A time to be born and a time to die

To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under the heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. 

Right now I am supporting a great team of church-based charity trustees as they manage the closure of their charity. After years of good work, time and circumstance have brought them - correctly in my view - to the decision to close.  They have made good plans to support their staff through redundancy and into finding new work. The winding-up has been managed well. Though not without sadness, closure is timely and marks the end of a good and productive episode in the lives of many people, leaving memories that can be cherished.

I find it interesting how often we judge the worth of faith projects by their permanence. Over the past 25 years as a consultant and also as a minister, I have had to advise the closure of a number of church-based charities and projects. The conditions they face now are some way distant from those facing their pioneers. Sometimes the evidence in favour of closure or merger or substantial change has been clear for some time but decisions get deferred. For some people of faith, when the decision to close is made, they even wonder whether the lack of permanence casts doubt on the validity of the original decision to start-up. 

I am indebted to a colleague for his suggestion that all church-based projects should have a so-called ‘sunset clause’ firmly embedded in their make up from the outset. In public policy, a sunset clause is a measure that provides that the law shall cease to have effect after a specific date, unless further definite action is taken to extend its life. Instead of an assumption that a project will continue indefinitely or simply be a line in the budget that is uprated for inflation year after year, it will be deemed to close unless there is a debate and a formal decision to renew it.

Some might say that this shows a lack of faith or commitment. I disagree. I think building in sunset clauses would require faith communities to be even more diligent about the currency of their projects.