The Best of 2020

THE

CHURCH

Revitalizer A Revitalization Retreat in Every Issue

Jan/Feb 2021 Vol 8, Issue 1

“The only magazine dedicated to Church Revitalization.�

ChurchRevitalizer.Guru

From The Editor Welcome to the Church Revitalizer Magazine: The revitalization of the local church has never been more important than it is right now. We are beginning to see signs similar to that of the church planting movement of the late 90’s and early 2000’s where there was the watering down of the cause by those who wanted to attach their preconceived wagon in an attempt to parley such attachments into chance. The result was the growth of thousands of newly created church planting organizations watering down what was required to start a healthy church plant. As we begin 2021 I am not seeking to be an alarmist but it has crossed my mind that the same thing that happened in church planting might be about to transpire in the field of church revitalization and renewal. Never has there been a greater need to keep the cause of church revitalization and renewal focused on saving declining and dying churches.

Church Revitalizer hear me, when we get humble enough, and low enough, and desperate enough, and hungry enough, and concerned enough, and passionate enough, and broken enough, and clean enough, and prayerful enough, then the Lord our God will send us a revival that equals, if not surpasses, the great awakening. There will be a sweeping movement of revitalized churches all across this land. I pray as we begin 2021 for an awakening within all of our souls so that heaven will give us an outpouring, earth-shaking revival in our revitalized churches with a renewed hell defying authority that shouts to the world in which we minister, “God is doing it again!” Give us oh Lord, a flaming challenge to revitalize our churches and begin to save our land.

Send the fire I pray!

Within this edition we want to look at the best Church Revitalization articles of 2020 in review.

Stay connected, more is coming!

Dr. Tom Cheyney is the Founder and Directional Leader of Renovate National Church Revitalization Conference and Executive Editor of the Church Revitalizer.

Contents

Signs the Small Church Pastor Has Given Up Tom Cheyney

p. 10

Centrifugal Buzz: Leading Change in a Change-Phobic Congregation

Before You Start: Does the Church Have What it Takes?

Ken Priddy

p. 14

Bill Tenny-Brittian

p. 16

Cultural-itis: The Main Killer of Small Churches and 5 Steps that Cure It Bob Whitesel

Creating a Roadmap for Change in Your Church Lee Kricher

p. 28

p. 22

Also in this issue:

What Does a Revitalizer Do If the Church Doesn’t Want to Change?

Terry Rials

p. 30

7 Steps to Personal Revitalization p. 52 Steve Sells

The Power of Example p. 64 David Jackson

There’s a Breakthrough in Your Future p. 54 Bud Brown

4 Keys to Replanting Rural Churches p. 66 Matt Henslee & Kyle Bueermann

Facing Institutionalized Survival p. 58 Pete Tackett

Do the Two-Step on the Doorstep p. 70 Tracy Jaggers

7 Traits of a Revitalized Pivoting Church p. 60 Gary Moritz

The Foundation of Values in the Life of a Pastor p. 72 Gary Westra

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Jan/Feb | Vol 8, No 1

10 Steps for Revitalizers in Reluctant Churches George Thomasson

p. 34

How to Change the Culture of Your Church

Where Does Church Revitalization Begin?

Jim Grant

Ron Smith

p. 36

p. 40

Did You Remember to Become the Pastor of Your Leaders First?

Steve Smith

p. 42

Preparing for a Post-Pandemic Renewal

The Leadership Link: Being a Change Agent Even When You are Standing Alone

Mark Weible

Michael Atherton

p. 46

p. 48

The Pastor’s Furniture p. 76 Joel Breidenbaugh

How We Grew from 100 to 305 in One Week p. 88 Harry Fowler

Are Your Guiding Documents in Order? p. 78 Rodney Harrison

Supersize p. 90 Rob Hurtgen

What Structure Can and Cannot Do p. 82 Brian Thorstad

Are You Sent… or Are You Invited? p. 92 Rob Myers

At Death’s Door: Is the Church Ready to Grow p. 84 Desmond Barett

Discerning the Starting Point of Church Revitalization p. 94 Jim Harrell 5

THE

CHURCH

Revitalizer Volume 8, No. 1

The Church Revitalizer Is published bi-monthly by Renovate Publishing Group 1906 West Lee Road Orlando, FL 32810 Email: ChurchRevitalizer.guru

PUBLISHER Executive Editor Dr. Tom Cheyney Associate Publisher Mark Weible Associate Publisher Circulation & Marketing Ashleigh Cheyney

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To help churches that need to be reinvigorated and renewed effectively receive help in issues that revitalizers face everyday. Articles, resources, and information are gathered from authors all over the country who have been through, or may currently be in, the revitalization process and we want to share their knowledge.

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By Tom Cheyney Thinking about church revitalization and renewal in a smaller church, the first thing I would say is to echo my friend Karl Vaters when he says that small does not mean unhealthy, insular, poorly managed, or settling for less.

Generally speaking, small churches are some of the most resilient of our churches anywhere. Abraham Lincoln said it well when he declared, “God must really love the small church because He made so many of them.� Within this article I want to discuss the small church in decline and its pastor in relation to the signs that he has given up seeking revitalization and renewal. I serve this up as more of those you do not want to emulate in your effort to revitalize a local church. All of us have preachers and pastors we hold in esteem because they are examples to us of how to lead successfully. I have been around successful church revitalizers and unsuccessful pastors of revitalization. My work often places me squarely in front of a pastor who is unsuccessful and wants me to give him a magic pill to fix his inability to grow a church. One of the reasons we spent the significant monies necessary to design the Church Revitalizer Assessment is because we were tired of seeing church planters frustrated because their skill sets kept them from being a successful church revitalization pastor. Just like how it takes specific skills to plant a church, it likewise takes specific skills to revitalize a church. These are not the same set of

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skills and many a church in need of revitalization has chosen an individual with the wrong skill sets and core values to revitalize a church. What are the traits of a pastor in a declining small church that you do not want to imitate?

Here are some to consider: Distraction is a Lifestyle with These Pastors I have seen so many ministers who are always distracted.

How many pastors do you know that live on their phone texting someone when they ought to be listening to someone who can help them grow as a minister? I go to lunch often trying to help these pastors and hardly ever do we get through a coaching luncheon without three or four texts or calls keeping the pastor from being focused on the task at hand. It is not easy staying on task and remaining focused every hour of the day, but if you are distracted more than you are focused you have opted out as the leader of revitalization and renewal.

They are Aspirational Talkers These pastors are always telling you what they are going to do but never get to doing it. They only know how to talk the talk but not walk the walk of revitalizing a local church.

I tell church revitalizing pastors that there is one thing bet-

ter than talking the talk about something and that is just getting at it and doing it. I see so many pastors in need of renewal who talk about their goals but they never get to it. Here is a sad realization. So many churches in need of renewal will applaud that pastor for the speech about his vision yet they will not hold him accountable in carrying out that vision and goal. Talk is often counterproductive in a small declining church but doing will lead to success. When you tell somebody or everybody your goals and they acknowledge it, there is something in us that says very good. We almost think it has already been accomplished. Then because the church membership experienced a tiny degree of satisfaction, the pastor becomes less motivated to do the real hard work necessary to achieve the goal. Pastors with good intentions make promises. But pastors with good character keep them. Stop being an aspirational talker and start being an achievement doer. Get it done.

They Detest Everything and Everyone That is Bringing About Renewal Pastors in small declining churches often speak poorly about pastors of other small churches which are becoming successful in revitalizing their churches. There is something within them that hates to see another pastor achieve. These pastors have a difficult time being happy for another pastor’s success. Pastors of small congregation in decline ought to give that other pastor some love and watch as that other pastor pours blessing after blessing on the one needing revitalization. If you as the pastor continually dislike everything in your church you have developed a life that is despondent and unable to lead others to join in the effort of saving your church.

“Just like how it takes specific skills to plant a church, it likewise takes specific skills to revitalize a church.”

They Gather with Losers Instead of Winners It speaks volumes in who you as a minister hang with. If you spend most of your time with losers it is a pretty fair assessment that you are one and that you do not feel comfortable around pastors with a winning mentality. If you hang all the time with losers, and do it consistently enough, you will become just like them even if you are not one of them. Usually though, it is a case of successful pastors outgrowing former friends. What caused you to connect initially as friends no longer applies, or your lives are going in completely different directions. I felt this way about several people I used to spend time with: they were going nowhere fast, had no goals, no ambition, and their only focus was their next self-destructive adventure. They will hold you back from your fullest potential. Often they make you feel guilty because you are advancing towards growth and renewal. Individually and corporately in the church.

Small church pastors must find a group of winners, achievers, and succeeders to be around. If you want to be a good fisherman hang out with those who are. If you want to be a soul winner hang out with those who are and watch it rub off on you. Pastors feed off of one another’s energy or non-energy.

They Postpone, Delay, and Procrastinate the Week Away Deferral seems to be their primary tool in leading a declining church.

They have made procrastination an art form. They would rather put things off instead of doing it now.

They always are playing catch up and appear to always be unprepared. Pastors who practice time inconsistency value the immediate reward of being in the moment but fail in the practice of preparing for future success and rewards. These leaders find it hard to prepare for tomorrow and lead a church into future successes. These ministers believe that if they delay, things will be better when in reality they will not. Postponing and delay is designed for making something better not for an excuse that you are not good at following a schedule and disciplined enough to get the job done.

What is the idea of delaying something if you get the same outcome? Do it now, or do it better later.

They are Lovers of their Own Voice These pastors are unable to listen to anyone for very long.

They would rather hear their own voice than listen to another. Many pastors struggling to renew a small church have a difficult time listening to views and opinions of others. Unsuccessful pastors only love themselves. To be honest, we all love ourselves, but if you’re unsuccessful, you only love yourself. Pastors who are successful in small churches listen to others because they care about others.

Asking how a member is doing is an example of an active listening pastor.

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Their Laziness Has Breed Disconnectedness I know that it is hard to connect with everyone, but if you are connecting with no one it is a good sign that you are lazy. Ouch. I am sorry that is stated so bluntly, but maybe it will be a wakeup call. When a pastor is not able to show much accomplishment in a week it is a sign of their weakness of laziness. Pastors who avoid challenging tasks in the realm of revitalization often are simply not willing to invest the spiritual, mental, and emotional energy to reach a breakthrough. They are great at fake work but terrible at the things which will breed success for the renewing church. Business is not the same as achievement. When you’re lazy, you don’t even give yourself a chance to experience new things. It’s also not fair to the people in your life. Revitalization of a church often lies in the newly discovered experiences God brings into our paths.

Being a Life Learner is Foreign to Them Pastors of small churches do not get an out in being a learner because they pastor a small church. Learning is hard for all of us, but it is a must if we are going to stay sharp. When was the last time you read a book? How long has it been since you wrote more than a few pages on a subject? How many of you have a degree held over your head uncompleted? Being a learner takes intentionality. To become a successful lifelong learner, you must be self-motivated. You must develop a hunger and interest in your chosen field of revitalization.

Learners find the adventure while the slothful find an excuse. We live in the most exciting time in history for learners. The access to information has never been this easy. In the past, if your dad was a farmer, you became a farmer. Things were like that. Now, you can be anything you wish — you just need to learn how to do it.

Being a Jerk is Not Attractive to Outsiders Pastors who know they need to revitalize their church but are not willing to make the sacrifices to see it come to fruition, often act meanly towards outsiders when confronted about renewal. It is as if they think it is cooler to act that way than to act sincerely. Being nice is a gift to others and should not be overlooked. New friends to the church will come as they feel welcomed and not criticized. If you cannot do this the chances are that you are likely a bit of a jerk.

They are Quitters and Deserters of the Flock Quitters never win and winners never quit. Pastors abandoning the small church needing renewal are deserters of the flock and perhaps even their ministry.

This is the hardest one and why I saved it for last. We

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show our greatest weaknesses when we give up as a pastor. We hurt those who need us the most when we desert the flock of followers still connected to the tiny church. Desertion as a leader is thievery to the congregation and the office of pastor. The most successful way to succeed is to try it one more time and then another until you have led your church through revitalization.

Keep going and never give up. Quitters abandon the flock and do irreparable damage.

Wrapping it up!

As we have discussed the small church in decline and its pastor as they relate to the signs that they have given up seeking the revitalization of their church, this list is a warning for church leaders and laity if they find that the pastor of their church emulates these practices more than those who are actively seeking renewal.

Run from anyone who practices these traits regularly as they lead the church.

Tom Cheyney is the Founder & Directional Leader of the RENOVATE National Church Revitalization Conference (RenovateConference.org). Some of Tom’s books include: The Church Revitalizer as Change Agent, Slaying the Dragons of Church Revitalization: Dealing with the Critical Issues that are Hurting Your Church; and Church Revitalization in Rural America: Restoring Churches in America’s Heartland. Tom lives in Orlando, Florida with his wife Cheryl and travels all over North America assisting declining churches by bringing revitalization and renewal to the congregations.

Centrifugal Buzz:

Leading Change in a Change-Phobic Congregation

By Ken Priddy Solomon gave us this truth, “Where there is no vision, the people perish,” (Proverbs 29:18a, KJV). Here’s a corresponding truth, “Where there are no people, a vision perishes.” Consider that any vision for a congregation is at risk until that congregation buys in and supports that vision in word, deed and resources. However, for buy in of a vision to be realized fully, pastors and leaders must help congregations navigate change and most congregations, especially those in long-term plateau or decline, tend to be change-phobic. What’s a pastor, what’s a leader, to do?

Change is a sensitive and highly complex undertaking, and successfully and effectively navigating change is much too demanding to say all there is to say in a short article, so I am going to zero in on two concepts that I have discovered to be significant when attempting to navigate this dangerous terrain. The first concept is this: Quantify the Resistance, and the second: Leverage Conversation, NOT Presentation.

Quantify the Resistance: Human nature leans in the direction of voicing complaints, dissatisfaction, opposition and all manner of negativity, while support, alignment and all manner of positivity remain lost in silence. Perhaps this is a subset of the Squeaky Wheel Syndrome. In this context, a vision might be well supported by many in a congregation, but that support hovers beneath the surface, while resistance, even small resistance, tends to be given voice such that the only voice that pastors and leaders are hearing is negative. So, let’s say that 15% of a typical congregation is not supportive but is resistant to a proposed vision. Often, that small percentage, in this case 15%, manufactures close to 100% of the comments, and those comments are negative, suggesting a false negative of strong resistance.

Add to this dynamic the tendency for pastors and leaders to generalize their perspectives in regard to this resistance. When this happens, which is often, I hear groans from pastors or leaders such as, “They’re all against me,” or, “No one seems to get it,” or, “We’ll never get the green light to move ahead.” This combination of negative voice and positive silence, wrapped in generalization, can lead to a defeated paralysis among pastors and leaders who sense that the Goliath that stands before them is not going down with a simple slingshot. So, again, what’s a pastor, what’s a leader, to do?

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The answer lies in quantifying the resistance; distinguishing real resistance from perceived resistance. When doing so, more often than not, the juggernaut of resistance that seems to be there turns out to be an illusion. Here’s an example: Years ago, a pastor turned up at a ReStart training event that I was presenting. This was training in revitalization that spanned several days and this pastor had come in hopes of gaining insight into leading his small congregation out of decline and into missional productivity. His circumstances were challenging. The congregation was down to nineteen members, over the years the church property had been surrounded by light industrial businesses such that there were no residential areas nearby; money was very tight, barely able to support a pastor.

However, the church had surprisingly received a large bequest and this pastor saw this as the opportunity to make changes and move forward, so, he had come for training.

He left our training event with mixed feelings. On one hand, he was excited about new possibilities, but, on the other hand, he was very apprehensive about garnering buy in from his congregation. I extended an invitation for him to keep in touch with me and assured him that I would be willing to provide whatever help and support that I could from a distance.

Months went by with no word but then I got a call. It had been nine months since the training and he had made no progress. He was very discouraged and the problem, as he explained it, was that, “Everyone is against me. They won’t even hear me out.” I suggested that he quantify the resistance and that I would talk him through it. I asked how many of the nineteen members on the roll were actually engaged in the life of the church. He said, “Thirteen.”

I asked him to number 1 through 13 on a sheet of paper. I told him to write the name of the most supportive person in Slot 13, the second most supportive person in Slot 12, and so on. As I recall, we were down to Slot 8 or Slot 7 before we ran out of supportive people. I then asked him to list people who were more or less ambivalent or benign, and that took us down to Slot 2. So, at this point, he had identified eleven out of thirteen people who were either supportive or benign, offering no quantifiable resistance.

In Slot 2, he identified the first person with serious resistance, the lone Elder of the church, and Slot 1, the most resistant person, turned out to be that Elder’s wife. This boiled the real resistance down to one household, one married couple in the church. Quantifying the Resistance often turns the myth of overwhelming opposition into the reality of manageable resistance that leads to removing obstacles and moving forward with change.

Leverage Conversation, NOT Presentation: Vision casting has two platforms, public vision casting and private vision casting. By far, pastors and leaders tend to go with public vision casting that proves ineffective. We follow a logic that tells us that the most efficient way to get the word out is to do so publicly through platform presentations or information distribution through email, etc. While this might be efficient in terms of getting information to large groups of people easily, this is not effective in garnering buy in.

Consider the Town Hall Meeting, for example. A group of leaders has formulated a vision that will require change and schedules a town hall meeting, a congregational meeting, so that the vision can be cast with everyone present. Everyone will have the opportunity to hear the presentation and there will be ample time for anyone to make comments or ask questions. Not true! Most people will never speak in a large group, so comments don’t get made, questions don’t get asked. Others won’t NOT speak in a group, so they dominate the floor, often with negativity. A vote at the end renders a negative or a false positive and the vision is dead in the water.

Casting vision privately through conversation is far more effective and renders much better results. Leaders truly hear from people and have the opportunity to correct misunderstandings, answer questions and remove obstacles.

Buy in is established one person, one couple, one small group or ministry team at a time, and the vision with its rationale is more widely embraced. Consider this turn of phrase: Don’t use the large group meeting at the front end of vision casting to SELL the vision. Use the large group meeting at the back end to CELEBRATE the vision.

Quantify the Resistance and Leverage Conversation, NOT Presentation. That’s how vision through change makes real progress.

Ken Priddy (D.Min., Ph.D.) is Founder and Executive Director of the GO Center, a training and consulting ministry committed to church vitalization and revitalization. Ken also directs LEADERTOWN: A Laboratory for Organization & Leadership Development. His thirty-plus year journey in church planting and revitalization has grown into a national presence among evangelical leaders. He’s an effective trainer and consultant, but perhaps his most significant contribution is his extensive development of training curricula.

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Before You Start: Does the Church Have What It Takes?

By Bill Tenny-Brittian Truth is, most of these kinds of articles start with a couple of Rah Rahs! to help get your motivation up about revitalization. If you need a shot of Atta Boys first, then go read some other article and then, perhaps, when you’re adequately positive-minded, then come back and start this article.

Because I’m probably going to burst your bubble from the first.

Revitalization is likely the most needed ministry for the North American church. With around 85 percent of US churches in some state of decline, you’re not likely to run out of work if revitalization is your calling or your specialty. That means, of the 350,000 congregations, 297,500 are struggling. That’s not exactly great news, but that’s nowhere near the worst news.

According to several studies, of those declining churches that attempt a revitalization, less than 20 percent will be able to achieve a sustainable turnaround. That means, short a miracle, 238,000 churches will continue to decline until they close their doors permanently. For some, that’ll happen this year, but for others it’ll take many years as they blow through their endowments, cut staff and ministries, go to a part-time pastor, and finally struggle to stay open with their dozen faithful church members before they finally vote to sell their building to someone who’ll turn it into a thrift store, bed and breakfast, or a single family residence.

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That means, currently, there are about 59,500 congregations that have real possibilities of actual turnaround. And since there are very, very few revitalization pastors who have the training, the skills, and the backbone to successfully lead an effective turnaround, they need to be very careful about choosing which church they try to invest their lives into. Remember, only 1 in 5 churches are revitalizable; that a successful revitalization project is typically a five to twelve year process; and few people have the energy to be able to turn around more than one church in their life times.

That said, presuming you’re feeling called to turn a dying church into a thriving, faithful church, then before you start out you’d better evaluate if the church you’re considering even has a hope and a prayer of turning around. Remember – you may only get one shot at this in your whole ministry life. Choose well.

Evaluating a Church’s Potential for Revitalization It would be nice to believe that every church has the potential for a turnaround, and in an ideal world that would probably be true. But we don’t live in an ideal world and I’ve had to help pick up the pieces of hundreds of broken hearted church leaders who invested in churches they “hoped” would turn around, only to discover they’d invested years of their lives with the knowledge they’d only belayed the inevitable by a few years or months.

So, before you decide to waste your calling, energy, skills, and resources on a potential turnaround, take the time to honestly evaluate the congregation to decide if it’s even possible. I’ve included five key indicators of a church’s potential for successful and sustainable turnaround. These are in order of criticality, although if a church doesn’t have high marks in all five, the chance of a successful turnaround diminishes significantly.

1. Prevailing Culture Jim Collins rightly suggested that culture eats strategies for breakfast and lunch. I cannot tell you how many pastors I’ve worked with who have developed really great strategies to turn their churches around, only to have the culture take those plans, shove them down their throats, and gleefully choke the life out of them.

