying for me and wished me well in my future. A handful were downright scary, clearly composed by people who had a loose grip on reality and had fallen down the rabbit holes of conspiracy theories and fringe religious beliefs. But the bulk of those communications could fall into two broad buckets that are worth pondering.
Unsolicited advice
The first was a large group of people who wanted to tell me all the reasons why my church had failed (even though it had been vibrant and a source of community and inspiration for more than a century). A common sentiment was that I was always only a part-time pastor; some people were sure that had to be the reason for the church’s decline. What they failed to understand was that my church frankly didn’t have the financial resources to support any full-time staff member. It was a chore to just pay the power bill. Which, by the way, is a situation that thousands of churches are in right now.
Others wanted me to know that the supposed liberalism of my church’s denomination (the American Baptists) was the cause for our closure. I led those faithful few for more than 17 years. Our church was decidedly devoid of politics. In fact, I had no idea who anyone voted for, and I frankly didn’t care to know.
I have previously written that I had never felt called to be a pastor, and that I took the job with a great deal of hesitation. For some readers of that essay, this had to be the reason that we didn’t make it — it’s because I didn’t have some kind of anointing on my life.
All of that was incredibly hard to read, and after a while, I just started deleting those types of emails after I skimmed the first sentence or two. I talked to a friend, and he said something profound: “They aren’t writing to explain to you why things didn’t work out, they are writing to explain to themselves why they (or their church) won’t be in the same position in five or 10 years down the road.” In hindsight, that’s the only explanation that makes any sense to me.
There was another type of email I got. These almost always came from religious leaders — pastors, church planters, denominational administrators and so forth, people who have had a long history in the church. Every email in this category came from an evangelical male and they all had the same tone: “Just let me in there, and I can fix the problem.” They wanted to know if they could use our church building to plant a new congregation or if they could partner with us for a revitalization effort.
For many of them, I know that their heart was in the right place, but that pile of messages stoked an anger in me that felt entirely foreign. They all had an air of superiority about them — the writers were sure they understood the problems facing First Baptist Church better than I did, when I served as the pastor of that congregation for more than 17 years.
Not every church needs to be saved. Sometimes, they need to die.
I grew up in an evangelical church, and I have to admit that the general worldview of evangelicalism is still deeply rooted in my psyche. I knew where they were coming from: no one is beyond the redemption of Jesus Christ and so there’s no church that can’t be saved by a little bit of religious revival.
Many corners of the Christian world have this foundational optimism, believing that all the ills facing the American church are going to be solved when that next revival comes — and it’s certainly right around the corner. But the composers of these “I can save you” emails did not understand that I and my congregation were just completely exhausted — physically, spiritually and financially, we were on our last legs. The church closing its doors was a burden lifted off our shoulders, a weight that some of them had been carrying for decades.
Not every church needs to be saved. Sometimes, they need to die.
The last straw for me was when my phone rang at about 7 a.m. on a Tuesday morning in August. I was sound asleep. The person on the other end started talking a mile a minute, and I spent the first half of the call just trying to knock the cobwebs loose and figure out who would consider calling someone at that hour.
It was a pastor of a church about 50 miles away. He wanted to offer me a position on his staff as an unpaid associate. He didn’t know about my job as professor, or the books I’d written, or my newsletter or anything else about me at all. He believed God told him to call me, and so he did. To this day, I have no idea how he got my number. I very politely declined his invitation, hung up the phone, and yelled an impolite word as loudly as I could.
A continuing journey
What I’ve realized throughout this experience is that I am very happy to write about religion in the abstract, but I am very much uncomfortable when other people are viewing the American religious landscape through the prism of my own life. My story, and the story of First Baptist Church, is certainly representative of the larger trajectory of American religion — mainline churches are closing and the “nones” are rising — but I’m much happier posting a line graph of those trend lines on social media than writing about my own spiritual journey.
But that journey goes on.
In the 12 months since my church closed, I’ve buried two of our members. I was fortunate enough to speak with both of them before they passed away and even read the Last Rites to one. It was a holy moment, and it made me realize that as long as any member of the First Baptist Church of Mount Vernon is still alive, I will always be their pastor. It’s an honor and a privilege that I am truly humbled by. Each person in that congregation meant so much to me and apparently I meant something to them. I’ve been invited to preach a handful of times, but I kindly decline almost all of those requests. I stood in a pulpit nearly every week of my life from the age of 23 through 42 and I just need to know if I miss it or not. I still don’t know if I have the answer to that question.
I still drive by our old church building on a regular basis. A couple years before we dissolved, we gave it to a Christian school with the promise that they would let us worship there for as long as we wanted. They kept their word. One of the entrances to the parking lot still has a sign up that says “First Baptist Church.” So, we aren’t completely gone from the piece of property just yet. Every once in a while, I still have the urge to drive up to that building late at night and just sit in the sanctuary in an effort to recreate some of the emotions that I experienced leading that group of faithful Baptists for so long. But deep down I know that I can’t go home again. Whatever our faith community had for all those years is gone forever.
Right after my church closed its doors, I went dormant for a while. I think I didn’t attend any house of worship for about a month. I just needed to have a clear delineating point in my life that separated what had been my Sunday routine for 17 years to what the future was going to look like. When I started thinking about finding a new church, someone asked me what I was looking for in a community of believers and I began to rattle off a few features before I quickly stopped myself. I realized that I was describing what we had at First Baptist. I just wanted to go home again.
A note of hope
After trying out a few different churches in my local community, I regularly attend a local Methodist church now. I often arrive two minutes before the service begins and sit in the back corner on the side of the sanctuary, trying to hide as much as I can. When the pastor gives the benediction, I am putting my coat on and heading toward the exit. Often, I’m the first one pulling out of the parking lot.
A few other former members of First Baptist attend that same church, and I sit next to them every once in a while. It feels strange. It’s the same people, but I’m not standing up and preaching to them. I’m sitting beside them, singing the hymns and reciting the creeds. Most of it doesn’t feel “normal” just yet.
But I do catch glimpses of normalcy here and there. Last week, we sang the Doxology together. As I closed my eyes, I could hear my voice harmonizing with those of the former members of First Baptist. In that very brief moment, it felt like “the good old days” and some hope began to creep up in my heart. For the first time in a very long time, I knew that it was all going to be OK.