First: Take it for granted. Since it has survived fifty, one hundred, two hundred years, assume that it will continue another fifty, one hundred, two hundred years. After all, who would seek to do it harm? Who would want to kill it?
Second: Localize it. Identify it with a certain corner in a certain part of the community. Rope it off, wall it in, insulate it against the outside world. Let it serve its own constituency in its own way, without any suggestions from others. After all, is it not an independent church? What right has anyone to tell it what it ought to do?
Third: Limit its message to parts of the gospel which the people want to hear. Let it go all out for brotherly love and pearly gates, but either soft-pedal or ignore such weighty matters as justice, mercy, and peace. Let it stay out of social concerns—such controversial matters as race relations, economic justice, and international good will. Leave these to the secular world to decide. Let the church stick to the simple gospel.
Fourth: Silence the prophetic voice in its midst. If anyone in the church or out of it begins to talk like Isaiah or Jeremiah or Amos or John the Baptist or John Bunyan or Roger Williams or Walter Rauschenbusch, have nothing to do with him. Get him out of the church as soon as possible, or warn other people against him. You might even write your denominational officials about what he is saying, and perhaps give a gentle warning that you will cut off your financial support if his voice is not silenced.
Fifth: Make its membership selective. Keep out all undesirables—people who do not think as you do, do not dress as you do, do not have the same color of skin that you have. Keep the membership homogeneous, congenial. Let the church become an exclusive club, composed of the right kind of people, your kind of people, people who live on the right side of the tracks.
Sixth: Cut off its source of supply. Neglect its young people. Teach them nothing about the church, or the denomination to which it belongs, or the church's world mission. After all, should they not be allowed to think for themselves, to form their own ideas, to make their own decisions? Why give them adult help? Why have a special organization for them? Why train them?
Seventh: De-emphasize its evangelistic outreach. Emphasize, instead, theological "dialogue" and confect ecclesiastical haberdashery. Let the church grow by natural means—as children of present church members come of age and as new families move into the community.
Eighth: Stifle its missionary message and spirit. Does not the church have more to do here at home than it can possibly do? Is not its primary responsibility to its own community? Then why bother about people who live half-way around the world, or even with people in other areas of the United States? After all, a church cannot do everything.
Be silent now. Tread softly. The church that is dead may be your own.