Discovering a congregation’s prevailing culture isn’t exactly easy, and yet if you’re going to successfully lead a revitalization then you’ll need to know just how malleable the culture is. Of course, the truth is that if the church had an evangelistic, church-growth culture, they wouldn’t need you. You’re not looking for a near-perfect culture, but one that you can transform.

ence, is a part of that – but don’t forget that marketing is not the same as evangelism. And that’s where the importance of the church calendar comes in.

The calendar should be peppered with events designed to reach the unreached. For instance, if the only weekly worship service is designed for people who were raised in the church, then you’ve got your first hint where the congregation’s values lie … in the membership. Sure, “everyone is welcome,” but that doesn’t mean everyone (or anyone) will feel welcome when they discover the most contemporary musical instrument is a pipe organ and that the service is littered with words that make no sense to them (introit, invocation, doxology, communion, benediction, narthex, chancel, etc.). In addition, look for calendared events that an unchurched person might feel comfortable at. Is the congregation already doing “outreach” events that put members in the presence of potential participants, or is everything about fundraising and/or fellowship?

“It’s easy to tell the world that obedience to Jesus is the church’s key practice, but if their budget and calendar doesn’t demonstrate those words then, bluntly, the words simply aren’t true.”

Start by looking at the church’s core values. A church’s core values are seen in two places: (1) Where the church invests its money; and (2) How the church invests its time.

Where they’re not found is in the words of church leaders and especially not in the promises of a church’s search committee. They’re also not found in the church’s publications or website, though you may find hints of the values in the church’s social media interactions. It’s easy to tell the world that obedience to Jesus is the church’s key practice, but if their budget and calendar doesn’t demonstrate those words then, bluntly, the words simply aren’t true.

When you look at the budget and calendar, look for ways in which the congregation is investing in reaching the lost for Jesus Christ. Of course, the church is likely spending most of its funding on staffing and maintaining their building, but a goodly portion of the budget should be designated and spent on evangelistic and disciple-multiplication practices.

Marketing, including maintaining an active online pres-

The second place to look at the prevailing culture is how long the church has been in decline. The longer a church has been in a general decline, the more “normal” the culture of decline feels. Vital churches that are reaching people have a culture of expectation and hope.

Congregation’s that have been in long-time decline tend to have a culture of defeat, exhaustion, and futility. “We tried that” is a common refrain. Further, there are few stories of recent life transformations, conversion baptisms, or new heroes of the faith.

Again, remember that if the prospective church had a great culture, revitalization probably wouldn’t be needed. However, if a church’s core value is “It’s all about us” and if it’s more concerned with survival than revival, then it’s an unlikely candidate for turnaround.

2. The Decision Making Process The second key to evaluating a church’s potential can be found by looking at the church’s bylaws and speaking with the board chair (or with the ministry staff ).

In a turnaround church, decisions that are contrary to the prevailing culture and seem incongruous with the church’s

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tradition will have to be made. For instance, it may be necessary to change the Sunday schedule in order to add a worship service designed for younger adults. Sure, it would be easy to add that service at 7:30 a.m. … almost no one would object. On the other hand, when you tell them that the church’s beloved 11 a.m. Traditional Worship Service is being moved to 9 o’clock in order to reach Michael and Jessica Millennials, the church’s leadership will likely move heaven and earth to stop you. And that’s when the decision making process is important.

There are a couple things to remember. First, Robert’s Rules of Order aren’t scripture nor scripture based. There is no democracy in the Bible and the only two “votes” in the New Testament go very badly: One put Jesus on the cross when the mob outvoted Pilate, and the other vote sank the ship (Acts 28).1 In fact, there is not one time in all of scripture where the majority ever gets it right. Not once. If the church demands majority rules, it’s not a legitimate prospect for turnaround – because if the majority was right, again, they wouldn’t need you.

Fact is, you’re probably stuck with some sort of a majority rules situation. However, the question is what it is the majority rules. In a near-perfect system, the congregational vote only approves the lead pastor, annual nominations, and the budget. And the board only deals with budget and setting policy. The day-to-day decisions are made by staff or by ministry teams who are charged with staying within budget and the church’s doctrines, but otherwise pretty much has free reign on decision making.

The above congregation is structured along the lines of John Carver’s Policy Governance model and is more common in larger churches than in smaller churches. For a successful turnaround, this is probably the best practice available. However, it’s not been widely adopted in declining churches because it gives significant decision making control to staff and to small teams – something that’s abhorrent to many long-time members who believe they are entitled to approve any and all decisions.

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3. Change Ability “We’ve never done it that way before” has been the death sentence of many thousands of potential great ministries.

The second is like unto the first: “We can’t afford that.” On these two excuses hang almost all of the failures of the church.

Seriously, the primary reason for the US church’s decline is the unwillingness of the churches to endure, let alone embrace, the changes necessary to reach those far from God. Before you take on a revitalization project, you’ll want to take some time to evaluate the church’s response to change … because without significant changes, the church will not – cannot – be turned around.

There are a number of ways to determine how well a church might endure change, but the best way is to rely on Dr. Charles Ridley’s axiom: The best indicator of future performance is past behavior.2 In other words, if you listen to the stories of how the church faced change in the past, you’ll get a pretty good idea of their change ability for the future. However, the truth is, although almost everyone likes the idea of change, no one likes the reality of change, especially when that change makes an impact on them. So, don’t be alarmed when you hear stories about resistance to change – it would be unlikely that you’d hear otherwise. What you’re listening for is the church’s response to change.

• Did they simply vote against it? Or was the change undermined in some way?

• Was there a significant church conflict that resulted in membership losses? Or is that conflict still raging?

• Did they allow the change, only to subvert it later? Or did they fire the leader who brought the change?

• And how significant was the change?

When evaluating a church’s decision making process, look to see how decisions are made. Policy governance is clearly the best option. However, a church with a small board has potential as well. If you only have to convince five to seven people to do what’s best for the future of the church, you probably have a good chance. A church with a large board that expects to be consulted on day-to-day operations, or a congregation that is a majority rules democracy, has almost no chance of a turnaround. You’d be best looking elsewhere.

There are many other possible scenarios and questions you may want answered, but by understanding how tolerant the church is to change you’ll have an idea about the risks your taking in bringing real and lasting change to the congregation.

1 No, Matthias was chosen by lot, that is, by literally throwing dice.

2 Charles Ridley made this statement many years before Dr. Phil made a similar observation.

4. Risk Tolerance Similar to Change Ability, the church’s toleration for risk is a key factor in whether or not you should invest your life into the congregation. To turn a church around, the leaders will

have to engage in, or at least approve of, some “risky” behavior. They may have to approve a deficit budget in order to make tech or staff upgrades. They may have to step out of their comfort zones in order to connect with people very much unlike them. They may have to start a second worship service, even though they don’t believe they have the resources to support it. And it’s guaranteed they’ll have to do things they’ve never done before. Some of the risks will pay off, but many more will crash and burn as the leaders try different ideas to reach those in the community for Jesus.

Again, Ridley’s axiom comes into play here as well. How the church has engaged, or refused to engage, in risky ideas will give you an idea about their tolerance. However, another way is to weave potential ideas into a conversation then watch the faces and listen to the responses.

Recently, a pastor I was coaching floated a tenable idea to his board. The leaders listened, but then refused to allow the pastor to implement the idea. “That might work sometime, but let’s wait until later to try that.” The problem is, the church doesn’t have a lot of time left … change will have to come very soon if the congregation is to survive, let alone thrive. Time is almost always working against you when it comes to a turnaround because few churches have the available resources to survive the time it takes for the culture to be renewed (see #1).

5. Available Resources Bill Easum, one of the fathers of the church turnaround movement, opined that it can take over twelve years to change a church’s culture from decline to growth. However, depending on the responses to the previous four issues, the basics of a turnaround can become effective in three to five years. The culture won’t be “set” for some time to come after that, but it’s very possible that a church with a history and culture of decline could see significant growth sometime between years three to five.

The problem is, if the church is struggling with waning resources, especially funding, a five year window may have more months than the church has money. Too often, midway through a church’s turnaround process, the church will become obsessed with dwindling resources and will begin slashing budgets in order to stave off what seems to be the inevitable. The sad reality is, though, is that those cuts more often than not seal the inevitable.

It takes significant resources to wholly effect a turnaround in most churches. Typically, new tech is going to be required. Additional staffing is in the cards. Building remodeling is typically needed. An online presence needs to be established and promoted. Marketing will be required. Sal-

aries need to be maintained. And the list goes on. All of that takes significant financial resources.

But funding isn’t the only required resource. A turnaround needs willing hands, hearts, and bodies who are able to do the necessary work. If the congregation is too set in its ways, too comfortable with who they are, or if they’re too tired and worn out, a turnaround will be doomed from day one. Not only will you need a strong core of supporters, a turnaround requires a congregation with a near-unlimited supply of energy and enthusiasm. They will not only have to “see” the vision, they’ll have to buy into it with their whole hearts and be willing to invest their time, talent, treasure, and testimony over several years.

The hardest part about a turnaround is the time it takes – and three years sounds like nothing at all, until you have to live through 1095 days without seeing much progress – and in fact, seeing more people leave than come. It takes a hearty core of the committed to not just endure the wait and the work, but to maintain their energy and enthusiasm.

And yet, without this, the turnaround will be virtually impossible.

Conclusion If you’re committed to being a Revitalizer, then you must recognize that the cards are stacked against you. The vast majority of churches will not be willing or able to do the work, make the investment, and tolerate the risk and changes necessary to experience turnaround. In fact, as mentioned earlier, 80 percent of all churches that attempt a revitalization will fail because they’re unable to meet one of these five criteria. If you’re called to be a Revitalizer, at least have the good sense to be honest enough to know you’re not the savior. You can’t create ex nihilo, that is, something from nothing. If a church doesn’t have what it takes to fully engage in a turnaround, leave it for a loving hospice pastor who can gently lead the church to a dignified end. YOU tap the dust off your feet and invest your life in a congregation that has the potential to bring life to hundred, perhaps thousands, in need of Christ.

Bill Tenny-Brittian is the managing partner of The Effective Church Group.

For over thirty years, The Effective Church Group has been equipping churches and church leaders so they can be successful in reaching their mission. He is the co-author of The Role of the Senior Pastor and also teaches Pastoral Leadership for Phillips Seminary with an emphasis on leadership.

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Cultural-itis: The Main Killer of Small Churches and 5 Steps That Cure It

By Bob Whitesel For 30 years I’ve coached church revitalization. And I’ve seen revitalization efforts succeed in churches as small as 30 people. But the key to their revitalization is that they overcame “Cultural-itis.”

What is Cultural-itis?

When church growth studies began with Donald McGavran, one of my mentors, C. Peter Wagner, created medically-sounding terms to describe church illnesses (because after all, the Church is the body of Christ, e.g. Romans 12:5,1 Corinthians 12:12–27, Ephesians 3:6, 4:15-16 and 5:23, Colossians 1:18 and 1:24). Wagner created the term “Ethnicitis” to describe “a static church in a changing neighborhood.”

Pete observed that most churches reached one culture in the community and as that culture left the community, people also left the church. And, because many churches were tied to a physical building, they couldn’t move with their congregants and therefore died. While earning two doctorates at Fuller Theological Seminary in the 1980s and the 2000s, I found Ethnicitis to still be a primary killer of churches in America, especially smaller churches.

Today the word ethnic (from which Pete derived Ethnicitis) has connotations of a social group that has heredity and geographic traditions. But there are many more cultures than those who rally around heredity and geography.

So to be more exact, it is better to talk about “Cultural-itis.”

A culture, according to Charles Kraft, is any group that embraces and celebrates “shared patterns of behavior, ideas

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and products.” Behaviors are the way we act, ideas are the way we think, and products are the things we create such as fashion, literature, music, etc. Not surprisingly, today there are a myriad of cultural groupings. Some are very small and some can be very large. And large ones will have smaller ones within them.

The following is a sampling of cultural designations used by the Census Bureau and researchers (the list is not exhaustive).

Ethnic cultures: • Latin American • Hispanic American • African American • Asian American • Native American, etc.

Socio-economic cultures: • Upper Socio-economic Level • Upper Middle Socio-economic Level • Lower Middle Socio-economic Level • Lower Working Socio-economic Level • Lower Socio-economic Level Generational cultures: • Builder[xiii] Generation, b. 1945 and before • Boomer Generation, b. 1946-1964 • Leading-edge Generation X, b. 1965-1974 • Post-modern Generation X, b. 1975-1983 • Generation Y, b. 1984-2002 • Generation Z, b. 2003-2021

Why does Cultural-itis kill revitalization faster in small churches?

Revitalization fails in most small churches when they don’t recognize they are made up of one primary cultural group and that they must do something about it. Trying to grow with only that one cultural group leads to, in Wagner’s terms, “a static church in a changing neighborhood.”

Here are three examples from my consulting practice: • A historic African-American church in the central part of the city started seeing its residents move to another part of town.

• An aging church of European Americans in an urban area declined as people of their ancestry moved to the suburbs and beyond.

• A small farming community had many close-knit Scandinavians who supported their local Lutheran Church. But as farms were sold, consolidated and run by non-family members, young Scandinavians moved to the city or larger towns.

Step 1. Identify the growing culture in your community.

Find this by talking to civil authorities and looking up demographic information for your area on city, state and national websites.

Step 2. Ask yourself, “Which culture is most similar to our existing culture?”

According Charles Arn, chances of success increase if you don’t try to leap across too many cultural chasms at the same time. For example, if you are a “middle-aged” African-American congregation, ask yourself if is there is a growing influx of “middle-age” Asian Americans to whom you can reach out? If the “younger” members of rural families are moving away to cities, can you reach out to the “young” Hispanic laborers who are replacing them?

“Revitalization fails in most small churches when they don’t recognize they are made up of one primary cultural group and that they must do something about it.”

What is the silver lining?

The good news is that a new culture often moves in to replace the leaving culture!

If possible, begin by reaching out across just one or two cultural chasms. You are more likely to succeed if you reach out to the growing cultures in your community that are similar to yours. At other times there will be large cultural gaps. You can still bridge those too, but it will take more time.

If the church does not become aware that it is suffering from Cultural-its, then it will decline slowly but significantly until it is a small church. In fact, the average church in America is around 75 people, often because of these cultural changes, according to the American Congregations Survey by Hartford Seminary.

For example, a middle-aged historically Anglo congregation was dying because its members where moving from the area. But growing in the community was a young African American rap music culture. The church leaders asked if they should reach out to the rap culture. However, I found that also nearby was a middle-aged African American congregation. The Anglo church reached out to the middle-aged African American congregation and sold (cheaply) their building to them. In the Anglo church’s location the African American church launched a new campus which successfully reached out to the young rap culture. The Anglo church was too small to successfully reach across two cultural chasms at the same time (ethnic and age).

But many of the churches I have coached to revitalization are even smaller than that, often numbering 30 to 50 people. The cure is for the small church to begin to address its Cultural-itis and reach out to a new culture. Here are the five steps to do it.

Step 3. Identify persons of peace in the emerging culture.

When Jesus sent out his disciples to spread the Good News, he told them to look for a person of peace (Luke 10:6). The word “peace” in Greek literally means “to join,” and indicates

• The African-American central church observed a growing culture of Asian Americans moving into the community.

• The aging church of European ancestry was eventually replaced by a vibrant and growing African American church.

• In the Scandinavian farmland, Hispanic farm laborers were moving into the rural community.

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a person who brings together two warring factions. Jesus was sending his disciples to reach people that were divided over theology (Pharisees and Sadducees), and politics (Romans and Hebrews).

When reaching a new culture, look for a person of peace. They have the skill and history of bringing people together. Reach out to them first, meet with them and discuss the needs of the other culture.

Here is another example. One of my client churches in Illinois was a small church in a small town that was declining in population. However, when we looked at the town demographics we found an influx of Sri Lankans, working at the local meatpacking plant. The pastor went out and introduced herself to one of the leaders of the Sri Lankan community whom she perceived as a person of peace. They connected, she found out they were Christians too, and they began to share their sanctuary. As the Anglo congregation continued to move away, the Sri Lankans gradually took leadership of the church.

Step 4. Hand over real authority to an emerging culture.

Often the authority we hand over is symbolic and not real, probably because we all feel we can do things better ourselves. Church leaders may rightly feel this way because they’ve had a long history running the church.

But the future is going to be different than the past.

And in the future, the growing culture will lead, worship and disciple differently than you’ve experienced.

To successfully revitalize a small church, you must genuinely hand over control. The more control you hand over, the quicker the church revitalization. For a rule of thumb, look at the demographics in the community and mirror the community’s cultural percentages on your boards/committees. This may require bypassing or suspending church rules that prevent people who already attend or who are popular in the church from being elected. But proactively elect people from the growing cultures to the board. Over an 18-month period you should replace 50% of your leadership boards with people from the growing culture. This sounds aggressive to clients, but it works almost every time. This creates an influx of new ideas and decisions that will be relevant and attractive to the growing demographic. The next goal is for over the following 18 months to turn over 75% of the leadership roles to the emerging demographic. Without handing over leadership to an emerging culture you won’t have policies and practices in place them that will be relevant to them. This is the most critical step.

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Step 5. Share your facility, without asking for anything in return.

Usually emerging cultures are economically strapped.

But established churches often have assets they should share. The most valuable asset is probably the facility.

And so, share your facility without asking anything in return. Paul reminded Timothy (1 Tim. 6:17-19, MSG) to “Tell those rich in this world’s wealth … to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. If they do that, they’ll build a treasury that will last, gaining life that is truly life.”

When you ask emerging cultures to pay something for use of your building, you also establish a landlord/ tenant relationship and not a brother/sister one. So let them use your church for worship services, activities, children’s ministries, discipleship and any other use for which you have at one time used it. By sharing and doing ministry in the same house of God together, you have a greater chance of reconciling differences.

These 5 steps are built upon important cultural understandings of how churches grow.

Most people are surprised to learn the Church Growth Movement and church revitalization grew out of the School of World Missions (now the School of Intercultural Studies) at Fuller Theological Seminary. It is because people who studied cultures and how to reach different cultures became the experts in turning around churches. Church growth and revitalization almost always begin by recognizing cultural differences and using a 5-step strategy to overcome Cultural-itis and revitalize the smaller church.

Bob Whitesel is an award-winning author/ consultant on church health and growth. He has been called “the key spokesperson on change theory in the church today” by a national magazine, co-founded an accredited seminary (Wesley Seminary at IWU) and created one of the nation’s most respected church health and growth consulting firms: ChurchHealth.net

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Creating a Roadmap for Change in Your Church

By Lee Kricher In 2003, the church to which I was called to pastor was an aging, dying church. After years of declining attendance, we were on the verge of closing our doors. The average age of our church attendees was over 50 years old - more than 15 years older than the average age of our community. I knew that prayer would provide the foundation of hope for our future as a church. I also knew that we had to change some things.

We did not have to change our core beliefs and values.

They were not the problem. The problem was that our approach to church was stuck in the past. Our services, programs, ministries and practices were perfectly designed to reach – and only reach – the people who were attending our church at that time. While preserving our core beliefs and values, we had to find a way to make the changes to our services, programs, ministries and practices that were needed to reach people we were not reaching – particularly the next generation.

We did not approach our church revitalization with just a short-term goal of experiencing a season of increased attendance, but rather with a long-term goal of building

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a lasting, multi-generational church. That is why, as is covered in detail in the book For a New Generation: A Practical Guide for Revitalizing Your Church, we created and implemented a Change Roadmap that included five change leadership principles or strategies - Adopt a New Mindset, Identify the Essentials, Reduce the Distractions, Elevate Your Standards and Build a Mentoring Culture.

Adopting a New Mindset At the heart of the Change Roadmap is Adopt a New Mindset. We knew that none of the other strategies would gain traction without a significant change in mindset. Paul wrote, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2) We often apply this only to individuals, but it is also applicable to churches. Here are a few examples of changes in thinking that were needed in our church: • We had a mindset of “All we need to do is fervently pray for young people to come back to church and they will come back.” That had to change to “We will fervently pray AND make the changes needed to reach young people in this rapidly changing world.”

• We had a mindset of “God doesn’t care about numbers so we shouldn’t be overly concerned about the empty seats in our church services.” That had to change to “Every empty seat in our church represents a person in our community who is far from God.” • We had a mindset of “Even though we don’t have a high quantity of people, the people in our church are high quality people.” That had to change to “There is not one person in our community who is lower quality than the people in our church. Their value is determined by the price paid for them at the cross.”

• We had a mindset of “Those ideas to reach young people may work for other churches but they would never work for us!” That had to change to “God, give us open hearts and minds to embrace the changes we need to make.”

• The most paralyzing mindset we had was “If it was good enough for us, it is good enough for our children.” That had to change to a question “What will it take to reach the next generation?”

Changing our Mindset From the moment I was voted in as pastor, I considered every message to be a critical opportunity to help our church adopt a new mindset. I spoke regularly during weekend services about God’s heart for the next generation and our responsibility to build bridges. I challenged church members to start thinking in terms of doing whatever it would take to reach the young people of our community.

I also spoke regularly about the fact that every empty chair in our church represented someone in our community for whom Christ died. I pointed out that the value of people we needed to reach was determined by the value God placed on them – the shed blood of His Son. I did not use weekend messages to criticize the past or to criticize those who disagreed with change. Instead, I tried to cast a positive vision about what the future could hold.

We did other things to shift our mindset. Our board members took field trips to healthy, multi-generational churches. We initiated church-wide small group Bible studies with the topic of reaching outward instead of looking inward.

As it turns out, adopting a new mindset was the quickest and easiest of the five strategies on our Change Roadmap.

We saw a tangible shift in mindset within a few months.

people who were attending our church in 2003 left within the first two years. To my knowledge, they all went to other churches in the area. I did not view those who left or criticized our changes as bad people or selfish “change resistors”; they just didn’t resonate with the new direction we were taking.

Fortunately, most of our church members stayed – and new people started to attend. During those two years the average weekend attendance more than doubled to 400 people. Within five years, our average weekend attendance exceeded 600 people. And 15 years after embarking on our revitalization journey, the average weekend attendance at Amplify Church grew to over 2,000 people.

Most importantly, we were transformed into a multi-generational church. The average age of church attendees matched the average age of the community served by the church.

Surrendering to the status quo is much easier than implementing change in a church. But, for us, accepting the status quo would have meant that we would continue to be an aging, dying church. I am glad that we considered the words of Psalm 78:4 – “We will not hide these truths from our children; we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord, about his power and his mighty wonders.” And I am glad that we determined that it was worth investing the time and effort needed to bring revitalization to our church.

Visit futureforwardchurches.com/free-resources for free church revitalization resources.

Lee Kricher is the Senior Pastor of Amplify Church in Pittsburgh, PA, a church that experienced a dramatic turnaround from an aging, dying church of under 200 people to a church of over 2,000 people with every generation well represented. Lee is the author of For a New Generation: A Practical Guide For Revitalizing Your Church and founder of Future Forward Churches. You can contact him at lee@futureforwardchurches.com

What Happened Even though we used our Change Roadmap as a framework, our journey was not easy. About a third of the 150

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What Does a Revitalizer Do If the Church Doesn’t Want to Change?

By Terry Rials That is a really good question. I would like to answer it somewhat Socratically. In order to answer this question, let me ask some other questions that serve to reframe the scenario. (I would like to hear your thoughts as you ask yourself these questions. My contact email is below, so feel free to share them with me.) Please allow me to add my answers to yours. Since there is victory in a multitude of counselors (Proverbs 11:14), please ask these questions to other learned colleagues and revitalizers as well, as you formulate your answer.

Here is the first question: Is there anything that I can do to make the church change? Go ahead and answer that. We all know the proverb that you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink. That sounds like too simple an explanation, sort of an “oh well, I tried.” I have tended to rely on a sage piece of advice I was given by an older man in the church I attended in my youth.

After surrendering to the pastoral ministry, Bro. Carol Johnson walked up to me and said sharply, “Boy, I want to give you one piece of advice – just remember, you can’t push a rope.” With that, he turned around and walked away. He was exactly right. You cannot push a rope, but

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you can pull it. If the church is like a rope, you can lead it along, but you cannot push it. Shepherds walk in front of the herd, leading it; they never try to push sheep from behind. If the sheep are willing to follow, then they will follow.

Here’s another question we must consider: Do you as the revitalizer still have vision, direction, and passion for leading your church? As I work with churches, I see so many pastoral leaders who are visionless, directionless, and passionless, which saddens my heart. I truly believe the enemy has gained a foothold in the lives of pastors who are tired and who have forsaken their personal time alone with the Lord. I am talking about more than your daily quiet time. I am talking about getting alone with God for substantial periods of time to know the Father and discover His will and direction. Moses and Jesus both spent forty days alone with God, Moses up on the mountain and Jesus out in the wilderness of Judea. One would hardly expect forty days from a modern pastoral leader, so let me make it easier - when was the last time you spent 24-48 hours alone with God without any other human contact (including electronic)? We wonder why

we don’t know where we are going. We are the proverbial blind leading the blind!

Let us look at the next question: Is it the revitalizer’s fault if the church does not want to change? Take a moment to give an answer. We could argue that the ultimate responsibility for the church lies on the shoulders of the pastor. Think about the numerous prophets God sent to Israel and Judah in the Old Testament.

Many of the speaking prophets have a book in our Bible, but there were countless other prophets God sent to preach to them. Was it the responsibility of those prophets that Israel had a rebellious and idolatrous heart? Was it the prophets’ fault that Judah relied upon the presence of the tabernacle (and later the temple) in Jerusalem to ward off their enemies? We all know the answer is no. The Galilean city of Chorazin had so many miracles performed in it, leading Jesus to conclude that if Tyre and Sidon had the same number of wonders performed there, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes (Matthew 11:21). Was it the fault of Jesus that Chorazin did not repent? Hardly.

If your train is at the end of the tracts, it may be time to consider your own Iconium. In full disclosure, I am not the Holy Spirit and have no right to tell you that you should or should not leave. Jeremiah prophesied for forty years with absolutely no results. Yet God wanted him to stay right where he was and be faithful to that call for the remainder of his life. That was God’s plan for Jeremiah, and Jeremiah was faithful to that calling.

“We may accept that the churches we lead need to change, but perhaps we are the ones who need to change the most.”

Another important question to consider would be this: How long do I wait until I go do something else, somewhere else? Think carefully and pray earnestly about this answer. This is harder to answer hermeneutically. Jesus gave explicit direction to the twelve whom He sent out, “Any place that does not receive you or listen to you, as you go out from there, shake the dust off the soles of your feet for a testimony against them” (Mark 6:11). When Paul and Barnabas were evangelizing in Pisidian Antioch, the Jews revolted against their preaching in the synagogue and even persecuted Paul and Barnabas for ministering to the Gentiles there. When Paul and Barnabas were no longer able to see benefit from their time and effort, they shook the dust off their feet in protest against them and went to Iconium (Acts 13:51). When a substantial percentage and the most influential portion of the people refuse to follow you as you lead out, it is probably time to consider a move. From my experience in a long-tenured pastorate, I would advise you as a pastor to know when you have taken the church as far as you can take it.

Perhaps if we could answer these questions, we would know what to do if the church will not change and move forward. Many churches cannot or will not change, so inevitably they will die. We may accept that the churches we lead need to change, but perhaps we are the ones who need to change the most. How can we expect the church we serve to change if they do not see us doing it personally? I often argue that the church will respond to change when they see that change sparked in you at the direction of the Lord. One last question: Why did people follow the most unlikely leaders in the Bible? Look at a brief list of them: Moses, Deborah, Gideon, David, Josiah, Nehemiah, Peter, Paul, Agabus. People followed them because they had been with the Lord.

Dr. Terry Rials has been in Christian Ministry for thirty-one years. He serves as the Director of Mission for the Concord-Kiowa Baptist Association in Western Oklahoma. He earned his doctorate (D.Min.) from Midwestern Baptist Theological in Church Revitalization. His dissertation project involved training associational pastors in the principles of revival and revitalization by equipping them to begin a revitalization project in their churches. Contact Dr. Rials at terry@churchrevitalizer.com.

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Does God really set people free?

Or are we just talking?

Transformational Discipleship was developed to train leaders how to guide both brand-new and longtime believers towards deep spiritual change.

This training is foundational for every believer. It guides people who are stuck on their faith journey due to unresolved, often hidden issues in their lives towards true spiritual, emotional and mental freedom through intimacy with God.

“It’s not like anything I have been through before.”

Pastor John Wright, Titusville, FL “This is life transforming. I’m going to teach the socks off this thing.”

Dr. Phil Phillips, Ft. Myers, FL

By George A. Thomasson I am an avid bass fisherman. Most people don’t fully grasp what that means. I don’t simply sit in a comfortable boat seat, drop a line in the water, watch a float and wait on a fish to bite. To be successful, I must become a serious student of every facet of the experience.

I have discovered, however, that even professional bass fishermen still have days when the fish refuse to cooperate. In fact, it often seems like the fish have “lockjaw!” No matter what they do, the bass simply will not bite.

Pastor, is that how you feel sometimes? You know that your church is declining and in need of revitalization. You understand what it takes to “catch” people for Christ. But when you try to get your people to join you in a plan to revitalize, they have “lockjaw” and won’t bite. They seem to be just sitting on the bottom of the lake uninterested in any lures you cast, satisfied to just “have church.”

What is a pastor to do when his people are resistant to revitalization? Since I pastored several churches with this spiritual disposition, allow me to suggest “10 Steps for Revitalizers in Reluctant Churches.”

Step 1 – Prayer Ministry I am convinced that God can do more in 5 minutes through believing prayer than we can do in 50 years in our own strength! Don’t talk about revitalization, just look for one prayer warrior in your congregation. Share

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your heart and ask them to lead a prayer ministry. Help them define a strategy and encourage them to enlist a prayer team. It can start as simple as sending weekly emails of prayer requests to the team. They could also set up a team schedule to pray during the worship services for the Spirit’s anointing; for people to be saved and for a spirit of revival to break out.

Step 2 – Pastor’s Accountability Group Ask the Lord to lay on your heart 5-7 men in your church.

They should be F.A.T. – Faithful, Available and Teachable.

Personally, invite them to be a part of your Accountability Group. Let them know that you will meet weekly (probably early mornings to accommodate work schedules). Explain that the purpose is to encourage and challenge one another in your walk with God. Set up a schedule with the men taking turns sharing a devotional. Include a time of sharing needs and praying for one another.

Step 3 – Befriend “Influencers” In every church there are highly respected members who have the trust of the people. I would suggest that you connect with them. Become their friend; go out to breakfast; ask them to share the history of the church; gain their trust. As your relationship develops, begin sharing your vision for the church and your passion to reach and raise the next generation. When the time comes to address major initiatives in your vision, they may well be your “cheerleaders.”

Step 4 – Deacon Ministry Consider developing a “Deacon Family Ministry.” Your deacons and their wives are usually perceived as the spiritual leaders of the church. Unfortunately, I have observed that most deacons have never been trained or utilized to serve in their churches. Given this vacuum, they tend to become a “deacon board” and focus on administrative functions that the pastor and his staff should be doing.

If you will take the time to develop a family ministry led by the deacons, amazing things can happen. (I would be happy to assist you in this effort. Email me at gthomasson@christplace.com) Step 5 – First Impressions or Guest Services Experts tell us that a guest will decide whether they will come back in the first 11 minutes of entering the church campus. Wow! That’s BEFORE they hear the worship music or even listen to your sermon. Work hard to set up a comprehensive First Impressions or Guest Services ministry. The size of your campus will determine how many volunteers you need. First, enlist two couples to lead the ministry and share your vision for what it should look like.

Some components are: designated GUEST parking places near the entrance (don’t ever call them “visitors”); parking lot team (with big smiles and umbrellas); greeters at all entrances (even bigger smiles); hosts to take families to rooms; coffee bar; ushers; etc.

Step 6 – Your Personal Evangelism As pastor, you need to set goals for your personal witnessing. Mark off times on your calendar to go and keep those times. Be alert to opportunities to share your faith.

ALWAYS have gospel tracts with you. Just having those tracts quickens your sensitivity to lost people. Text all guests each Sunday afternoon or evening. Try to make appointments for visits. Find a hot-hearted man in your church and take him with you. When he is trained, both of you take another man.

Step 7 – Identify Lost Family Members Every church has members who have lost family members – husbands, wives, teens, kids. Gather 5-7 longtime members who know the people. Have copies of two documents: (1) Church membership role and (2) Sunday School/Small Group roles. Look at every name and list the names of lost family members. Then decide who in your church already has a relationship with them. They will be the most logical, effective person to reach them.

Assign the people accordingly to these members. Explain that this is NOT for a one-time contact BUT for an ongoing effort to share the gospel and win them to Christ and the church.

Step 8 – Pastor’s Discipleship Class Many of your members never received intentional discipleship after receiving Christ. They are hungry to learn and grow in their faith. Announce that you will teach a class on personal discipleship. It could be on Sunday afternoon or Wednesday evening. There are many fine tools that you could use. Whatever you choose as your study materials, I would suggest that you begin by teaching the group how to share their personal testimony (CRU has the best helps on this.) Have one or two share their 3-minute testimony each week and do “sandwich” criticism. Bread=something good in the testimony.

Meat=what can be improved. Bread=more encouragement. During the class, identify someone who is passionate about discipleship and coach them to take the class next time.

Step 9 – Community Ministries Plan 3-4 “Make-a-Difference” weekends per year. These will be opportunities for your people to get “hands-on” involved in meeting needs in your community. It may be something like: “Feed the Need;” “Teacher Appreciation Day;” “We Love our 1st Responders;” “5-K Run” to benefit a ministry in our area; “Light Up the Night” on Halloween (Make it missional asking your members to host block parties with free hot dogs, candy, kid’s gospel tracts, etc. in their front yards.)

Step 10 – Special Baptism Days Plan your annual calendar to include 2-4 “Baptism Days.”

If you are close to the beach or a nice lake, have one in the summer. You can save up those receiving Christ and encourage those in worship to be baptized that day.

You will need a larger team on these days for decision counseling, helping with dress and towels, etc. Lead your people to celebrate over every precious person who is baptized.

Final thought: Don’t try to do all of this at once or you will overwhelm your people and your volunteer base.

You know your situation better than anybody. Move forward sensitively as the Lord leads and trust Him to bring revitalization amid reluctance.

George Thomasson is a native of Arkansas but spent most of his ministry in Florida and Texas. He holds degrees from Palm Beach Atlantic University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He presently serves as Mobilization Pastor for Christ Place Church in Flowery Branch, Georgia.

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How to Change the Culture of Your Church

By Ron Smith Culture is the predominating attitudes and behavior that characterize the function of a group or organization. An easy definition is, “It’s how things work ‘round here.”

Yes, your church might need systems and strategies. Sure, you might need to discover your mission or clarify your vision but casting vision without creating a supporting culture is disastrous.

Cultural Boundaries #1 – From Us To Them You must learn to create a tourist culture over a country club culture. Let’s be clear about this. We do have a responsibility to develop the body, but our development is never to the detriment of our mission. If we are not careful, we will slip over to the other side of the mission and craft all of our sermons, programs, events, and spending toward us.

Your church will naturally drift toward this black hole, the black hole of self-preservation. As a pastor you must be ever vigilant to guard this and keep the church body actively engaged in ministry.

I believe this is why church revitalization is so difficult and it is why I believe that every church will perform some amount of revitalization. The average church that is in decline and in need of revitalization has blurred the lines between mission and vision.

The mission has drifted inside and any vision that is presented is interpreted through the lens of “us.” #2 – Ownership over Membership Members have rights and they are designed to consume. Owners have responsibilities and they are wired to contribute. The “Us to Them” boundary is one that defines your missional mindset. The “Owner over Member” boundary defines your attitude toward serving.

As the church drifts inward the mindset becomes – they owe me, serve me, play songs for me, etc. This cultural mindset says, “We shall not be moved.” Owners feel the weight of serving others.

Owners operate as if no one else is going to get it done. Ownership says, “it’s my job.”

Us = Me – minister to me.

Owners = Others – I have a ministry.

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In our first two boundaries we must define our missional mindset and ministry mindset. Our third boundary steps out and declares who is the minister. #3 – From Hired Guns “staff” to Equipped Leaders Have you ever given thought to how the early church “staffed” the growth we read about in the Book of Acts? I can see a few “pastors” leading the charge for 120, but what about 3,120 or 5,000, or when the church multiplied, or when the whole city was reached? The early church empowered leaders to serve just as Jesus empowered the 12. #4 – Thinks Steps Not Programs I can remember the night I arrived at the entrance of Parris Island. I enlisted in the United States Marine Corp and the day arrived when my training started. The first thing we did when we got off the bus was step into the infamous yellow footprints.

Steps set direction and fit our movement. Programs box us in and lock opportunities out.

Programs in and of themselves are not bad. Don’t misread me or misinterpret what I’m saying. Steps do lead us to “programs.”

When all we offer are programs at the request of members, or the needs of a few, then we are busy not effective. Thinking steps allows the flexibility to ask this question, “Is this a good idea or something that will be effective?”

How To Change The Culture of Your Church #1 – Preach about the culture needed Each church already has its own culture. You may have inherited it, or you may have helped create it, regardless, it exists. Before you can ever preach on it you must know the cultural fingerprint. Anything you preach, teach, blog, post, or tweet will only be interpreted through that lens. You may think you are preaching for change, but if it’s not addressing the cultural heartbeat, you’re just talking.

# 3 – Train them for what needs to be done.

Culture is changed when we give them the training necessary to accomplish the mission.

If I’m afraid to take on a new task, I feel less fearful if I have received some form of advanced training. Before every missions trip we, as a team, have always received some form of training.

The location, people, and work of the mission might be new, but I at least know I have been prepared for the work. When I arrive on the field, success is realized when my training matches the mission.

Train them to greet others. Train them to serve. Train them to show up on time. Train them to think of others first. Train them how to share their faith. Train them how.

Every sermon you preach must be intentional to equip and reach. This is the hardest thing about preaching as you must equip and reach at the same time. You are not a professor simply educating willing minds, you are also an evangelist reaching the lost. I call this style of preaching the shotgun method. You’re preaching must be sprinkled with multiple pellets of teaching, encouraging, calling, convicting, and reaching. Here’s the good news, this is why “study.” We cannot do this – we need the filling of the Holy Spirit. Our preaching is what separates us from motivational speakers, salesman, and professors. “and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,” I Corinthians 2:4 As a pastor, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the culture of the church.

When He does, preach on it with passion. #2 – Explain the Culture You See Use plain language and to the point describe the culture you see, the culture you know the church should have. If your church has a culture of “Us and Tradition” then paint a picture of what that church looks like in ten years of in-reach. You then begin to ask, “What is the mission of the church and how much of what we do fulfills the great commission?”

You must call them to action by showing them the next steps.

You must instruct them on how a church operates, the mechanics of a spiritual body, the mission of the church, the ministry of each member, and the role of pastors.

Repetition is your best friend. Changing culture is all about changing habits. Habits change as language changes. Language changes as we learn a new system of thought. The culture that is present is ingrained in the minds of the people.

#4 – Show them the goal Every culture has a goal. For the plateaued/declining church the goal is self-preservation. In any culture there are boundaries. These boundaries are only removed as a new worthy goal is realized.

Many of our churches have forgotten how to go after the goal.

The lines have been blurred between mission and existence. Far too many churches operate as if all the lost people have been saved. All of our churches need a constant reminder of what our mission is and how we obtain it.

Keeping the goal in front of the church is a visual way of keeping the steps in mind. As the church catches sight of the steps they will see the path and seeing the path will lead them to remember the destination.

Change as a follower of Christ is naturally unnatural. It is part of the process of being a follower of Christ. Here’s the point: As you change the culture, the people will know the change that needs to happen. This doesn’t mean they will change, but they will instinctively know that change must happen.

And then guess what? The Culture has changed!

Ron Smith is the Lead Pastor of WaterStone Church in Longwood and serves as Co-Leader of Renovate One Day Training as well as serving on staff of the Renovate Coaching Network. Follow Ron at RonBSmithJr.com for leadership material and sporadic blogs.

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Where Does Church Revitalization Begin?

By Jim Grant The topic of Church Revitalization has been a subject of interest for several years now. Most people are familiar with Olsen’s American Church in Crisis often quoted statistic about plateaued, dying, and dead churches. While the information from Olsen may be a little outdated, the question of what to do about the epidemic is still relevant for anyone in such a ministry position. I have done enough research on the topic to discover that every denomination is struggling to stop the churches from closing their doors. There are multiple reasons why a church will die, including the location, past church history, and leadership issues.

As a result of the emphasis given to the number of churches closing, various philosophies, approaches, and tools have been developed in hopes of finding the root cause of the epidemic.

I appreciate the high level of interest and energy given by so many, including my own denomination to find a solution.

Church revitalization does not have an easy solution. There are too many variables to investigate and filter through to determine a common cause among the churches. While there are no quick fixes or answers, when a church does find new life again, the results are remarkable.

Some of the variables that must be taken into account before starting any church revitalization project include age of the church, age of the congregation, past church history (successes and failures), community demographics (growing or declining in population), and is current leadership capable of leading the process.

Often church revitalization enthusiasts are eager to do the research, conduct community and church surveys, and crunch the data in hopes of uncovering the hidden secret to turning around a failing church. In our current technological age, a researcher can find just about any information to diagnosis a perceived churches condition. The conclusion may point to a problem that is geographical as well as spiritually. Do not misunderstand me, there must be suffi-

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cient homework accomplished before settling on a course of action. Life has taught me that one must be careful with statistical information alone. Church revitalization is not a one-dimensional issue.

If a church is to begin a revitalization process, it first needs to know where to start. But more importantly, to know where the church is headed. Church revitalization inherently carries with it the idea that the church now languishing was, at some point, successful and alive. Even having said that, the question comes to mind – what does it mean to have a successful past? If a church cannot identify a time when it was healthy and accomplishing Kingdom work, then it may need to start with a Strategic Planning Team to develop a clear vision or concept of what it means to be a New Testament church. Strategic Planning directions and guidelines are beyond the articles scope.

Church revitalization is about causing renewal within the life of redeemed people and the churches current dilemma. Revitalization is more than revival. I have pastored four churches. I may not be an expert, but I have found some steps that will help determine a successful church transformation. First, every church is different, its context, its people, and its particular ministry for the Kingdom of God. There have been enough attempts at reviving dying churches to provide a plethora of books documenting the success story.

Secondly, revitalization is absolutely difficult work. As with any work within the church, one can expect opposition and discouragement along the way. Church revitalization requires diplomacy and perseverance.

Thirdly, revitalization requires the right leader. Even though so many churches are experiencing warning signs of decline and death, not every pastor is a revitalizer. Revitalization is as much about the pastor/leadership as it is about the overall church. There are churches that would rather die than change. There are also pastors that would rather change pastorates than embark on the struggles of chang-

ing a church. Scripture is filled with examples of resistance to God’s will, in particular the nation of Israel. Often a position of comfort is sought. This should not sound so strange; individuals and church acquiesce to a point of their comfort.

Long before thoughts of studies and demographic analysis is attempted, there has to be clear direction from the Lord Jesus that the leadership is called to the work of revitalization. Specifically, is the pastor the right person? This question cannot be easily answered. According to Luke 14:28; before attempting a work, consider the cost beforehand. If the pastor/leadership is not willing to invest at least five to seven years towards the work, do not start. The work will go unfinished and the people will become further discouraged, hindering any future work. Many reading this article now are trying to determine if they are called to revitalization.

This is a pertinent question that must be asked with a peace and clear understanding from God. Word of caution: revitalization will not be like anything you have done before!

The bible character of Joshua is an example to many potential revitalizers. There was much that Joshua had to consider about his new position as leader of Israel. As ministers of the Gospel, we are under obligation to the One who called us.

Right now, many pastors find themselves in less than the best of church health situations. Our faithfulness in the difficult times will reflect God’s preparation of us for the task.

Pastors, we are in difficult times. It is our watch and we must be found faithful.

Joshua had to reflect on what God had been doing in his life.

Joshua was a valiant warrior. He had experienced great victories and witnessed the powerful presence of God. While he was part of the disappointing “committee’ that chose not to enter the Promised Land, he didn’t quit or give up.

He stayed faithful for forty years in the position of Captain of the Israeli army. Before Moses dies, he is anointed as heir apparent to lead Israel to the Promised Land. This is quite a change of positions, no longer is he the executor of the plan, he is the Vision Caster. Wonderful words of encouragement and challenge come from God to Joshua. (Joshua 1:1-9) The leadership changed but the goal remained the same. Forty years in the Wilderness did not alter God’s goal. Israel was always supposed to inhabit the Promised Land. God still commands churches to fulfill the Great Commission. Pastors and leadership will change, but God always remains the same.

Those encouraging words from God “As I was with Moses, so I will be with You” (Josh 1:5) are for us.

Joshua was given a task to do that had the outcome already determined. The LORD said, “I am giving this land to them.”

(Josh 1:2) There would be fighting, but Joshua was told that no man would be able to stand against what God was doing. Joshua did not let the circumstances and past dictate the future obedience and work of the Lord. We may all find

ourselves from time to time in situations that seem impossible – but do not fret; God is still on His throne and we have been called to shepherd His Church. Three times in Joshua 1, Joshua is told “Be strong and courageous.” While it is imperative that churches and pastors remember what happened in the past, they cannot let it paralyze them. Now Joshua could have struggled in the shadows of Moses or he could accept the new role as “Valiant Leader.” Additionally, Joshua had fought many battles in the typical manner of warfare. Right from the beginning, Joshua and the people had to trust in unorthodox ways – God’s ways.

So, where does Church revitalization begin? It begins with the Pastor. Before a pastor embarks on revitalization, he must look at himself. Leadership must switch from being caretakers to risk takers. There are many qualities that have been used to help identify if someone is a church revitalizer.

God looks for only one – being a man after God’s our heart.

God will build His Church. If God has called you to revitalization, do not look for another church. What I am trying to say is that church revitalization is difficult, but when God is in the church the church has a future. There are no easy answers, and no quick fixes. God called us to shepherd His Church, so let’s model our own Good Shepherd and be willing to lay down our life for the sheep.

But revitalization cannot remain with the pastor, it must become a church wide urgency. There must be a heart felt change for the lost and unredeemed in the community, city, country, and cosmos.

A changed heart means: 1. Repentant heart over sins and rebellion 2. Passionate for the lost 3. Broken over community, church, and city 4. Begins with leadership 5. Have a holy discontent 6. Reading and obeying God’s Word 7. Praying without ceasing 8. Desire for intimacy with God Jim Grant is the Executive Director of the Galveston Baptist Association.

He is an Air Force veteran, retiring with twenty-five years of service.

His extensive travels allowed him the unique opportunity to serve in a full spectrum of churches with various styles and ranges of spiritual health. He has a master of divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Doctorate of Ministry degree from Midwestern Baptist Theological seminary with a concentration on Church Revitalization.

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Did You Remember to Become the Pastor of Your Leaders First?

By Steve Smith The report from one pastor who was leading his church in a revitalization effort was exuberant. Many adults had come to faith just in the last six months. The church auditorium was finally packing out after two years of hard labor and prayer. Long-time believers were engaged in effective outreach. New believers were being discipled.

Then, at the midpoint of the report, the other shoe dropped.

My friend informed us that the leaders of the church had issues with him. Though he asked for extra time to work with them at resolving these issues, they were unyielding.

To the shock of the congregation, they fired him.

By most measurements, you could claim that his church displayed many signs of being revitalized. But in spite of all his diligent prayer, effective evangelizing and disciple making, he had overlooked something significant. He had failed to become the pastor of his leaders and they tore the heart out of this movement of the Spirit.

Some version of this story could be yours someday. It happens to too many pastors. Research tells us that all it takes is a small but powerful group of 10 or less people in any church to decide you have to go. And so, you do go.

Reflect on these questions: • How well do I know the hearts of my leaders—the ones that were excited when I agreed to become the church’s pastor and said they want the church to be revitalized?

• Do I have their trust? Is my ministry helping them to grow in their walk with God? • Am I really their pastor?

These leaders possess as great a capacity to be your partners in revitalization as they do to upend your ministry and send you out the door—grieving the Spirit and ending what God is doing in your church. The first step in leading revitalization always starts with you becoming the pastor of your leaders. Its neglect will cost you if you skip it by assuming that they are spiritually secure when, in fact, they may have some serious unfinished spiritual business.

How do you become the pastor of your leaders? Clearly, I am not talking about your position. Being called ‘Pastor’ does not mean your leaders really see you as their pastor. It is not an age thing. It’s a heart thing.

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You cannot fix this with your preaching. You can be dynamic in sharing God’s Word and still not have touched the heart of your leaders. Neither will growing your church fix this. I know of a pastor who led his church from 40 to over 200 in attendance in two years, only to have his leaders split the church.

If you desire a better outcome, you have to be intentional.

You have to intend to become their pastor. Even if your first day on the job is long behind you, from this moment on you need to do what it takes to change this dynamic.

Change starts with this simple truth: Every believer has unfinished business which they need to surrender so they can be set free. Unfinished business is the spiritual, emotional, and mental baggage we continue to carry after we come to faith. It is the result of two things that are in our hearts that should not be there, but are there because of the effects of the Fall.

One is hurt in the heart. The other is sin in me. Throughout life, we are being wounded by others who believe they know what is good and evil. We stuff these hurts inside us and time does not heal them. Instead, we turn unconsciously to deadly sin—anger, appetite, lust, envy, greed, sloth, pride—to find comfort and emotional release from the pain. Hurt and sin combine to produce outward actions, beliefs, and attitudes that are not in keeping with Jesus’ character. Left unaddressed, Satan exploits believers’ unfinished business to divide, distort and destroy.

distressed need this kind of discipling. They focus on believers who openly display their brokenness. Or believers whose lives are in shambles because of sin. It is rare for me to meet a pastor whose first thought is that he and his leaders need this for themselves.

And yet, that is exactly where revitalization begins—at the leadership level. This is because transforming lives is not a necessity for the few. It has to be the spiritual culture of the whole church, including all leaders. There are no exceptions. Everyone in the church has to humble themselves before Jesus and acknowledge it is he alone who is able to make them whole in every area of their lives.

Experience has taught me that if you take this seriously, you will become the pastor of your leaders. Why so?

First, it will give you insight so you can pastor them well.

When you do not know where and why leaders struggle on their faith journey, you cannot speak truth into their lives. When Satan has more insight about their unfinished business than you, those leaders become sitting ducks for his lies. But when you and your leaders together learn to be a confessing community (confessing sin without being judged, but with compassion for each other), then you become the pastor they can trust to lead them.

The critical factor for the health of the churches I served was discovering how to disciple people so they would learn to address their unfinished spiritual business. It was the lessons God taught me on my life-long journey with Him that became the basis of the discipling course I teach called The Key to Deep Change.

Essentially, I disciple people how to surrender to the transforming work of the Spirit, which is the practical outcome of the gospel. Two indispensable truths at the core of this training are: 1. I needed to be transformed! I could not teach others about their unfinished business without being transparent about my own. I cannot pretend that I never struggled with surrender nor that God had an easy time with me.

Being open about my spiritual life journey has given hope to others that God can and will do the same for them.

2. Only God can heal people’s wounds and free them from sin. Guiding people toward true spiritual health means directing them to pursue true intimacy with God. No matter how much you know, you have no actual power to change people’s hearts. But God can and does change us as we each surrender to the Spirit’s work of empowering us to be conformed to the likeness of Jesus.

Second, it will give you authority to question where their resistance is coming from if and when it arises. Not every objection to your leadership is born out of inward brokenness. But when a leader responds irrationally to needed changes for the health of the church, you will find that you now have the pastoral authority to explore whether or not this resistance is a result of that leader’s unfinished business.

Pastoring your leaders does not mean you will never experience differences of opinion about the right steps for revitalization. But becoming their pastor will defuse a powerful tool that Satan has used against church leaders— their tendency to divide over outward issues instead of addressing the real inward problem in their hearts.

To learn more, explore my website: ChurchEquippers.com Steve Smith is the founder of Church Equippers Ministries, serving churches by training them in transformational discipleship and church systems. He is the author of several books including The Key to Deep Change and The Increasing Capacity Guidebook.

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Preparing for a Post-Pandemic Renewal

By Mark Weible

I was recently in a Zoom call with several national movement leaders discussing the future of church ministry after the COVID-19 pandemic ends. There was a sentiment in the group that, in the not-so-distant future, everything will return to “normal.” While I agree that there will be a return to some semblance of normalcy, I felt the need to express that, “We can’t unlearn what we’ve learned.” In 2020, we’ve all navigated several changes that have been thrust upon us. As church leaders, we have changed. The people that we lead have changed and the people that they lead have changed. Our communities have changed, our cultures have changed, and our world has experienced rapid change. For example, a report produced by IBM indicates that the pandemic has accelerated the adaptation of e-commerce by five years and no one is expecting that trend to reverse itself after the pandemic.1 Responding to changes in human behavior has required us to accelerate the pace of learning and adapting to new means and methods of communicating with our people, marketing our churches, and gathering together virtually.

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ic world. Research conducted by the Barna organization shows that 36% of practicing Christians will prefer a hybrid of both digital and physical gatherings post-pandemic.2 If your church was not live-streaming before the pandemic, should you stop live-streaming post-COVID? If you started offering virtual small groups during the lock-down, will you take away that option in the post-pandemic period? If you retract your digital gathering options when it becomes safe to gather in person, you may risk alienating people who’ve discovered that they like gathering virtually. It is possible and highly likely that your church has connected with some people online that you had not previously reached in the physical realm. It would be nice if you could get them to attend your physical events, but will you cut them off if they don’t? Instead of planning for a post-pandemic reversal, why not plan for a post-pandemic revival?

Everyone wants to get back to “normal” but not everyone will. That is the reality that we have to deal with as we prepare our churches to do ministry in the post-pandem-

Instead of trying to snap back to the past, why don’t we clear a new path to the future? Let’s face it, the digital tools that we have available to us today have made it much easier for us to navigate a pandemic than it was for previous generations. Other natural and man-made disasters will likely happen in the future, so let’s not unlearn what we’ve

1 https://www.ibm.com/industries/retail-consumer-products

2 https://www.barna.com/research/watching-online-church/

learned and keep pushing ahead. Also, is it possible that God allowed all of us to go through this trying time in order to prepare us for better days ahead? It is possible that we are standing at the threshold of a period of renewal for the Church that could result in a new great awakening.

According to Pew Research, one-quarter of Americans say that their faith has been strengthened due to the Coronavirus pandemic.3 Churches in need of revitalization could restructure for greater growth opportunities during and after the pandemic. One of the greatest challenges to revitalization is the resistance to change that can be found within the church. However, 2020 has been a year of change for everyone.

While we are in the midst of change, and while we have somewhat of a consensus that change within the church is inevitable, let’s restructure in order to be more effective at reaching people during a time when many are facing their greatest life challenges. A message on the Saddleback Church website sums it up this way:

There are hurting people all around your church who have lost loved ones, lost their jobs, lost their sense of self-sufficiency, and are crying out for help. This is the time for your church to develop ways to respond to these needs.

The positive effect of looking outward will better prepare your church for revitalization and renewal. You can nurture compassion on the part of your people through your preaching, your blog and social media posts, and your personal ministry as you help them to navigate this crisis. You can help them to discover what the Apostle Paul learned from the comfort that he received from God during his travels through the province of Asia:

“Instead of trying to snap back to the past, why don’t we clear a new path to the future?”

Every need in the world is an OPEN DOOR to share God’s love. That’s why, as a church family, we’re responding to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) crisis, not by panicking or hiding out of fear, but by serving the people who are most vulnerable.4 One of the healthiest things that you can do for your church is to help them to turn their focus away from themselves toward God so that they can see the needs of hurting people all around them. This pandemic could be the greatest outreach opportunity that you have as a church, if you learn to see people the way that Jesus sees them: When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. (Matthew 9: 36) 3 https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/30/fewamericans-say-their-house-of-worship-is-open-but-a-quartersay-their-religious-faith-has-grown-amid-pandemic/ 4 https://saddleback.com/coronaresponse

If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

(II Corinthians 1: 6-7)

Why would we want to go back to doing things the way we did before the pandemic when we can use this time of change to be better prepared to reach more people while they are searching for answers during their greatest life challenges? We can’t unlearn what we’ve learned, and we’ve learned a lot in 2020. Let’s use it for the glory of God.

Mark Weible serves as the Church Planting Director of the Greater Orlando Baptist Association and the strategic Director of the Renovate National Church Revitalization Conference. Mark has a wealth of experience as a church planter and local church coach. Mark is passionate about church multiplication, renewal, planting, and coaching.

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The Leadership Link:

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Being a Change Agent

Even When You are Standing Alone

By Michael Atherton Isaac Newton’s first law of motion states: Everything continues in a state of rest unless it is compelled to change by forces impressed upon it. Churches just seem to naturally gravitate to a state of rest, if they are not inspired to change. Even when confronted with change, some will resist it, others will tolerate it, while seemingly only a few will embrace it. Nevertheless, it is the responsibility of a church revitalizer to seek God’s direction for the church body and to impress change upon the people in a way that brings honor to God and expands the Kingdom of God.

mately, the Israelites wanted to go back to Egypt. Can you believe that? They prayed for deliverance, yet they had come to the place where they had rather live in slavery then experience the prospects of freedom. So, with a climate of negativity and with the spirit of grumbling abounding, in Exodus 14:13, Moses found himself having to be a change agent despite having to stand alone. Let me offer you three words that will help you as you lead change, standing alone.

“Churches just seem to naturally gravitate to a state of rest, if they are not inspired to change.”

Exodus 14 is the story where Moses is leading the Israelites out of Egypt and out from under the heavy hand of Pharaoh’s oppression. The people had been praying for many years for God to send someone to deliver them from their bondage.

God raised up Moses. Though to be fair, Moses was not necessarily interested in leading God’s people.

He offered many excuses to argue he was not the right person. Yet, God affirmed, reaffirmed, and then affirmed His call again. So, Moses reluctantly agreed to go back to Egypt and lead God’s people to experience freedom.

As the Israelites left Egypt, it did not take long for the people to begin grumbling about their new reality. Scripture says that Pharaoh had a change of heart and regretted allowing the Israelites to leave. Therefore, he assembled his army and pursued them. The Israelites found themselves hemmed in by the Red Sea as the Egyptian army surrounded them. They turn to Moses and ask, “Were there not enough graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to the wilderness to die?” (Exodus 14:11). Ulti-

1. Dedicate When God has given you a vision moving forward…dedicate yourself to that vision and don’t let go, regardless of how tough things get.

The key to this principle, however, is that God must be the author of the vision. If you have come up with your own vision and days get tough…you might should consider aborting the mission. But not when God speaks!

In Exodus 14, God had moved. He told Moses what He was going to do, but the people got extreme cold feet, driven by fear. The shackles of fear are apparent. Fear can discourage, even paralyze. Christians today, like Israel of old, sometimes find themselves trembling on the shore of some uncrossable sea. The strength which dispels fear comes not from within us but from above us. It is the reassurance of the Lord of the universe, who ultimately told His children, “Fear not.” Only He can truly dispel fear. If God is for us, who can be against us?

For Israel, their fear was rooted in two obvious sources.

A) They feared their past. The chariots of Egypt were on a tour of revenge. They were coming to round up those who had run away. When they returned them to Egypt,

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there would have been little chance that Pharaoh would have dealt with them in an honorable way. In fact, when Moses first came to Pharaoh requesting him to let the Israelites go, Pharaoh’s response was to make things more difficult for the Israelites. B) They feared their future. They were facing an uncertain reality. It is challenging to live amid unanswered questions. How often do our churches engage in conflict and negativity because the unknown details of the future overwhelm us? The work of revitalization is an exercise in leading change. Change is the conduit that will often bring about criticism and negativity in the church. When people are forced to consider change, things can often get tense. In those moments, as a leader, do not fear. If God has led you to your position and guided you to this crossroads, He has a plan and will not leave you. Fear not!

2. Diligent Standing where the Israelites were standing was difficult.

I am certainly not suggesting it would have been easy to have walked in their sandals. The temptation to run when they began to see this unfolding storyline would have been great. They could have run backward and retreated into the security of their past. Egypt had not been kind to them, but at least it was consistent. At least they knew where they would lay their head down. At least they knew from where their next meal would come. They could have chosen to run away, to scatter. Maybe it would have been better for everyone to try and make it on their own.

When a spirit of negativity descends upon the church, it is ever so easy to see people respond the same way.

In situations like this, people tend to long for the good ole’ days. They desire to go back to a place and time that they found to be particularly pleasing. Therefore, they will strive to halt the work of revitalization. They will try and impede the work of change. Often they will use any mechanism available to accomplish their goal. Therefore, churches will split, pastors will leave (whether voluntarily or involuntarily), relationships will sever, or financial practices will be abandoned (whether in the area of giving or spending). The thought process is that the end will justify the means and the detractors are therefore doing everyone else a favor.

Amid this perilous situation, what is the word from God? Stand firm. We, as leaders, may be surprised by what we are seeing unfold before our very eyes, but God is not surprised. He knows what the heart of man is fully capable of.

He understands our plight. It is when we are taken right up to the brink of the sea’s edge, the armies of the enemy surround us, and there is nowhere else for us to go, that

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He does His best work in our lives. Does that give us the option to ignore all the leadership principles in life that help to ensure that we lead well; communication, servanthood, vision casting, conflict management, etc.? Certainly not. However, in that same vein, we must remember there are some battles that we face in ministry that are not ours to fight. Therefore, stand firm.

3. Deliverance God had a plan for Moses. I am not suggesting that plan met the threshold of conventional wisdom, but who ever accused God of acting with conventional wisdom?

We must acknowledge God’s ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts. Moses is to move forward by lifting his staff and stretching his hands out over the sea, and God will part the water so that the Israelites can pass through on dry ground. Not only that, but God would then drown the entire Egyptian army in that same seabed.

It was on this precarious precipice that the Israelites found themselves that ultimately God brought about their deliverance. It is never easy to walk through these difficult seasons of life. However, God often brings us as people and churches to these difficult seasons to demonstrate His power to save. The sea that once represented disaster now became the threshold of deliverance. Why? Because man’s extremity is God’s opportunity! Leading God’s people to experience a better tomorrow is certainly not for the faint of heart. The journey may be long, tough, or arduous. However, it is ever so worth it!

Michael Atherton has served as the Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of O’Fallon, O’Fallon, MO for 15 years. Leading a church in a church merger, he has learned firsthand the challenges of a revitalizer. Mike is the author of The Revitalized Church. Mike leads a Mentored Master of Divinity program at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary and is past President of the Colorado Baptist Convention.

7 Steps to Personal Revitalization

By Steve Sells Do you have a room in your house so cluttered with stuff that you scramble to close the door to that room when company comes to visit? I bet everyone reading this would have to admit that they have a junk room in their house. It could be a little closet, spare room, garage, or basement. It’s a place where you hoard things and you do not want guests to see because if they did you would be embarrassed. This same condition exists in the heart of many Christian leaders whose lives are cluttered with things that bring no glory to God. But, unlike that cluttered room in our house, clutter in the Christian leader’s life affects the ability to lead. Things like sin, bad attitudes, bitterness, hard feelings, a rebellious spirit all can so clutter the life of the pastor/leader that they are rendered unusable. No pastor can lead in bringing spiritual renewal to a local church unless he himself has experienced that renewal. Needless to say, the pastor must have his “house in order” before attempting to revitalize his church.

The writer of Proverbs in 24:3-4 gives direction as to how to build a spiritual house…an uncluttered life. He says, “Through wisdom a house is built, And by understanding it is established; By knowledge the rooms are filled With all precious and pleasant riches” There are three key words found in these verses that are the foundational building blocks for an effective life. They are: wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. When these building blocks are properly applied to the pastor’s/leader’s life, getting the spiritual house in order will be the outcome. There are seven basic steps the leader needs to take in order to live a life of wisdom, understanding and knowledge.

Step 1 - Give Way to the Presence and Power of the Holy Spirit The Bible teaches us that we are temples where the Holy Spirit dwells. Because He dwells in us He affects everything about us. He affects our attitude toward our fellow man. He affects our behavior. He affects where we place our loyalties. Our moral standard is affected. Living under the presence and power of the Holy Spirit gives the leader the strength to understand and heed 1 Thessalonians 5:22 where it says “Abstain from every form of evil.” The Holy Spirit calls us to repentance and renewal in order to reconcile with our first love Jesus Christ. So, the first step any pastor/leader must take to get their “house in order” is to allow the work of the Holy Spirit to take root in their life.

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Step 2 - Get Aligned with the Will of God for Your Life Setting our “house in order” also calls for a new alignment with the will of the Father and His direction for our lives.

We must reorganize, reorder, and restructure our lives to accomplish the will of the Father. The Pastor’s desires must be annihilated and the Father’s will must become dominant. Getting aligned with the will of God will always follow closely after allowing the Holy Spirit His place. It enables the Holy Spirit to reveal the new direction that the Father has for ministry. By allowing the Holy Spirit to work and by getting aligned with the will of God the leader will experience a new relationship with the Father as they get priorities in line and allow God to have first place in their life.

Step 3 - Take a Personal Inventory If you as the pastor/leader really desires a “spiritual revitalization” in your church, begin with yourself. How do you do that? By making your relationship with God stronger. By asking yourself some tough questions and being honest with the answers. Are you willing to know and face the issues in your own life? Are you willing for your preaching to touch you? Has your ministry become burdensome? What are you afraid of? How close is your relationship with the Heavenly Father? How much do you love your people? Is

and Eve when sin reared its ugly head and tainted humanity. Since then there has been difficulties, challenges, and conflict in the human existence. Sad to say…it will be with us until we get to heaven, so we must learn to deal with those things that hinder us from being what God desires us to be. Hindrances can come from any direction. They can take any form. Sometimes they show up as circumstances, events, or even people. They can be overpowering and discouraging and they must be overcome.

Step 6 - Focus on the Right Stuff The task of revitalizing a church calls for a clear focus on the right stuff. There must be a focus on prayer, forgiveness, and putting aside everything that disengages us from the unity, peace, love, and the mercy of God. A great example of right focus is seen when Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem. The walls were broken down. The city was vulnerable. But regardless of the obstacles before them, they were able to repair the city. Nehemiah refused to be sidetracked by the hindrances that appeared because of his focus on the task at hand.

evangelism and discipleship your main priorities? Do you have a God-given vision for your church? Finally, do you have the courage to lovingly challenge the status quo in your church? How you answer these questions will determine your success in revitalizing your church.

Step 4 - Get Rid of the Weightiness Hebrews 12:1 says “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” During any effort to revitalize, you remove the old things and replaced them with the new. This passage speaks clearly about the power of those weighty things that “so easily ensnares us.” It gives clear instruction to get rid of those things in order to run the proper race. For the pastor/leader that would revitalize the church sinful habits, relationships or activities that continue to clutter the life must be removed. There may be some spiritual behavior that no longer adds value to your ministry and may even stop you from being all God wants you to be, get rid of it.

Step 5 - Deal with the Hindrances The truth is, there will always be hindrances to ministry.

It all began in the Garden of Eden and the fall of Adam

Step 7 - Keep on Keeping On As a young pastor I learned the importance of the phrase of “keep on keeping on.” My life was blessed by an elderly lady that prayed for me daily and every time she spoke with me she would always say “preacher keep on keeping on. Those words are still dear to me because I realize that if success in anything comes it will come by “keep on keeping on.” Revitalizing a church takes lots of work and time.

But you can do it if you “keep on keeping on.” That phrase makes Philippians 4:13 come alive when it says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Take these seven steps and one day you’ll look back in awe of how God used you to change the course of a church that Jesus died for.

Steve Sells is the president and CEO of Operation Transformation church revitalization ministry in Salisbury, North Carolina. Steve has served in ministry for 43 years in North Carolina and Georgia. Dr. Sells is the co-author of the book With Greater Power. He seeks to help churches of all sizes experience new health and growth.

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There’s a Breakthrough in Your Future

By Bud Brown The breakthrough came when the kitchen floor collapsed beneath the head deacon’s wife. Her screams interrupted a contentious business meeting going on in the pastor’s office at the other end of the building. The pastor and deacons came running. They found her dangling through the kitchen floor, halfway up to her armpits.

The church’s founders built it in the mid-nineteenth century on a post-in-ground foundation. Large wooden posts driven into the ground held it up off the East Texas clay. Generations had come and gone in this family sized church. By the mid-twentieth century the years had taken their toll.

The kitchen floor epitomized the debate being held in the pastor’s office at that moment. Was it time for a new church building? Maintenance was endless and growing. The ramshackle building with weathered siding and a sagging roof looked like something from The Grapes of Wrath. The town was becoming a bedroom community for the metroplex an hour’s drive west.

The only argument against building was, “This church was good enough for my parents, my grandparents, and my great grandparents. It’s good enough for me and anyone else who walks through those doors.” The head deacon and his extended family felt deep devotion to an enduring symbol of family faithfulness through the generations. In small churches, values grounded in family history and shared experiences rather than in scripture, are a nettlesome problem for revitalization

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pastors. They are a powerful deterrent to change, and they are immune to reason. What do you do when emotional attachment makes rational discussion impossible?

One tactic, followed by a friend and colleague who related this story, is to seize the opportune moment when it presents itself. The kitchen floor’s collapse silenced the deacon’s insistence that the tired, old building was good enough. Irrefutable evidence of the building’s dangerous condition looked up at him and said, “Get me out of this hole.”

The church’s response and the results illustrate what is needed to revitalize a small church.

Urgency Creating urgency is the revitalization pastor’s first task. This is more difficult in small churches that have learned how to hang on through decades of struggle and stagnation. They know how to endure hardship like good soldiers in Christ’s army. They were hanging on before you got there as pastor, and they’ll be hanging on long after you’re gone. Or so they think.

Something must make them jump. Change agents often use the “burning platform” as a metaphor for creating urgency. It’s based on the story of a North Sea oil rig that exploded in 1988, killing 167. Andy Mochan survived the explosion but faced a desperate choice: burn or jump? Andy survived the 150-foot

drop into the freezing water. When asked how he made the decision he said, “Better probable death than certain death.”

That’s the choice that confronts small churches all over America today.

And suddenly, they feel the urgency so long ignored.

God’s sovereign governance of recent events has created widespread uncertainty, concern for the future, and doubt about whether many of these small churches will survive.

Dwindling offerings, lack of technological expertise, questions about how to minister in cyberspace, and fear that folks may not return laden us with a sense of urgency we cannot ignore.

Will these churches take a chance on revitalization, making changes long overdue? Or will they stand put while the flames engulf them? That is the choice. Be thankful, pastor, that the church is finally facing reality.

After the collapsing kitchen flood episode, the church voted virtually unanimously, with one exception (can you guess who?), to build. Undeniable urgency swept away all resistance to change.

There’s no magic formula for creating urgency in a small church. A revitalization pastor must understand the congregation’s deepest values, know which members set the agenda, and be ready to seize the opportune moment. Small churches won’t move toward revitalization without a sense of urgency.

Opportunity Urgency often opens the door to mobilizing the whole church. The collapsing kitchen floor motivated the congregation to tackle an enormous building project. Once the project was complete, the pastor channeled that energy into other projects that revitalized the church. I’ve seen this happen on several occasions. George Hunter describes the power of the “Breakthrough Project” in chapter 10 of Leading and Managing a Growing Church. He recites the emblematic story of a small country church that had dwindled to 45. Everyone was a member of one of three clans. No “outsider” had joined in decades. A shabby building, reheated sermons, and an unrehearsed choir typified their lax approach to ministry. Eight years later the church was bursting at the seams with over 250 in attendance, 400 members, and dozens of new converts every year. What precipitated the revitalization?

It started with a tornado. Storm damage created urgency in an instant. The members organized a work group to fix the place up. Soon they were tackling other, long overdue projects. Everyone pitched in one way or another. They enjoyed working together on a shared goal, something that had not happened in a long time. Momentum continued to build. When opportunities to serve the community popped up, the church

grabbed them. They provided care and resources to people facing various life challenges. The unchurched saw what was happening. They wanted to know more.

Revitalization occurred because they responded to desperate urgency by tackling a huge task that became their “Breakthrough Project.” Hunter writes, “Over twenty-five years of studying churches, I have observed this pattern frequently. In fact, the Shiloh Church case study is a semi-fictional account informed by about twenty such cases, though the Shiloh case is not extreme but rather typical, more or less of the kind of renewal that hundreds of churches have experienced and a hundred thousand could experience.”1 Urgency is all over the nightly news. Channel it into a mobilized church. For example, the small church often lacks the instrumental talent to produce inspiring worship. But this foray into online technology presents one solution to that problem: a technician managing streaming music and a singer with a passable voice can lead uplifting worship. Small church outreach and evangelism are often low energy or no energy.

In the last eight weeks your church members have become familiar with social media. Organize a task force to train and deploy your members as “digital missionaries” who spread the good news and minister to people on every social media channel. Are you finding that attendance at your Zoom prayer meetings is up? Why not continue holding prayer meetings in cyberspace? Your people have indicated they appreciate the convenience and their willingness to join in prayer, so keep it going! Channel these virtual prayer meetings to focus on church revitalization and mission. Get them praying for people, by name, to hear and believe the gospel.

This is your opportune moment, pastor. Think through the changes needed to revitalize your church. Consider how recent events have paved the way to making those changes.

Then organize your church to take on those projects. You’ll be amazed what the people of God can accomplish when they respond to the opportunities the Lord offers them.

Who knows? Maybe there’s a breakthrough in your church’s future.

1 George G. Hunter, Leading and Managing a Growing Church, p. 115.

Bud Brown has ministered in a wide variety of settings, from small rural to mid-sized suburban to rapidly growing megachurches. He has trained and mentored international students, intentional interim pastors, doctoral students, and now serves as president of Turnaround Pastors (www.turnaroundpastor.com).

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Facing Institutionalized Survival

By Pete Tackett Throughout this edition, you will see very capable practitioners of Church Revitalization tell you how to make structural changes to dying churches in an attempt to breathe new life back into them. Our assigned topic for this magazine is “Dealing with Structural Changes in Church Revitalization,” and these writers have a long history of helping churches evaluate and massage the inner structures of the church.

Let me bring to the table a different idea. To be sure, it has to do with structural change for revitalization, but before we can make changes, we have to understand why that structure exists in the first place. All of us who consult and lead revitalization strategies have at one time or another looked at some part of a church’s skeletal system and shaken our heads in amazement! After all, who would have deliberately put a system like “this” in place. It often looks like it was created for the express purpose of HINDERING the work of the Kingdom and the health of that local body.

Let me offer to you this simple explanation and then flesh it out with specifics and examples because if you don’t understand the “why” of some of these structures, you will underestimate the passion and even venom with which they come back to you when you try to make changes to that specific structure.

Over the last fifteen years, I have come to describe it as Institutionalized Survival. Let’s begin with the most common structure of all, the local church constitution and bylaws. I

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have told dozens of churches that if they will let me read their operating documents, I can tell them most of the bad things that have happened in the church in the past. When something happens that hurts, causes division, or leads to upheaval, churches often pass a bylaw or amend their constitution to prohibit it from happening again. An unfortunate byproduct of that is the revitalizing pastor often has his hands tied by archaic rules that are designed to stop something from happening after the fact and would likely never happen again even without that bylaw.

A prime example would be a young revitalizer I know who attempted to lead his church to stop doing a Sunday evening service in favor of going all in on community outreach and children’s ministry. Their Sunday night AWANA program was the one thing that was not on life support when he arrived but, because the church had been in decline for many years, staffing a growing children’s ministry, which is always hard, was made doubly difficult by needing some of the best workers to staff a Sunday night service.

When he began to float a trial balloon about doing away with that service, he was stunned at how even the AWANA leadership clapped back at him. It turns out that many years earlier, a young pastor had tried to change the time of some services very quickly after he became their pastor.

It turned into an uproar, the pastor was forced to resign, and the current leadership informed this revitalizer that they had passed a bylaw shortly afterward requiring them to have an 11 AM and 6 PM service each week to make sure it never happened again. It took him months, but he got

it changed. It was a case of institutionalized survival that stopped them from doing what needed to be done if the church was to survive. Ironic!

Another place where institutionalized survival rears its ugly head is in the framework of a dying church’s small group strategy. I know that sounds like a weird place, but hear me out. As a church begins to die, people leave. At some point, the small groups made up of the “winners” or those who got their way remain strong and others struggle to survive. At some point, a well-meaning Minister of Education or Sunday School Director can no longer staff the groups, so he starts to combine groups, even if temporarily just to survive, and these new groups consolidate influence under the people who won the big argument, whatever it was about.

structures in their church, you will not be able to accomplish much. Sure, you may ride roughshod over some of them with the “new pastor” capital you have to expend, but at some point, the church is going to say no to you and yes to someone in the church who they have known and loved for much longer. Most churches, without being educated as to why things are the way they are and why they should change, will defend their structures.

“The crazy thing about institutionalized survival in the small group structure is that after a while, it becomes the very enemy of what it wants and the ally of what it hates..”

By the time a revitalizer gets to that church, he is faced with an institutionalized infrastructure that was meant to build community but now has two major problems. The first is simple. When you are combining small groups into wider age spans and more affinities, the sense of community is lost and it just becomes another lecture from the Bible. The second, harder to recognize and more insidious, is that the leaders of these now larger small groups, in an environment where there are fewer small groups to choose from, wield greater influence. Add to that their love for the church and a feeling they have that God appointed them to defend the church from any more bad things happening, and you have someone fighting the revitalizer’s suggested structural changes out of fear.

The crazy thing about institutionalized survival in the small group structure is that after a while, it becomes the very enemy of what it wants and the ally of what it hates. Fewer and larger community groups mean that new people find it increasingly difficult to find a niche. As a result, the church continues to be plateaued or declining and the influential small group leader can’t figure out why, so it must be the revitalizer’s fault.

There are other examples of institutionalized survival, and probably each one reading this could point out some. The problem is that when it is entrenched, there is no amount of force that can dismantle it. You can charge the proverbial windmill all you want, but until you can talk to your leadership team about the “why” of some of those unhealthy

The key to a church revitalizer overcoming institutionalized survival is two-fold - focus and follow up.

A church revitalizer has to choose his battles carefully and he cannot be fighting too many battles at one time. He has to choose his top two or three issues and work on them relentlessly until he understands why it is so important to some of his leaders. It will often require a conversation about something that happened earlier in the life of the church and listening to the fear it created and the pain that ensued.

Focusing on the why allows you to help them face the fears associated with the what. It is time well spent.

Follow up means convincing those involved that you are not “that” guy and articulating clearly the need, the trends, and the fact that you are on their team. Reassure them you have no plans to add to their previous pain.

Although it is a term I have coined, revitalizers need to understand the institutionalized survival structures in their environment and work on dismantling them by focus and follow up.

Pete Tackett is Lead Pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Johnson City, Tennessee, and a Pastor Connector for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board. He regularly partners with churches and pastors engaging in revitalization. He is the author of re.Vital.ize: Lessons Learned in a Recovering Church.

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7 Traits of a Revitalized Pivoting Church

By Gary Moritz It seems that this season and 2020 has brought about accelerated change, adjustments, and continual pivots. It also appears that people are growing more and more tired of the unrest and inconsistency that is swirling around us. Moments and times like these can lead us to forget why we are here and what God has called us to do.

Think about a time when you got so caught up in the moment that you completely forgot about the original reason why you were there or why you were doing something. Men do this all the time. Their wife sends them to the grocery store for milk and bread, and they come home with new tools from Lowes. They get caught up in the moment and forget their main purpose for the errand.

When we, as followers of Christ, get so caught up in the day-today moments and stressors of this season, we can miss our original purpose. It is at this point that we need to pivot.

We know that ministry is not going to get any easier. As the day of Christ’s second coming approaches, we know that the times and culture will continue to get worse and doing ministry will get even more challenging.

In 2020 it was COVID. Next year, it could be something else. Now the point is not to discourage you but rather to encourage you. No matter what you and your ministry face, you must be willing to pivot to keep the mission and God’s call in focus. In fact, it should be our laser focus. One thing holds true for all of us, we can’t trade the mission for the moment.

The most significant pivot we can make back to the mission happens through revitalized prayer. This always leads to structural changes. We move towards what we pray towards.

Revitalized prayer means we are talking to Jesus in the moments to pivot back to the mission. Leaders are tired, discouraged, worn out, zoomed out, screened out, and stressed out!

This has been a challenging time to lead for everyone. We have never faced a disruption like this in our lifetime. But the Lord’s goodness, protection, and provision are still shining through.

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The first church living in the minority under Roman pressures and laws faced many challenges. They were resilient. They pivoted and changed based on the cultural trends and laws of the time. They were humble, teachable, and willing to do whatever it took to follow Christ. The challenges we have faced in 2020 may be unique, but suffering and trials are not new to the faith.

The church has been dealing with trials since it was formed, and the only way we are going to make it through suffering and trials is through pivoting and prayer.

This season is a great time to realign, readjust, renew, and revitalize ourselves and our prayer life. Imagine if every leader during this season captured this moment to embrace the mission and what the Lord has called them to do. Imagine if every community was looking to their local church for hope.

Imagine if every family in your church came to you and said, “Pastor, whatever it takes to reach our community, we will do it!”

In Acts 4:23-37, we see seven traits of a revitalized church that pivoted to make structural changes to their prayer life during a tough season, and out of it flowed everything else. In a revitalized church …

1. Prayer is a priority.

In a praying church, there is a recognition of the supreme importance of revitalized prayer. Therefore, there is a spontaneous desire for prayer (vs 23-24a).

“After they were released, they went to their own people and reported everything the chief priests and the elders had said to them. When they heard this, they raised their voices together to God.” — Acts 4:23-24 (CSB) I have heard that if you want to guarantee a small crowd at church, announce a prayer meeting. I am here to tell you - if you wish to have a revived church, have a prayer meeting. We need to repent of our lack of communication with our Lord. This must be a structural change we pivot to. We need to stand together and raise our voices to Almighty God and ask Him to move.

2. Faith is essential.

In a praying church, the eyes of faith and expectancy are revitalized towards the Lord (vs 24b-28).

As a pastor and leader, remember your call. Remember who has called you to lead at this time, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. This passage states, “After they were threatened...” Threats should not stop you. Do what the first church did. In verse 24, they raised their voices together to God. Start praying and then believe that Jesus can do it! It’s not about, “Let me check with the deacons, let’s wait for our next business meeting.” You go to God first.

they “… began to speak the word of God boldly.” In an auditory culture with no social media and technology, shouting to get a message across to a group of people was needed. Preach means to proclaim, and when one proclaims, it should be bold. Then the people notice.

If people are not preaching and proclaiming the Word of God, something is wrong. The gospel needs to move from the seats to the streets and into the homes of our communities. It is time to rethink, realign, and beg God to revitalize our hearts towards a gospel mission so that people can hear, follow, and believe Jesus.

3. Obedience is natural.

In a praying church, there is a revitalized desire to obey the Lord’s commission to evangelize the world (v 29). The first church desired to speak the Word with all boldness. The church right now needs to speak with boldness and stand in the gap for a spiritual structural change for our nation.

7. Grace is embraced.

In a praying church, there is revitalized and prioritized grace in the lives of God’s people (vs 32-37). The story in Acts closes with great power as the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. It says that great grace was on all of them.

Tough seasons will produce two types of leaders, “Pioneers” and “Settlers.” The Pioneer craves to check out the new territory, the original dream. The Settler desires to just hunker down. I thank God for both, but the bold pioneering leader will be the one that breaks future ground for the gospel. It’s not time to give up and quit. Remember 1 Thessalonians 5:24 “He who calls you is faithful; he will do it.” Now is the time to ask the Lord to grant you the ability to speak His Word with boldness.

As followers of Christ, we must be One. We must think of ourselves as one kingdom team with one kingdom dream to see people come to Christ by the thousands. There is beauty in the statement, “And great grace was upon all of them … they were giving testimony to the resurrected Lord.”

4. Miracles are expected.

In a praying church, there is a revitalized faith that begs Jesus to work (v 30). What are the miracles you are praying for through the name of Jesus in your life, church, and community? Let’s face it, we cannot have the attitude that God cannot work in our church and community. We need to pray that Jesus will save our neighbors and our neighborhood. What miracles are you praying for today?

5. Power is evident.

In a praying church, the Holy Spirit manifests His presence and power, which revitalizes us (vs 31a, c). The Bible says in verse 31, “When they had prayed, the place where they were assembled was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God boldly.” The Spirit of God brings dead things back to life. Without life, all you have is death.

