The eeriness of abandoned buildings has been the subject of books such as States of Decay and Beauty in Decay. Some of these buildings include churches that have closed. The new documentary When God Left The Building explores church closings and sagging church attendance. (Photo courtesy CBC)

Is the neighborhood church becoming obsolete? The new documentary ‘When God Left the Building’ investigates what many churchgoers across America are asking: Why aren’t more people coming?

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The documentary When God Left The Building is not just an essential movie to watch about the current state of American faith; it’s also an important sociological look at contemporary America.

One of the country’s most important institutions is in trouble: the Christian church. The statistics are alarming.

In America about 4,000 churches close each year. There are half the number of churches there were 100 years ago. Eighty percent of Protestant churches are either declining in attendance or staying about the same.

Young people are less interested than previous generations in going to church. And they don’t have a favorable opinion of the church. Polls show that twentysomethings associate church with gay bashing, hypocrisy, and being too immersed in politics.

Filmmaker Thom Schultz co-wrote the book Why Nobody Wants to Go to Church Anymore with his wife Joani. The book offers some suggestions to combat the decline of attendance in American churches which is portrayed in Schultz’s documentary When God Left the Building. (Photo courtesy Thom Schultz)

Thom Schultz‘s documentary When God Left the Building — now showing in select cities with more to follow — captures American religious life at a crossroads. Will the church change, adapt and find ways to attract more members? Or will churches become obsolete in a culture increasingly disenfranchised from the institutions of church, government and corporations?

Facing a crisis of faith

Sizable sections of the film focus on a small and stagnant church in upstate New York which serves as a mini-example of this crisis.

Some of the congregation is battling with the current pastor — whose sermons run long  and whose whole style is too informal for some of the members. Apathy reigns, attendance is declining, and the church members appear lost and at war with each other. A former pastor of the church confesses “I don’t know what God is” — sounding more agnostic than Christian.

Perhaps there’s too much time centered on this one church, but overall it’s a fascinating glimpse inside a church’s troubles. It’s a microcosm of questions many mainline Protestant congregations are asking. Can older members change with the times? How can you attract new people to the church? Why aren’t young people going to church?

From brand power to bankruptcy

A sober warning about what could happen to churches comes when Schultz takes a side trip to the former Kodak headquarters in Rochester, New York. For years, Kodak was one of the most popular brands in the world. But unprepared and overwhelmed by digital photography, the film giant was ultimately forced into bankruptcy. Schultz effectively uses the Kodak story as a warning to churches.

The lesson? Kodak didn’t adapt to changing times. And it’s even more compelling when it’s revealed that a digital camera was created in 1975 at Kodak — but the company didn’t seriously pursue or develop the technology.

Pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church has one of the largest congregations in the country. But he too is concerned about the future of the church in America. (Photo courtesy Saddleback Church)

The documentary also shows the so-called megachurches who don’t get a favorable depiction — although Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren is articulate about the future (there will either be a Third Great Awakening or the church will falter, he says). Overall, megachurches are growing while smaller churches generally aren’t. But megachurches are portrayed as being too big and too commercial to be satisfying. One former church member describes himself as “detoxing” from a sterile and commercialized megachurch.

Although the movie doesn’t point it out, it’s clear that part of the rise in megachurches reflects the big box store mentality that has dominated consumer culture since the 1990s — and escalated with retail giants on the Internet such as Amazon. Consumers are drawn to places that have economies of scale — where more items are available than small stores can offer. Large churches offer an array of programs, groups, and activities that other smaller churches can’t.

New methods for a new era

The anecdote that Schultz offers to this dichotomy of declining small churches and sprawling and slick megachurches is community spiritual outreach. That means going out to connect rather than waiting for people to walk into a church.

In this behind the scenes photo, a woman remembers what her Sunday school class was like before the Kansas City church shut its doors. When God Left The Building looks at some of the many churches that close each year in America. (Contributed photo)

One of the most compelling sections of the movie is a Reading, Pennsylvania police officer who believes many churches are driving people away rather than bringing them in. He has given up on asking unchurched people to come to worship with him — they just won’t.

So he has an idea. Some of his church members decide to go out to a local pub to hold discussion groups where anyone can come. In a less formal setting, spiritual seekers may come.

The movie shows how his church congregation in Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania agrees to a plan to hold regular Monday night spiritual discussions at a pub. Although there’s hesitation from some church members, it turns out to be a success. The film also highlights outreach programs in other parts of the country.

Opening up a painful conversation

There’s only so much time in a movie. But When God Left The Building focuses on Protestant churches. There’s nothing on Catholic churches or non-Christian religions. And Schultz steers away from connecting theology to church attendance. Generally, the more liberal mainline Protestant denominations are on the decline, and orthodox or conservative churches are growing. (Ironic since many of the young and unchurched lean toward being more liberal, but many of them apparently aren’t interested in the increasingly liberal mainline denominations.) He also doesn’t devote time to the “spiritual but not religious” phenomenon — a group that is largely responsible for the growing group of “nones” nationwide — those who say they aren’t affiliated with religious institutions.

When God Left The Building compares the possible fate of churches to the demise of the Kodak company. The megabrand failed to keep up with the digital revolution and went bankrupt.

But this movie can be a vital conversation starter for churches. It should be required viewing in Christian churches. Because it will bring things out in the open. Church attendance declining is murmured about all the time, but it’s not usually formally discussed in churches.

Too often church leaders blame the encroaching secular culture or apathy among church members. But church leaders and congregations also need some self-examination. Many of them just can’t continue to stubbornly operate the same way they have for generations.

The movie is also a reminder of how much American culture has changed.

A country’s culture has changed

Some people pinpoint the shift to the Reagan-led 1980s — with the beginning of the dismantling of New Deal era programs, a last blast of Cold War intervention, and a series of televangelist scandals. That was significant. But in retrospect it was the 1990’s Clinton era that may have created a new culture not conducive to churchgoing. It’s when the more casual Baby Boomer culture took power. The combination of globalization and technological expansion displaced some people and in many ways diminished a sense of community.  It may not be a coincidence that in the 1990s, church attendance started to plummet (although it had been falling since the 1970s).

But above all, When God Left The Building shows us that a church in the end isn’t a building — as beautiful and inspiring as some church buildings are. Maybe there’s been too much worship of buildings. With so much money spent on maintenance of aging cavernous buildings and church endowments being drained to meet expenses, would the money be better spent another way? When God Left the Building suggests we rethink our allegiance to a building at the expense of outreach. I can’t help feeling this is in the spirit of the Gospels and the Book of Acts.

Here’s the trailer for ‘When God Left The Building’: