A Surprising Change How Closed Churches Are Becoming Awesome New Ministries

“We’re in the ministry, the Gospel of Jesus business. We don’t want to get sideways and off track from our mission.”

That’s how Rev. Dr. Mike Gibson, president of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) Pacific Southwest District (PSD), feels about his district’s work. Laser-focused on supporting congregations and schools as they spread the Gospel and care for their communities, Gibson and his counterpart in the LCMS California-Nevada-Hawaii District (CNH), Rev. Michael Lange, wanted to keep first things first.

Furthering the mission
But what happens when churches or schools close?

Gibson explained that many LCMS congregations have bylaws with a “reversionary clause” that states that if the church closes, the property reverts to its LCMS district so that the property can continue to be used for ministry.

However, the districts found that when this happened, they spent time and resources managing affairs that diverted them from their ultimate mission.

“With four and five church or school closures a year with high property values, how do we properly steward these millions of dollars of property closures,” Gibson said, “especially since we’re not in the property business?”

Teaming up
So, in the fall of 2023, when Lutheran Church Extension Fund (LCEF) approached these districts with an idea, Gibson and Lange were enthusiastic collaborators. LCEF, as a financial organization within the LCMS, proposed a partnership to provide real estate solutions to the CNH and PSD districts, leveraging their expertise and resources to support the district’s mission sustainability.

“LCEF developed [the service] Real Estate Solutions (RES),” said Gibson. “It’s a service that provides great resources and knowledge, and the partnership with LCEF brings expertise we wouldn’t otherwise have. There’s a trusted level of expertise there because they’re within our own tribe. They’re us.”

LCEF would provide advisory real estate services to the two districts, allowing them to assist and support their district congregations and schools, repurposing excess property or turning churches into assets that sustain, strengthen and start new ministries.

Tom Campbell, senior vice president of RES, said that when it comes to reimagining underutilized LCMS real estate, RES applies four guiding pillars:

• Meeting human needs.
• Enhancing communities.
• Pouring ministry behind our work.
• Creating alternative sources of revenue for ministry sustainability into the future.

“What RES is doing embodies much of what I’m looking for and looking to create,” Lange said. “It’s a simple emphasis—affecting and connecting souls to Christ. Every ministry is a people ministry, and it has to be about working towards greater sustainability.”

Proactive planning
In addition to the more reactive property management, the districts and RES wanted to proactively ensure that congregations stay healthy and effective, stewarding their properties and gifts in the best possible ways. This proactive planning brings a sense of relief and reassurance, ensuring that the mission can continue, even in the face of challenges.

“It’s not just about the closure of a church and sale of a property, or even revisioning and repurposing, but we also want to ensure that we use underutilized property,” Gibson said. “We have to make prudent choices. Now we have an entire process by which we decide what to do to make appropriate stewardship decisions.”

Gibson shared that the partnership has allowed his district to help congregations work toward creative solutions for their underutilized properties, often resulting in a “sustainable income stream that underwrites the next new ministry that’s going to happen in that place.”

One such place is St. Paul Lutheran Church in Norwalk, Calif.

“They walked into our office with a checkbook and a set of keys,” Gibson said. “They said, ‘We’ve closed.’ We assisted them in having a special closure worship service, then repurposed the property into a mission development center and a new career and technical education micro high school that offers kids hands-on experience with the trades, and it’s Lutheran. We’ve had baptisms, families transformed and a dynamic ministry that we hope to see a dozen more of in our district.”

The mission lives on
While it’s always difficult when churches or schools close, it’s comforting to know that the story doesn’t end there. Ministry can and will still take place, even if it looks different.

“When thinking of those people, who 70 years ago started a ministry, we want to ensure those gifts continue to be used for the purpose for which they were originally intended,” said Gibson. “We think of the individuals who sacrificed so much for a building program, so we don’t want just to have it disappear without a purpose. That would be heartbreaking.”

The real estate partnership between LCEF and the CNH and PSD districts ensures that ministry never disintegrates, even in the midst of challenges like church closures.

“LCEF believes forming symbiotic strategic partnerships with other LCMS districts will create additional opportunities to transform our LCMS underutilized properties into financially sustainable ministries,” Campbell said.

“As we recognize the hard realities of this time of pruning and transition that we’re in, we have to examine all the tools before us so that the Gospel might be proclaimed and the Church can operate effectively,” said Lange. “God has chosen to use His people and gives us gifts to invest. We must always ask, ‘What are we doing with the gifts that God has made available?”