Can God work in your church, or is He just something on the schedule? When the early Christians prayed, the place was shaken. Imagine if you prayed and God shook your area and the whole community pivoted towards something greater. Remember, if you have too much of the Spirit, you blow up. If you have too little of the Spirit, you dry up. But if you stay balanced and dependent on Jesus, you grow up in Him.

We are not Christians because the Bible said so. We are Christians because something happened over 2,000 years ago that changed the world. Jesus Christ came to this earth and died for our selfishness and disobedience. This is called sin. He went to the grave, and on the third day, He rose again. Don’t forget that He is coming back for those who trust and obey Him. Obedience is God’s love language, and He is waiting for us to trust and obey Him. Don’t focus on the season you are going through; focus on the Savior you are running to. He has called you to more extraordinary things. Dream again because God will do it.

Remember, do not trade the moment for the mission!

Gary Moritz is the lead pastor of City United Church, located in Lunenburg, MA. With a church planter mindset, the Lord called him and his family to New England in 2013 to take over a church in need of revitalization through a pastoral succession. He also works for Liberty University as a subject matter expert on church revitalization and as a assistant professor in the School of Divinity, and he serves as the Director of Church Revitalization for the Baptist Convention of New England.

6. The gospel is primary.

In a praying church, there is a mighty power in the preaching of the gospel which revitalizes the mission. Verse 31 says that

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Let’s Cover the Land in

Thank You Jesus Signs!

How it all started...

In 2016, a young teenager named Lucas Hunt prayed for help to display Easter signs in his hometown of Asheboro, NC. Also, he prayed that these efforts would have a giant impact on the Kingdom. A few weeks later a board member at his church, Connie Frazier, sought the Lord’s direction concerning an Easter project for their congregation.

Lucas and Connie were unaware of each other’s prayers and desires. Then, God spoke very clearly to Connie instructing her to design a Thank You Jesus yard sign that would be distributed nationwide.

Thank You Jesus signs were embraced and the wave of gratitude took hold.

Lucas’ prayers and vision, support from Lucas’ parents and Connie’s design and business background led to the creation of the Thank You Jesus signs. This project, with its roots in a small rural church, has turned into a 501(C)3 that receives royalties from the artwork to invest in sharing the Gospel. The investments include grants to spiritual non-profit organizations that seek to share God’s love and the many reasons why we Thank Jesus.

Over 250,000 signs have been sold along with car magnets, gar den flags and bracelets. Hundreds of people have been led by the Lord to purchase and display the signs as a ministry of sharing God’s goodness through Jesus Christ. Become part of the Thank You Jesus movement as it spreads throughout the country!

t r a p e m Becof the o T!

N E M E V O M

www.thankyoujesussigns.com

The Power of Example

By David Jackson A few years ago, at the graduation of our students in the Christian school connected to the church where I was serving as pastor, the commencement speaker reminded us all, “You teach what you know, but you reproduce who you are.” This profound statement declares the importance of our example. What we do matters more than what we say we will do. And nowhere is it more important than in the home.

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regularly. But he does little—really nothing—to correct their behavior and evil ways. He is a poor parent, and this is evident to all who know him well…especially young Samuel. God chastises Eli for this, and the death of his sons is the fulfillment of prophesy, and God’s tragic judgment upon them all (1 Samuel 4:11).

Those who are a part of our family know us better than anyone else on the planet. They know if we practice what we preach. They see us at our best, and they see us at our worst. The value of our example shapes them daily and it impacts their future. They come to know by how we live what our priorities in life really are, and what truly matters to us. And often, they carry these realities into their own lives, without even realizing why. It’s the power of example.

But what does Samuel learn from this? It would be easy to say he knew what was the right and, perhaps more obviously, the wrong things to do in raising his own children. He has seen blatant disregard and wrath firsthand.

However, the Scripture tells us he, too, had the same problems with his sons Eli had previously had with Hophni and Phineas; “they turned toward dishonest profit, took brides, and perverted justice (1 Samuel 8:3).” That’s the power of example. It trumps all we say, and negates the good we attempt to teach when we don’t live it ourselves.

This month I’ve been spending time in 1 Samuel as a part of my quiet time with God. Young Samuel is raised in the priestly home of Eli, who tends to God’s Tabernacle daily, and does his priestly duty. His two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, though, are wicked and manipulative, using their position as priests for their own good and to the detriment of God’s people (1 Samuel 2:12-14 22). They tarnish the reputation of God publicly and embarrass Eli

The revitalizing pastor must take seriously the words of the apostle Paul, who reminds young Timothy that all overseers (i.e., pastors/elders) need to “manage [their] own household competently and have [their] children under control with all dignity (1 Timothy 3:4).” The apostle goes on to suggest clearly that one who can’t manage his own household is not likely to manage God’s church, either.

Three principles are obvious in correlation to the church for the pastor as he manages his household, principles I learned well in ministry from my behavior and the behavior of others.

These divorces were perhaps hasty and unnecessary, due to my rash, impetuous nature and my desire to have my own way. Marriage taught me that teamwork and partnership are more valuable in terms of impact than I could ever accomplish on my own. The ripple effect on others alone is important enough for a church to recognize in trusting and relying on the revitalizer to lead them into the future.

First, past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. This principle, used in assessing church planters for over two decades, serves us well in all ministry positions. Please note what this principle does not say. It does not suggest the past is a guarantee of the future in terms Third, if the pastor stays long enough, the congregaof behavior: it is only a predictor. And it doesn’t suggest tion will begin to reflect him in their own lives. His priit’s the only predictor, just the best one we have available orities will become their priorities; his values will become to us. Certainly, people can change, their values; and, his behavior will especially under the transforming become their behavior. Gary McInwork of God, but the best evidence tosh says it typically takes about we have of how they will behave seven years for this “mirror effect” in the future is to look at their beto take place between pastor and havior in the past. If a pastor has parishioners. This is why it so ab“Certainly, people can managed his family well in the past, solutely critical healthy replanters chances are he will in the future. and revitalizers stay at their post change, especially in these churches long enough to under the transforming Moreover, the more we see desired make a significant difference. behavior(s) at work in the revitalizwork of God, but the er’s life, the more we can feel confiRevitalizer, what do you see when best evidence we have dent this is a habitual characteristic you look in the mirror? I can promof who he is. In other words, this ise your wife and children are lookof how they will behave principle has even greater validity ing too, and they see more than a in the future is to look if there is evidence of it found in reflection; they see what is daily a variety of work settings, avocabecoming more and more of who at their behavior in tional interests, recreation, student they actually are in the throes of the past.” life, etc., and if the same patterns life. Your example is rubbing off of behavior are seen over decades, on them, and they will hear you in instead of just a few months. Why their ears, and see you with their is this important? By corollary, Paul eyes. It’s the power of example. reminds young Timothy that it can be instructive of a leader’s ministry aptitude in managFor years I struggled with the apostle Paul, who told his ing the church. Your example speaks louder than your congregations, “Imitate me, as I also imitate Christ (1 resume, because it declares your expected behavior.

Corinthians 11:1).” In my younger days I found this to be arrogant, brash, even self-absorbed. But as I grew older, Second, fidelity is seen over time. Men who are faithful though, I began the realize the reality “you reproduce to their wives and families over time demonstrate they who you are.” Paul was right to point his churches to his are people who take their vows seriously, their commitown journey of sanctification. It is critically important! ments to heart. They honor the relationships and people The challenge is, can we do the same with those in our involved because they recognize God as their witness to churches who follow our lead? these promises made. When marriage is held in high esteem, the couple love and respect each other after many J. David Jackson serves with the years. If they are still faithfully dedicated to each other North American Mission Board, and the family God has given them, it suggests the reviSBC, as the Replant specialist for talizer will take seriously his commitment before God to the Northeast region, and is author the church, as well. of the book “ReNEW: Traveling the Forgotten Path,” which elaborates Early in my ministry I found myself taking the easy way these principles in greater detail. It out when things became tough in the churches where I can be found at amazon.com. Jackson can be reached at served. I resigned and moved to a new church, citing “irdrjdavidjackson@gmail.com. reconcilable differences” with the previous congregation.

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4 Keys to Replanting Rural Churches

By Matt Henslee & Kyle Bueermann There are no-name places all over the nation. These are places the rest of the world has forgotten about (it’s called flyover country for a reason).

But in these places are people serving God faithfully who want to see the Kingdom of God expand. Not to mention scores of people who need Jesus.

People Need Jesus in Nowhere, USA. According to the Southern Baptist Church Annual Church Profiles (ACP), there were 5,297,788 people gathered in Southern Baptist churches on any given Sunday in 2018.

These folks gathered in 51,541 Southern Baptist churches and church-type missions. If you simply divide those numbers, it comes out to a little more than 102 people per church or church-type mission.

But in actuality, when you account that some of those are megachurches, the weekly worship average attendance in a typical Southern Baptist church is closer to 65 people.

Why does this matter? It matters because, with very few exceptions, in a rural setting, you’ll be serving a normative-size church regardless of your denomination. In some cases, 250 people might rival the number of people who live in your community.

In more extreme cases, like in Mayhill Baptist Church in Mayhill, New Mexico, the church will often run three times the population of the community in worship attendance.

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So forget going to Nowhere, USA to make a name for yourself. Forget going to Nowhere, USA to land on the conference circuit. I mean, you might as well forget going to Nowhere, USA to grow a church into a megachurch. Let’s go to reclaim churches the world has all but forgotten about. God hasn’t forgotten about these churches and neither should you.

Instead, let’s go to reclaim churches the world has all but forgotten about. God hasn’t forgotten about these churches and neither should you. Here are four keys to replant rural churches.

1. Preaching in a Rural Church.

Biblical preaching may not always be popular. In fact, it may even cause you to lose some folks. However, the point is to be faithful, and God will bless your efforts.

Biblical preaching takes time, but it’s absolutely necessary.

After all, when Jesus said, “Feed my sheep,” it wasn’t a suggestion—it was a command.

Jesus doesn’t expect you to hit a home run each Sunday; He expects you to preach the Word. Your people don’t need you to be the next Dr. Adrian Rogers; they need (insert your name here) to preach the Word.

Fads will come and go. Trends will shift by the seasons, but there’s only one never-changing truth worth staking your church’s future upon: the Lord and His Word.

2. Praying in a Rural Church.

One of the keys to revitalization in any context is prayer. You have no power to revitalize anything on your own, never

mind the ability to see God’s glory reclaimed in a church in the middle of nowhere.

If you want to see God’s kingdom expand in places the world has passed by and passed over, it’ll require reliance on the supernatural provision of God. In a rural area, you’re going to have to rely on God’s provision for your family. There’ll be some tough days for you. But there will be tough days for your people as well.

And God promises to meet the needs of His people, though not necessarily on your or your people’s timelines. Make no mistake, however, God will provide.

3. Passion in a Rural Church.

What a privilege it is to pastor the bride of Christ. We who are called to this have been entrusted with Jesus’ sheep.

This means you might get dirty, and there will be days that you will want to hang up the shepherd’s staff and sell cars. But what a privilege!

Take a moment right now to thank God for the church He’s given you or the church He may one day give you. Consider what a great responsibility it is.

phenomenal days of ministry, there will be days when you just can’t seem to win, and there will be everything else in between.

But if you aim to revitalize or replant a church, you need to realize you just signed up to climb Mt. Everest, backward, while carrying years of baggage on your back.

You’ll slip, you’ll fall, and you’ll likely face an avalanche of criticism along the way, but there is something special about planting that flag on the top of the mountain because there is no way you can say, “Look what I did.”

No, that’s a flag that says, “Look what God did!”

“Let’s go to reclaim churches the world has all but forgotten about. God hasn’t forgotten about these churches and neither should you.”

Hebrews 12:2 says, “For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” For the joy that lay before Him, Jesus endured the greatest agony imaginable. Let me be clear: you can handle a couple of bad days. Not only that, you can do so with a little pep in your step. Think about it. You preach the Word of God to the people of God in the house of God in which dwells the Spirit of God. I can’t think of a better reason to have a little passion!

You preach the Word of God to the people of God in the house of God in which dwells the Spirit of God. I can’t think of a better reason to have a little passion!

4. Persevering in a Rural Church.

Sometimes, we quit too soon. Jim-Bob got angry the special music on Memorial Day didn’t include the military service songs and that you weren’t wearing your American flag tie. Sue-Anne put you on blast on Facebook because you preached two minutes past noon.

When we quit too soon, we not only miss out on a potential blessing, we also move our church even farther back. Instead, play the long game.

Decide from the beginning that, barring a clear call from the Lord, you will be there indefinitely. Sign a blank check to the Lord for that church and tell Him, “Spend me as You will.”

Roaring Back to Life Pastor, it’s not your job to build your church. It’s Jesus’ job, and there’s no foundation other than Him.

If you will put your fruitfulness on the altar—along with your desires to grow a platform or build a name for yourself—and follow Paul’s encouragement to Timothy to, “preach the Word...with great patience,” we believe Jesus will take care of the rest. And you just might see a rural church roar back to life.

Excerpted from Replanting Rural Churches by Matt Henslee and Kyle Bueermann. Used by permission.

Matt Henslee is the pastor of Mayhill Baptist Church, a church in the middle of nowhere in southern New Mexico. He is a D.Min student of expository preaching at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, co-host of Not Another Baptist Podcast, and managing editor of LifeWay Pastors, 2nd Vice President of the Baptist Convention of New Mexico, and co-author of Replanting Rural Churches.

You reach for the ripcord, and off you go; you’re out of there.

Don’t. Lay down your roots and persevere. There will be some

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The local church is the only organization that can facilitate eternal hope, lasting change, and total transformation in the lives of people and communities everywhere. Even so, today’s local churches are often in desperate need of renewal and revitalization themselves. In The Revitalized Church, Pastor Michael Atherton uses his firsthand experiences to show how a local church community can once again become vibrant. The Revitalized Church shares Atherton’s eighteen-month journey merging two church communities with a common vision and discusses the challenges and the victories he encountered. In addition, he examines the key biblical leadership principles that were used to help sustain the church community.

Do the Two-Step on the Doorstep

By Tracy Jaggers I have been asked by church leaders over the last nine years how I would respond if their church refused to enter into the church revitalization process I had just finished presenting? The second question posed to me was very similar in nature – How would I respond to a congregation that stated unequivocally that they wanted the process but stopped it midstream? I try to explain by being gracious and congenial, which is not normally my reaction to anything. Every church has the authority to function as they see fit, even if they are wrong.

I have had pastors refuse by avoiding my initial interview question. I ask, “Are you certain you are the person to lead this revitalization process?” If they answer the question any other way than passionately affirmative, I can usually chalk that one up as a no. I had a pastor who resisted answering the question affirmatively in the first and second meetings and by our third contact he informed me that he had been terminated by his congregation. People can sense when there is no vision and/or weak leadership.

But what should be our response to those who go through the interview phase, agree to the surveying and observations, and actively participate in the congregational workshop weekend? They select a future vision team and work studiously through the hours of training to lead the body into a strategy to get back on track for a healthy and vibrant future, but then, the pastor, the vision team and/or the congregation, balks at making the adjustments that are needed for the church to move upward and forward.

So, what can we do? Can we force the agreement made prior to the launch of the process? Should we guilt them into following through with their commitment? What should be our response?

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I believe scripture gives us a glimpse into how we should respond to an unwillingness to change. The context of Mark 6:11 follows right on the heels of Jesus attempting to minister in His hometown of Nazareth. But, because of their unbelief He was unable to do mighty works there.

Next, it is recorded that He was sending out His disciples, two by two, with power over the demonic to spread His Word to others. Mark 6:11 (NLT) says, “But if any place (topos - occupied location) refuses to welcome you or listen to you, shake its dust (spiritually and physically) from your feet as you leave to show that you have abandoned those people to their fate.” This may not seem like the “Christian” thing to do, but there comes a time when we must discontinue wasting time on those who do not want to change or refuse to be changed. There comes a time when we must move on to those who are pliable, receptive and eager for a healthy ministry.

I love automobiles and I am certain we can learn a thing or two from them in a situation as well. Learning when to change gears in a manual transmission car can be difficult and painful, but it leads to smoother travel and faster results. When the car is stalling or getting out of control, it is time to shift gears. The clutch allows the transmission to shift smoothly from first to second; second to third, and so on. If you try to force the gear selector without the clutch, you will hear loud screeching and you could come to a jolting stop. The same is true when dealing with a dysfunctional church. Do not force the issue of continuing the process. The last sound you may hear could be the screech of disgruntled members and a monkey wrench being tossed into the gearbox. A stalled vehicle is one thing but breaking down on the side of the road, is something altogether different. The congregation needs to admit and accept

the findings of the survey and observations, and they have to own their desperate need for revitalization. But, if they have already determined to park the process, no amount of force or guilt will terminate their ruin Our task is to keep the momentum going when the Lord gets hold of a church family and they are desperately striving for a healthy church body and a community-impacting ministry. The Holy Spirit is the one who convicts and teaches; we are the assistants to keep the gears lubricated and point the wheels in the right direction. We can train; He can transform!

So, what should we do when we are hampered by an unwillingness to move toward the goals they have disclosed during the observations and the congregational workshop?

First, remind them that the findings were uncovered and displayed by them. When we receive the answers from the survey, we do not manipulate the findings and we do not give the report in a manner that sways answers to our desired end. The findings reveal their concern for their church; the weaknesses and strengths they have seen displayed in church leadership and ministry and the hopes and dreams they have for the longevity and perseverance of the church. How they answered is what the report reflects. I have had members disagree with the findings, but the answers belong to the members not to the consultant.

Second, unpack once again the characteristics of a healthy church and ask which characteristics are regularly demonstrated in their church ministry. It is at this point that people begin to defend their church family and minimize the results of the survey. Once again, we remind them that the answers were theirs.

Third, we show the post-it pads; post-it notes and group notes that came out of the congregational workshop.

These items show the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities for future effectiveness, and the barriers that could detour or defeat the opportunities they found through discussion and interaction within their groups. Then those findings are compiled and summarized by all the groups.

Sound like chaos? Yep, it can be and sometimes is! But it is their labor and their terminology that can be reviewed at a later date. These recorded discussions and findings are priceless.

In summary, the method for keeping the church body and the future vision team on track, and focused on their findings, is to regularly display the major needs found in the workshop. The future vision team needs to keep these before their group as well as the church body as a whole.

If we forget our original starting point and to where we sensed God was leading, we will wander around in mediocrity, ineffectiveness, and stagnancy.

But, with all that being said, what if they choose not to follow? What if they choose to stop the process and “go back to Egypt?” Some will choose to go back to what is normal and comfortable, even though it means bondage.

What shall we do then?

I feel very bold in proclaiming, we need to be confident and comfortable in knocking the dust off of our shoes as we head out the door; letting them know clearly and compassionately that we are “abandoning them to their fate.” We should leave warning them that a ministry that is not characterized by evangelism, discipleship and obedience to our Lord’s final commands (Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:8) will lead to decline and death. But we must also leave weeping. Weeping for the congregation as a whole because there are surely those who have been silenced by the nay-sayers. Some desire their church to be faithful to the Great Commission and the Great Commandment but they were out voted. We should weep as Jesus wept, wishing they had allowed us to draw them into the protection and provision of the revitalization process. Weeping for those who may be overlooked because the ministry will falter and maybe even fail. Weeping because our Lord has taken the backseat to the selfishness of a group of people who claim to be followers of Christ but are lovers of men rather than lovers of God. I write this article with a heavy heart because I have worked with those who said no. I weep for the family of God when a local body chooses comfortable and convenient over the transformation and deliverance of the lost souls of humanity. May our Lord never have to shed a tear over you or me!

Tracy Jaggers is the Associational Director of Missions of Gateway Baptist Association, Edwardsville, Illinois. He has held the Senior Pastor, Associate Pastor, Minister of Music, Youth Pastor and Minister of Education roles. He is a contributing author for the book entitled, Practical Tools for Reinventing the Dying Church. His website is: www.churchoverhauler.com

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The Foundation of Values in the Life of a Pastor

By Gary Westra If a pastor is to have their own house in order before building God’s house, knowing their values is foundational. After considering the relationship of mission and vision to values, we will look at four foundational value orientations.

Mission and Vision The church and pastor both need to have clarity about mission, vision, and values. In my consulting at Turnaround Pastor Inc. I am constantly amazed that these terms are confused. I hear the same lament from every church consultant I know!

Values Finally, values answer the why question. Jesus stated why he came when he said, “10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10) Why does your church do what it does? Why are certain things of particular merit or importance? In large measure, the pastor’s personal values will inform the church’s values. A part of knowing what your church values is clarity about what you value as the pastor. There will be an inevitable overlap between the pastor’s values and the church’s values. The pastor should be the leader of the church and their values will be visible to the church. Does the pastor value community? Then the church should reflect that as well.

What do these terms mean? Simply put, mission is what all bible-based churches have in common. It is the purposes of the church that state what the church will do. It can be expressed How do we determine what a pastor and church value? with a variation of five “Es:” exalt, extend, evangelize, equip, and encourage. Many churches and pastors simply state the mission One approach would be to have a team consider the issue as the Great Commission. over many months, studying, discussing, and determining the church’s values. This would be an extensive and lengthy Vision is a picture of a preferable future that is unique to your process. I suggest two shorter processes, one for the pastor/ church. It is unique to you because it is based on an accurate church, and one for the pastor alone. understanding of your church and context. It is how your church will express its purpose in your time, place, and context.

The first process is disarmingly simple, yet effective. Google “church values” and find several lists. Circle values from the lists It is very common to mistake vision with a statement of mission. that you think are true of you and your church. Ask yourself the For example, the familiar phrase, “To know Christ and make him question, “Do we really demonstrate this, or just aspire to it?” known” is often called a vision statement. But notice that all You want to affirm values that you demonstrate, that are true churches should be able to state that. Bible-believing churches of you. Generate your own list from those you circle. I think have that in common. It is a statement of mission. your list should have no more than five values. You may want to winnow down your list by showing a longer list to several It would become a statement of vision if it said, “To know Christ key leaders and ask them to choose five. This is a simple way to and make him known to 50 single parent families and families discern your values quickly. with special needs children in Smith County by the year 2022.”

This statement refers to a particular people in a particular time Four Foundational Value Orientations from the Core and place. It is measurable and speaks to what is unique about Value Index this specific church. It paints a picture of a preferable future, one The second process is to consider the pastor and their own valthat reaches a specific people group. It answers how Christ will ue orientation. To do this, I am using the work of Lynn Taylor be made known.

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of Taylor Protocols Inc. and his Core Value Index. It is an assessment that reveals the innate nature of core motivational drivers.

According to Taylor, there are four core value orientations: 1.

Builder (power), 2. Merchant (love), 3. Innovator (wisdom), and 4. Banker (knowledge). The following quotations and descriptions come from my personal profile.

Builder “The core value of a Builder is Power. Power is the personal energy used to make a difference and create a positive result. This core value is supported by the catalytic value of Faith. Faith is the confidence a person has to say, ‘I know what to do. I know that what I am about to do is right. I will know what to do next.’”

Builders are powerful people who tend to create lasting monuments for themselves and their organizations. Builders act, make decisions, and drive toward results. Their style is to take immediate action and apply their personal energy to create a desired result.

Merchant “The core value of a Merchant is Love. Love is the nurturing of core values in one’s self and in others. This core value is supported by the catalytic value of Truth. Truth is the ability to see the way things are.”

Merchants are amazing salespeople. But more than this, they are the risk-takers, the visionaries, and the traders opening new markets. They see endless possibilities. They foster the pursuit of wealth, art, and beauty. They lead through love and excitement.

They ask others to help them achieve their unique vision. Their strategy is to attract others to their visions, and to nurture the core values in others.

Innovator “The core value of an Innovator is Wisdom. Wisdom is the ability to see the way things work and know what to do about it. This core value is supported by the catalytic value of Compassion.

Compassion is the ability to remain in situations and understand why other people react the way they do.”

Innovators have an ability to solve problems. They observe and understand situations while striving toward effective solutions.

When others around them claim, “It can’t be done,” Innovators come up with a possibility and they ask, “What if?” They lead through brainstorming, innovation, strategic thinking, and the provision of effective strategies.

Banker “The core value of a Banker is Knowledge. Knowledge is the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of things. This core value is supported by the catalytic value of Justice. Justice is the fair and equitable way.”

the most important resources. They assimilate all available data in their field of endeavor. They organize thought and information to help others be more effective. Bankers conserve, analyze, and inform. Their strategy is to constantly gather knowledge, so that when the time comes, they will have the answer.

Here is a quote about my actual results. Note that it speaks of a primary and secondary core value.

Gary, the CVI assessment found you are a MERCHANT-INNOVATOR. This means your primary core value is Merchant – A Merchant’s core value energy is Love. Love in this sense is working toward an inspired vision of what can be, by nurturing the core values in one’s self and in others. You thrive at building relationships and providing an inspired vision for those around you. Your secondary core value is Innovator – An Innovator’s core value energy is Wisdom. Wisdom is the ability to see the way things are, and discern what to do about it. You accurately assess situations and provide solutions.

I find this to be an accurate description of me. It informs me about what I should do, and also where I need help. For example, Dr. Steve Smith of Church Equippers claims pastors need an Implementer to help build ministry systems, implementing the mission, vision, and values. Essentially, he is describing a Builder, which is my lowest core value. I would need a Builder in my inner group of leaders.

In summary, a church’s values and a pastor’s values will overlap. Pastors will have both a core value orientation of 1. Builder (power), 2. Merchant (love), 3. Innovator (wisdom), or 4. Banker (knowledge). Additionally, the church will have other values, things like transparency, community, or mission. A pastor is most prepared to lead in demonstrating a church’s values when they know their own values and their core value orientation.

Pastor, do you know your own values? Are you considering taking the Core Value Index? What is the next step for you and for your church?

Gary Westra has served churches of under 100 to over 1000, primarily serving as Senior Pastor in multi-staff churches. Gary now serves as Vice President of Turnaround Pastor Inc, training church revitalization leaders.

He led a study of the statistically significant characteristics of turnaround pastors. He is co-author of “Pastor Unique: Becoming a Turnaround Leader.

Bankers gain and preserve the most important knowledge.

They take personal responsibility for collecting and preserving

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The Pastor’s Furniture

By Joel Breidenbaugh There are few things I hate more in life than moving. I don’t mind helping someone else move and I’m too cheap to pay for people to pack our own things. The idea of emptying every drawer in my home and picking up every piece of furniture and hoping for a few family members and friends to stick around long enough to help causes me to shudder.

I distinctly remember helping my parents move when I was 16. Lots of people pitched in on that Saturday but as the afternoon turned to evening, they started dropping like flies.

But we had to be out of the old house so we kept working and making 10 minute trips between the houses. We finally called it quits around 4 am and that’s the only time I ever remember my Dad telling my brothers and me not to worry about getting up for church in a few hours because we needed the sleep. I’ve moved seven times as an adult as my wife and I moved from college to seminary and then to the church field. While I looked forward to the next adventure in ministry, I dreaded the process of moving.

For me, once we got all the furniture in the new home, the most grueling part of the move was over. But a new house isn’t a home until everything has its own place and you begin to make some memories there. Putting furniture in its place may require a few moves around the room. If you are married to a woman like my wife, it may even mean moving some furniture from one room to another just to see what it looks like.

When discussing ministry recently with a seasoned pastor, he likened the various roles of a pastor as centering around three pieces of furniture—the pulpit, the desk, and the couch. He’s right about that and I want to take some time to

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flesh that out and discuss the value of each piece of furniture.

It may mean you have to move the furniture around or no longer use it to collect papers or clothes!

The Pulpit I’m convinced the most important piece of furniture for a pastor is the pulpit. I’m not arguing for a massive piece of wooden furniture for a simple stand can suffice. But at the sacred desk is where he delivers a word from God each week.

The pastor can touch the most lives at any one time from the pulpit. He can encourage, inspire, motivate, challenge, rebuke, and lead his people from the Bible when he preaches. The wise, prepared pastor is always ready to “preach the word” (2 Timothy 4:2).

So why do some preachers place so little value on the pulpit (preaching)? Why do they put off their study and preparation until Saturday afternoon or early Sunday morning? I realize they may struggle to preach, but that shouldn’t stop them from doing their best to bring a fresh word from the Lord to the people He has entrusted to their care.

Using the pulpit effectively will allow you to lead your church biblically and timely. You can insert any number of illustrations or applications for your church to carry out the biblical mandates.

During the Protestant Reformation, one of the changes the Reformers made inside the church was to replace communion at the center of the sanctuary with the pulpit. In Roman Catholic life, the pulpit (and lectern) is placed at the sides of the room so the focus can be on the Eucharist. Of course, the

Lord’s Supper has meaning only because we have first heard from God’s Word. Thus, it was right to move the pulpit back to the middle. If it isn’t central to your ministry already, make sure the pulpit is in the right place—front and center.

The Desk Although the pulpit with its task of preaching is the most important part of the pastorate (see Acts 6:2, 4), the pastor will usually spend most of his week at his desk. Now, to be sure, much sermon preparation happens at the desk but the desk symbolizes something other than preaching for it has to do with administration and leadership development.

Whether you pastor a church with multiple staff members or are a solo pastor, you will have a good deal of administration and leadership development to do in order to engage others in the work of ministry (see Ephesians 4:11-12). The desk symbolizes all those places in ministry where your pastoral administration and leadership development are done—staff meetings, deacon/elder meetings, counseling, discipling, mentoring, meeting with members, and people from the community looking for partnership or assistance.

Most pastors surrender to God’s call to the ministry because they sense the call to preach and speak from the pulpit. Few realize how valuable the desk is for their ministry until it’s too late. It’s best for you to fine tune the skills needed at your desk so you can help others do their part in the church and the kingdom.

The Couch Even though many churches have a couch in their building, that’s not the couch in mind for the pastor. The couch represents meeting with people, usually in their homes to build relationships.

Some pastors are naturals at this—they make friends and develop relationships with ease. Others have to work at it, either due to their introvert nature or because they have trouble connecting. But don’t underestimate the significance of the couch because pastors who fail to capitalize on relationships often find themselves looking for a new place of ministry.

I spent my first 12 years of ministry in rural and small town settings. I loved visiting people in their homes and did it often. Not only would my wife and I get invited over to eat, but we’ve been invited back to those settings multiple times over the years.

My last 12 years of ministry have been in a suburban setting at two different churches. While I have visited some people in their homes over these years, I have found very few people are willing to have me over for a visit. They may meet me at a restaurant or in my office. They may even come to my

home when we invite them over, but the invitation to me is rarely reciprocated. I don’t know if that’s because people in the suburban setting live busier lives with kids in sports. They don’t have time to clean their homes and they’re afraid what a guest might think. Or it may have something to do with my growing family the last several years. What used to be an invitation to my wife and me is now an invitation to a family of seven with four of those being teenagers! Thus, they may not want to try to be hospitable to so many of us.

Even if building relationships in certain settings is harder, that doesn’t lessen the importance of doing so to maximize your influence in your ministry. Just because you spend the majority of your week at your desk and prepare for the pulpit, don’t overlook the value of the couch.

Final Thoughts Most pastors are particularly strong in one area and get the most out of that piece of furniture. For me, I am strongest in preaching because that’s what the Lord has gifted me to do.

A few pastors have mastered the use of two pieces of furniture. I’ve known pastors strong at administration and relationships. I’ve also known some who could preach extremely well and connect with people individually. While some pastors think they have all three pieces of furniture in the proper place with honed skills, the reality is we are all weaker in at least one area. I don’t know if I can think of someone who has it altogether with those three pieces of furniture. Take some time to strengthen that weaker area of your ministry to increase your impact.

If the Lord allows me to live a normal life, I probably have at least two more moves in the future. Surely my wife and I will downsize in the next decade or so when we no longer have most of our children at home. I’m big on stewardship and I’ll have a hard time justifying a big home with a big pool with little use. I’ll probably also have to move the last few years of my life, either into an assisted living place or with one of my children. I’ll have gotten rid of most of my stuff by then, but I’ll still need a few pieces of furniture.

While a pastor may move to different size churches throughout his ministry, he will always need to care for the pulpit, the desk, and the couch. May we do so for the glory of God and the good of His people.

Joel Breidenbaugh PhD, is the Lead Pastor of Gospel Centered Church in Apopka, Florida and is an Assistant Professor of Homiletics for Liberty University John W. Rawlings School of Divinity.

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Are Your Guiding Documents in Order?

By Rodney Harrison By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. John 13:35 In this passage, Jesus clearly states that love for each other should be identifying characteristic for His followers. Sadly, that is not always the case. Pastors caught in the crossfire of conflict will find little margin during the heat of the battle to diligently search the scriptures and develop a conflict mitigation plan.

The guiding documents of many, if not a majority of churches, often fail to inform how to proceed. A failure to navigate conflict comes at a high cost to both the church and to those called to lead Her through thick and thin. It is not surprising to find former pastors selling insurance, managing restaurants, or selling cars. When the call to ministry is forsaken, many used-up church leaders cite unresolved conflict as the primary reason for abandoning the call. Embracing a biblically informed process of dealing with conflict through the guiding documents of the church.

A sad reality is that most church constitutions and bylaws fall far short of adequately informing issues of conflict. The problem is greatest in churches under 200 in attendance.

In my ten-year study as Professor of Christian Education at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, of 807 churches and 21 denominations, 24% of the churches did not address the issue of conflict or church discipline. Another 24% referenced church discipline using Matthew 18:15-17 only. The guiding documents of 8% of the churches referenced Matthew 18:15-17 and one other passage—usually 1 Corinthians 5:8-13. Another 7% addressed conflict using just one scripture other than Matthew 18 or referenced a document outside of the constitutions and bylaws. As an example of this approach, three churches referenced the 9Marks Step by Step Primer for Church Discipline while eleven referenced a denominational website. Only 37% of the guiding documents referenced at least two other passages in addition to Matthew 18.

These results of this study suggest that upwards of 50% of all churches fail to adequately provide a biblically informed process for dealing with conflict or addressing issues of church discipline. This deficiency is not realized until conflict threatens the congregation.

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Pastors also fail to realize antagonistic members often know the guiding documents better than the elders, and will readily malign church leadership if the constitution is not be followed to the letter.

Church Constitutions and By-laws should address church discipline based on the appropriate biblical texts and biblical examples. Therefore, pastors and seminarians would do well to carefully examine the guiding documents of the church for opportunities for improvement. This is truly a case of “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Addressing deficiencies in the guiding documents during a crisis almost inevitably will create additional conflict. Taking time to examine these documents prior to a problem is truly time well spent. Some of the scriptures that should be considered include: • 1 Corinthians 5:9-13, the instructions to the church at Corinth not to associate with immoral people who are so-called brothers within the church.

• 2 Corinthians 2:7-10, follow-up instructions to Corinth on forgiveness and restoration a disciplined member • 1 Thessalonians 5:12-15, Paul’s discourse on Christian Conduct • Hebrews 12:5-16, the benefits of discipline, and the consequences of defilement • Acts 8: 9-24, the account of Simon, an unregenerate member • James 4:1-12, the sources of conflict and divine instructions for going forward When individuals threaten the unity and mission of the church, a biblically informed process is to Identify, Confront, and Avoid.

First, we must Identify • Romans 16:17 I appeal to you, brethren, take note of those who create dissentions and difficulties, in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught.

• 1 Corinthians 1:10-12 I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”

Take note of the fact in both of these passages Paul uses language that suggests the danger is already present, and not merely hypothetical.

Next, it is appropriate to Confront: • Acts 13:9-10 Then Saul—also called Paul—filled with the Holy Spirit… said, “You son of the Devil, full of all deceit and all fraud, enemy of all righteousness! Won’t you ever stop perverting the straight paths of the Lord?

• 1 Timothy 5:20 Publicly rebuke those who sin, so that the rest will also be afraid.

• Matthew 18:15 If your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him in private.

Up to this point, the desired outcome has been the identification of the source of bad behavior in the environment, vis-a-vis, “Houston we have a problem,” and speaking specifically to the source--or sources--a-la Nathan’s proclamation to David, “You are that man.” The goal of identification and confrontation is correction without exclusion Barring repentance and restoration, we must Avoid: • Matthew 18:17 If he pays no attention to them, tell the church.

But if he doesn’t pay attention even to the church, let him be like an unbeliever and a tax collector to you.

• Romans 16:17 I appeal to you, brethren, take note of those who create dissentions and difficulties, in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught. Avoid them.

• 2 Timothy 2:16-17 Avoid such godless chatter, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will eat its way like gangrene: such men are Hymenaeus and Pilatus.

Paul calls out those two troublemakers by name! Unfortunately, some members in the church consider it inappropriate to identify, confront, or call out those who are causing dissention in the body. Many would be surprised to find that is exactly was the Bible teaches and Paul practiced!

Policy manuals should provide contextualization of how the processes will be implemented and communicated. For example, constitution of our former church in Kansas City clearly referenced 1 Timothy 5:19. When an accusation against one of the pastors was raised, the accuser provided the names of an additional witnesses, as required by the text.

At this point the principles of Scripture that informed the constitutional process to be followed had been respected. Thereafter, the policy manual took over, which informed the process by which the accusations would be investigated. The policy also noted that during the investigation, the elder’s salary would be paid, but no official duties performed. In this case, the accusations were found to be true, and the policy manual informed issues of severance pay, biblical counseling provisions and non-ministerial job placement assistance provisions.

As a result of a biblically informed constitution and an instructive policy manual, there were no questions of how to proceed.

No one asked, “Should we give the pastor a second chance?”

More importantly, no one questioned how the severance pro-

cess would be handled. It was spelled out in the policy manual.

As a result, the church did not experience a decline in attendance in that season of unsettling uncertainty.

In closing, here are some guidelines for keeping your guiding documents fresh and relevant: 1. The guiding documents of the church should be available to all members via a secure membership portal.

2. Policies and practices should be communicated in the new member class and provided to all new members, regardless of how they join the church.

3. Require all staff and volunteers to annually affirm, in writing, the guiding documents and policies of the church.

4. Pastors should periodically preach on the biblical texts that inform the guiding documents of the church. This helps members understand the process behind biblically informed policies and practices. In my last church, I scheduled an annual constitution Sunday, where copies of the guiding documents were provided to all attendees, and the biblical principles behind the documents is preached from the pulpit.

5. Supplement periodic sermons on the topic through small group lessons on biblical discipline.

The benefits of going beyond Matthew 18:15-17 when addressing the issue of church discipline and conflict mitigation are many. However, we should recognize there is more to Matthew 18 than just three verses. The chapter begins with Jesus’ disciples wondering, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven.” Jesus then illustrates the character of humility through a trusting child who was obedient to His call. The chapter ends with Christ’s discourse with Peter on forgiveness, the famous, “seventy times seven” passage that is illustrated by the unforgiving servant and the consequences of unforgiveness.

Humility and forgiveness are more than the bookends for Matthew 18:15-17, they are at the heart of healthy relationships in the church. However, when members fail to practice these attributes, it is good to know—and document—that there is “More than Matthew 18.”

Dr. Rodney Harrison provides over-

sight to Midwestern’s doctoral programs, extensions, online programs and accreditation. He came to Midwestern following a fruitful ministry in church planting and missions in California, the Dakotas, and Minnesota. Prior to coming to Midwestern, he was New Church Extension Associate for the California Southern Baptist Convention. Rodney is the author of four books and has written material for LifeWay Christian Resources, The Revitalizer, and several academic journals.

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What Structure Can and Cannot Do

By Brian Thorstad I have to admit it. I’m a structure guy. Even during periods when evangelicals seemed intent on denigrating the importance of Biblical, workable, church structures, I’ve stuck to my guns: good structure can help a church to function well, but it certainly can’t do everything.

Biblical, workable, understandable, simple: • constitutions, • by-laws, • governance systems, • job descriptions, • chain of command structures and • policies, all have their place, but they also have their limits.

Specifically, here are some things which structure can and cannot do: 1. Good structure can support life, but it cannot produce life.

Colin Marshall and Tony Payne nailed it with the illustration which was the starting point for their book, The Trellis and the Vine.

A good trellis (structure) gives the vine (a living church body in the Marshall and Payne book) something to grow on. A good trellis supports the vine and helps it to look beautiful. But the trellis is never the focus. Nobody wants their neighbors to admire their trellis; they want their neighbors to admire the vine.

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In the allegory of Jesus in John fifteen, the Vine is Jesus Christ Himself. There is no substitute for the living Christ filling, empowering and leading our churches. We want the world to look at our churches and see Him, not our great structures. Having a great church structure is nice, but having Jesus, in the words of Oliver Price (Pray with Christ), “obviously present and actively in charge” is rare and priceless.

2. Good structure can provide strength, but it cannot provide flexibility. Strength is added to an organization when its simple, understandable structure provides something for people to fall back on. But structure can’t provide the flexibility which will be needed to change the structure when it outlives its usefulness.

“Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape” applies to churches, just as it applies to individuals. Flexibility in a church is the product of having leaders and followers who have a strong faith in the living God and His unchanging Word.

These real, grown-up disciples are able to distinguish between unchangeable Biblical absolutes and areas where timely adaptation is acceptable and helpful.

• We must have evangelism, but it doesn’t necessarily involve going door to door.

• We must have venues in which we can obey the “one another” commands of the New Testament and use our spiritual gifts, but we do not have to have small groups that meet in homes or classes that meet in classrooms.

• We must have leaders who meet the qualifications of Scripture, but we do not necessarily need a certain number of them.

• We must have congregational input into our leader’s decisions, but it doesn’t necessarily involve monthly congregational meetings.

• We must disciple our children, but that doesn’t mean putting a Sunday morning Sunday School, a Sunday School Superintendent, or worse yet, an annual Sunday School picnic into our church’s by-laws (yes, I’ve seen this).

As great as a particular structure might be in 2020, it will probably need changing by 2023. If I had to choose between the “perfect” structure for today and the flexibility in the church culture which will enable us to change the structure tomorrow, I’ll take the flexibility any day.

3. Good structure can prevent some people problems but it cannot fix problem people. Many of us know how helpful it can be to have great written covenants which clarify how church leaders and members will treat and support each other. Among other benefits, these documents are great teaching tools – if we choose to use them – that can help everyone understand “how we treat each other around here.”

The limitation here is that somebody still has to make good decisions. Decisions can only be made by people and they are only made with excellence with a lot of help from the Holy Spirit in answer to desperate prayer. If those decisions are not good, the people who made them will be replaced by others.

5. Good structure can make conformity to God’s ways easier, but it cannot produce godliness. Good structure makes conformity to God’s ways easier when it is based solidly on Scripture. However much we disagree about church government models (congregational, episcopal, elder leadership), every church leadership team should be totally convinced that its leadership model is as Biblical as they know how to make it. We should be able to tell our congregations that “We’ve done the best we can with this; if you see some way to make our system more closely adhere to Scripture, please show us.”

“But in the last analysis, of course, no governance system can make Christians godly, and no church system is going to be better than the people who use it.”

But concocting such documents, or seeking any other structural solution, to try to cure ongoing people problems, is a fool’s errand. It will only increase the anger level of the already volatile individual who will quickly realize that the new document was created to fix him.

I’m sorry to say that I can remember a time or two as a young (or youngish) and introverted pastor when I tried to fix ongoing problems with problem people by putting one more policy into writing. (Writing was always a good way to hide from real people and real problems).

It didn’t work. It has always taken skillful, gracious, courageous, Spirit-filled “people-work” to fix people problems. The policy-dependent young pastor is better off getting help from older and wiser lay leaders than writing another policy.

4. Good structure can make decision making easier, but it cannot make good decisions. Excellent by-laws are excellent because they are simple and clear. I don’t know how I can say that strongly enough: simple and clear. Could a fifth grader attend your membership class and understand how decisions are made at your church?

But in the last analysis, of course, no governance system can make Christians godly, and no church system is going to be better than the people who use it.

Did you catch that? No church system is going to be better than the people who use it.

As much as I like good structure, at sixty-seven years of age, I would rather lead a church with a poor written structure and godly lay leaders than a congregation with the best written structure and immature lay leaders. Wouldn’t you?

Solution? Let’s make our church structures as Biblical, practical, understandable and simple as possible, but let’s focus even more attention on growing the kind of life-filled, godly people whom our structures exist to serve.

After thirty-five years of pastoral ministry, Brian A Thorstad is now serving as a Church Health Consultant with Church Assistance Ministry.

He lives with his wife Donna in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. He is the author of three books: Heaven Help Our Church!, Redevelopment: Transitional Pastoring That Transforms Churches, and the newly released A Really Great Church! Find him at Churchwhisperers.org or churchwhisperer@gmail.com.

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At Death’s Door: Is the Church Ready to Grow?

By Desmond Barrett I stood in the small foyer of my first ministry assignment, praying, “Lord send us someone new.” Each week the same eight to thirteen people walked into that tiny church, sat in the same pew, and spoke to the same handful of people, content in where they found themselves. I was filled with much hope and promise, but it seemed that week after week, only the same people showed up.

I questioned, doubted, and cried to myself, praying that God would turn around this church that was at death’s door. That first year of my active ministry would be transformational in my thinking by helping the church shift its vision and mission to be a church that cared about others rather than self. To open doors to the community rather than wall themselves off from what was happening around them.

Death had not come to this once vibrant church overnight, but gradually and it snuck up on them through deaths, families moving away, and a series of pastors over twenty years. A new young pastoral family with children was not going to change the trajectory of the church without the church willing to transform. The church was at death’s door, but were they willing to do what it would take for them to grow again?

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Three overarching questions challenged us that first year; 1. Are we willing to change?

2. Are we willing to adapt our practices to prepare for the future and move out of the past?

3. Are we willing to adapt to the needs of the neighborhood?

Leaders who have led their churches regardless of size through renewal have faced difficult moments, challenging times, and excitement as they began to see progress in their efforts. As a leader, I knew that it could not be a pastor focused leadership or even a board centered leadership, it had to be all of us praying, seeking, and wanting to move forward to allow God to lead us into the next season of the church’s life. Twelve months and three questions helped spark renewal that is still happening today.

1. Are we willing to change?

Embracing change is challenging, but embracing change when everything around the church is changing is difficult. The church has to be willing to change not only in words but deeds. It’s easy to say; yes, we need to change, but it’s quite another to be a part of the progress of

change. If a church is to change, you need change agents who are willing to adapt to the circumstances of the moment while projecting a forward image of the future.

In this small church, the church leadership had to agree to take on the vision, a journey of a thousand days, and be willing to stretch themselves to prepare for the future blessing that was to come. It was easy for some but very difficult for most. Prayer and petitioning the Lord became our focus. Praying for wisdom, praying for the release of individual self-will for the Saviors-will, and petitioning God to provide a way forward became our focus.

3. Are we willing to adapt to the needs of the neighborhood?

As churches begin to die, they focus more and more on themselves and forget the neighborhood around them. This causes resentment from the historians that have sheltered in place, feeling like the community should want to walk into the church and worship with them. Maybe that happened in the past, but in the present, people don’t usually show up on the church’s doorstep with their offering in hand.

“The church was at death’s door, but were they willing to do what it would take for them to grow again?”

2. Are we willing to adapt our practices to prepare for the future and move out of the past?

This is the most challenging question for any church that is considering rebooting their spiritual and physical space to prepare for future guests. In an age when everything around a senior saint (historians) is changing, holding on to what is familiar becomes more critical than ever. This is also a space that can become the devil’s playground.

Where change agents bump up against the historians of the church. Many pastors and change agents are slain in this space, which enables historians to keep everything frozen in time, a time capsule to yesteryear.

As we embarked on the journey of a thousand days, the church leaders had to embrace the broader vision that the physical inside of the church needed to be prepared for future guests. While we did not have a lot of money, we did have willing individuals that provided elbow grease to our efforts. The church had many stained yellowing ceiling tiles, which were taken down and painted ultra-bright white, cleaned out classrooms which had become closets, to become classrooms again, and darkened light bulbs were changed out and/or repaired.

While these were simple acts, they were transformative for a church that had not updated anything in over a decade. It provided hope, optimism, and pride for what had been accomplished. It challenged the historians to an inch of their comfort zone and gave early wins to the change agents, thus enabling the church to progress forward.

What we learned together at the small church was to connect with the neighbors not from the vantage point; ‘what can you do for us, but what can we do for you.’ When you reach out through community block parties, Serve Days, where you go into the neighborhood to paint, mow lawns, trim bushes, you begin to develop relationships that allow you to share your faith. Once the neighbors realize you are there for them, in most cases, they will reciprocate and be there for the church. This step is long and slow but well worth the community investment.

The first year was challenging, but we began to grow again. What started as eight people ended as eighteen after year one and it placed in the hearts of the church members, that God was still at work in that tiny forgotten church. What we all learned together that first year was death may come knocking at the church door, but we did not have to answer because God would if we trusted him.

Let me encourage you by saying, that change will not come overnight, but change will come if you are willing to lead the church forward to her growth years by enabling God to take hold of the church in a radical way.

Dr. Desmond Barrett is the Lead Pastor at Summit Church of the Nazarene in Ashland, Ky.

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How We Grew From 100 to 305 in One Week

By Harry Fowler We read that 80-85% of all churches are declining or dying.

We read that churches reach their optimum size around fifteen years old and that it is difficult to grow beyond that size.

While these statistics are true, there are some exceptions.

I know about a church that grew from 100 to 305 in ONE WEEK. I know because I pastored this church for seven years.

Southside Baptist asked me to preach two Sundays. I had just retired at age 66 and I wanted a ministry opportunity. The church and community were in a state of decline. It had a history of dismissing pastors, had 10 pastors and interims in 10 years, and had a reputation of not getting along. Many of my friends discouraged me from getting involved with this church because I would be “wasting my time.” At a recent split, the pastor took 100 members and started a new church. This effort later failed.

After preaching one Sunday, I sensed they needed me. After preaching my second Sunday, I knew they needed me. I had quite a bit of experience and training in revitalization and felt that God would use my skills to help this church turnaround.

I continued preaching week by week and eventually became interim pastor and then pastor. I felt that God was going to do a mighty work. Little did I know what God was going to do. My two Sundays turned into seven years.

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The Seven Steps Revitalization Process: First, I listened to the people’s dreams. I started with the deacons, and then set up 30-minute interviews with individuals. I believe if a church is going to turnaround, it must start with the leaders. In my interviews I asked folks what would they like to see their church do in the next five years?

Ten years? I learned quickly that no one wanted to see their church close the doors. I taught church growth principles on Wednesday and Sunday nights. I asked, “What would you like to see God do with this church?”

Second, I studied and charted the past 25 year’s statistics.

The best way for a church to see themselves is to chart their statistics. We appointed a Church Revitalization Team. We gathered statistics and drew charts.

Sunday school attendance, AM worship attendance, mission gifts, tithes & offerings, Sunday evening attendance, baptisms, total membership, WMU – Baptist women, Baptist men.

Third, I identified the lifecycle.

STAGE 1: BIRTH 1944-1950 STAGE 2: GROWTH 1951-1964

STAGE 3: MATURITY 1965-1985 STAGE 4: PLATEAU 1986-1999 STAGE 5: DECLINE 2000-2009 STAGE 6: DEATH OR GROWTH 2000Fourth, I distributed the congregational questionnaire.

The questionnaire was designed to reveal certain information. Number of males and females, age, length of time attending the church, number of kin outside your immediate family, frequency of attendance, living distance from the church. Open ended questions included what are the strengths of the church? The weaknesses? What would you like to see the church do in the next five years? The next ten years?

One section of the questionnaire was designed to rate the ministries. Preaching, worship service, adult choir, music, praise team, deacons, nursery, children’s ministry, youth ministry, Sunday morning Bible study, friendliness, outreach, outside church appearance, inside church appearance. When a church sees this information graphed and charted, it is an eye-opening experience.

Fifth, I studied the five to ten-mile demographics radius. In order to develop a revitalization plan, knowing the community is a must. Our study gave us the general population, the number of households, families with children, ages of families and children, the educational level, the income levels, white collar vs. blue collar, and the racial diversity. In order to plan using outreach events and ministries, this information is helpful.

Sixth, I studied the organizational structure of the church. Prior to reaching 200 in attendance, churches go through the 35, 75, 125, and 200 attendance barriers. Each barrier has unique characteristics. The 35-attendance barrier is led by the pastor. He usually makes all the pastoral calls and outreach. Basically, there are two entrance points that attract new members. The Pastor’s ministry and the friendliness of the people. In the 75-attendance barrier, more entrance points are added, part-time staff and either a paid part-time youth minister and/or a music volunteer. When a church reaches the 125-150 barrier, additional staffing is a must. Children, youth, and/or music is a helpful addition.

The 75 barrier is usually led by a committee structure. The 35 barrier is usually led by a strong lay person or the deacons.

Business is usually decided outside the business meeting. A church that experiences rapid pastoral turnover, lay leaders become entrenched in leading the church. It is very difficult to break this pattern. The longer a church stays the same size, the more likely it will not grow and experience revitalization.

A radical change must be implemented for change to occur.

Exposing numerical barriers helps a church see where they are and what they need to do. Staffing and additional entrance points are the key to moving to the next barrier.

Seventh, I examined the church’s obstacles and barriers.

1. PASTOR LONGEVITY affects revitalization. Short term pastorates usually do not result in church growth and revitalization. Pastors are not given the right to lead. Often the pastoral leadership style does not fit with the church leaders.

When a church has a bad experience with a pastor, the next pastor’s ministry is affected. Pastor dismissals and conflicts proves to be detrimental. Pastors are dismissed for a variety of reasons–doctrine is not compatible; moral failure; pastor’s personality is not a good fit; pastor motivated to gain a following for a new church.

2. CHURCH DOES NOT HAVE ABILITY TO ATTRACT VISITORS. Many small churches do not have the ability to attract visitors due to the lack of entrance points. Usually the pastor’s ministry and the friendliness of the people are the only two entrance points. There are no ministries, youth, or children’s programs. Often visitors do not return.

3. OLDER MEMBERSHIP. The older the members, the fewer children and teenagers. NO CHILDREN = NO CHILDREN PROGRAM. I consulted with a church with an average age of 76. Knowing that many new members come from baptizing their children, I told them there are basically two ways to grow your church. You can start having babies. They ruled that one out and asked what the second method was. I told them about Matthew 28:19-20 go out into all the world. Response declined one funeral at the time.

4. LOCATION: Southside was located in a transitional community, both economically and racially. They had bought 21 acres in the county ten years earlier. Miraculously they were able to pay for the land–$250,000. But they could not agree on what to do with it. Southside decided to relocate.

On the first Sunday in the new building, attendance grew from 100 to 305 in one week. For the rest of the story visit www.harryfowlerresources.com.

Get The Revitalization Replant Challenge by Dr. Harry Fowler.

Copies may be purchased on Amazon and multiple copies from Dr. Fowler or email harryfowlerministries@gmail.com

Dr. Harry Fowler has been a Southern Baptist minister for 55 years. He earned his BS from East Carolina University, an MDIV from Southeastern Baptist Seminary, and a DMIN from Fuller Seminary. He founded Youth on Missions, was a church planter, pastor, and interim pastor, and has authored four books.

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SUPERSIZE

By Rob Hurtgen

Every church is of a different size.

That is good. One strategy of church revitalization will not work in every congregation. That is also good.

There are, however, some general guidelines that apply to the smaller church.

First, stick to principles.

Plans and strategies are helpful, but rarely are they transferable.

What has worked in one congregation may not necessarily work in another. As the revitalization leader, you need to biblically define your ecclesiology and philosophy of ministry and the principles you are going to employ regardless of congregational health and size. The Great Commission, descriptions of the early church actions, principles of servant leadership, and other biblical principles of church leadership do not change. What changes is how they are applied.

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Take the time to write down the principles that are going to frame how you approach ministry.

Second, don’t supersize.

When you go to a fast-food restaurant, you have the choice to order a small, medium, large or supersize. You choose the size of your meal based on how hungry you are; well, at least you should. The point being you select the scale of the meal that you want based on the need that you have.

In the smaller church, you need to avoid the temptation of over scaling your congregation. Fog machines and laser lights is perhaps how the fastest growing church in your tribe is doing ministry. That does not mean the congregation on the dirt road surrounded by more cattle than people also should approach worship. A revitalization leader must know the church context, the congregation’s demeanor, and lean into their strengths to build a revitalized church.

Third, think small, not little. To think little is to make shortcuts and conduct ministry poorly. When you find yourself thinking, “That’s good enough,” accepting compromise in the quality of your ministry, then you are thinking little. Those who live in smaller settings expect the same quality as those in larger. Additionally, the Lord expects the best from his servants regardless of where he has placed them. Recognize the limitations you have and do the diligent hard work to expand your skill set, but do not think little.

Fourth, say no. Every church and every church leader must decide to what they will say “yes” and “no.” They must decide what one ministry they will embrace and the nine others they must reject.

focus on the one yes will overshadow the thousand of ministries you rejected. Be selective in your “yes.”

Lastly, be personal. Ministries of all sizes do not want impersonal, robotic church leaders. The small church especially does not desire an emotionless, robotic shepherd. The church has entrusted you for your knowledge of the Bible.

They believe in your competencies as a minister of the word and shepherd of souls. They want to know you. What you are passionate about. The joy that Jesus has ushered into your life. They want to know their pastor, not the professional speaker of theological truths and biblical principles.

“Plans and strategies are helpful, but rarely are they transferable.”

My family and I enjoy watching cooking shows. Not the ones where the chef shows you how to make a recipe. The ones where the highly skilled chefs compete with each other making amazing foods with weird ingredients. Each chef demonstrates their competencies, knowledge, and skills in executing their dish. One common trait among all of the best is they know to be selective with what they present and what they do not serve. They have learned to say no to everything so they can say yes to the best.

Church leaders need to practice the same principle.

No church is going to be able to participate in every ministry to meet every need in every place, and every time. However, your church can execute that one ministry exceptionally well. Applying a laser-like

Smaller churches can be a wonderful place to serve.

Relationships often grow deeper in a small church. Leading a smaller church will require significant amounts of care, selecting ministries with great scrutiny, and focusing on what you have been called to do while guarding against the temptation to embrace ten other ministries another church is doing.

Rob Hurtgen is the Pastor of First Baptist Church Chillicothe, Missouri. He holds an M.Div from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and is currently pursuing a Doctor of Ministry degree in Church Revitalization from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

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Are You Sent… or Are You Invited?

By Rob Myers They say that Pele of Brazil was the greatest soccer player to ever live. He had several tricks that he often used and no matter how well prepared the offensive was, they always fell for the move.

As a young missionary kid (American) playing soccer, or as the rest of the world calls it “futbol,” my coach from England demonstrated the move, to our Bahamian High School team.

Here’s the first part of Pele’s trick. He would dribble the ball with speed directly at the opposing player, then in one smooth move, he would kick the ball forward on the right side of the player and run around the left side of the player to meet up smoothly with the ball on the other side without breaking stride. Mr. Kelty, our Coach, called me out and had me try it on him. To my chagrin, he quickly stole the ball from me while the other players laughed at my “American” skills.

The next player then tried and failed, and the next, and the next, until he had worked his way to the rather cocky best player on the team; who by this time was rolling in laughter on the ground. He then proceeded to steal the ball from him as well.

After we had failed as a team, Mr. Kelty showed us the secret to the “move,” which if done right could not be stopped even if you knew the secret. Step one: approach the opposing player fast and direct on; Step two: right as you get in front of the other player, without stopping, you kick either to the right or the left of the player, and as we learned earlier, you run to the other side of the player to meet the balls path, BUT, as you pass the player on the opposite side, you must roughly brush the opposite side of the player as you pass him. This sets up a psychological confusion within the person. The opponent’s eyes are following the ball to the one side but their mind then hesitates while your body brushes by the other side. For just a split second the person hesitates torn between the optical stimulation and the brushing body contact going the other way.

By being able to go to either side (another element which added tension), I could now pass Mr. Kelty, even though he knew what I was doing! We drilled this until it was second nature. Our opponents knew what was happening but could not deny their inner human tendencies to fall for the trick.

That year our team won the Island Championship! Hold onto this thought…

In this magazine we are talking about what to do, other than quit, when you come into a pastorate where you are trying to revitalize a group of people in your church (and sometimes the majority) who don’t want to be revitalized. In this

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situation, there are two kinds of stimulation occurring and it has to do with the frozen chosen’s view of pastoral calling and Jesus’ view of calling.

How were you called to the church you were serving? Most of us interviewed, then prayed to God and determined that this church is where God wants us to be. We rightly accept God’s Call, but the people think you accepted their invitation. Think about the consequences of this line of reasoning.

If you accept their invitation you are theirs.

I was studying the other day in the book of Mark, chapter 6:6-13. As you examine this passage, which I recommend, you will see that it is about training the disciples to do the ministry they would do for the rest of their lives. The idea of a community invitation is far from the mind of Christ. Communities don’t invite you to do your ministry, God Almighty sends. The pastor does not get his orders from the church council, deacon board, or board of elders. The Disciple/Pastor gets his orders from God! The folks in the flock need to understand this. This is not a dictatorship, or tyranny; but it is a prayerful Theocracy. Well what’s the trick move? The phase one move is to bring them all to prayer, which they will do because it is never wrong to pray. Then execute the move to the other side by doing a study on what the Bible teaches us about sending before the prayer meeting. Lastly, brush them with the Holy Spirit in the prayer about obeying God’s Word!

Then shoot the Goooooaaaaaaalllllll!

Chew on this little gem from God and be the sent one that God intended you to be. Tell them God did not wait for an invitation to die on the Cross, he did not wait for an invitation to send out his disciples, and we are not going to vote on whether or not to do the “Go” of the Great Commission.

Rob Myers is the Pastor of Miami Baptist Church a turn around church located in the multi-lingual community in South Florida. Rob has been in ministry for more than 39 years. He has been in church planting and pastoral leadership for 36 of those years, which includes 15 years as the Senior Pastor of Miami Baptist Church. His is Adjunct Professor of Indiana Wesleyan University and President of Baptist World Charities. Rob has an earned Doctorate in Ministry Leadership from John Wesley University, a M.Div. from Southwestern Seminary and a B.A. From Palm Beach Atlantic University.

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Discerning the Starting Point of Church Revitalization

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By Jim Harrell One key to successful church revitalization/replanting is identifying the starting point. Where is this church currently at in terms of relationships, culture, history, leadership, theology, and mission?

Churches have needed revitalization since the New Testament church began because churches are made up of sinners who individually and collectively need to be sanctified. Typically, churches go through seasons of growth and decline. Unfortunately, sometimes the decline is not addressed and instead of growth the church continues to decline. The attendance numbers decline, the mission of the church fades into the background, and programs are dropped or held onto regardless of their effectiveness.

Those with less loyalty or stake in the game leave, which are often the younger people and change agents. The end result is what is found in many declining churches, a small elderly congregation with little hope of surviving long term.

Replanting/revitalizing a church can be complex, but understanding the starting point is critical. For most replant situations, it must begin with hiring a pastor committed to the scriptures, a pastor attuned to the 21st century culture and a pastor with the ability and patience to lead the church through change as the church learns how to communicate the gospel, live out the gospel and engage in effective mission, while growing to love one another and those in their community. This pastor needs to be a patient catalyst.

Depending on the duration of the church’s decline, there are three typical approaches for church revitalization/replanting based on the starting point: Revitalization: • The basic structures are in place, but the church needs to embrace the biblical mission and wrestle with how to contextualize the message for the 21st century.

• The church needs a revitalization pastor who will help them realign their programs and mission to address today’s communication preferences, cultural styles and complexities, in order to equip them to articulate the biblical message to their community.

Replanting: • The church has barely enough people and finances to keep church operating.

• It is stuck in the past, with an outdated model of church.

The service is traditional, with low energy, which meets needs of attendees but doesn’t connect to a younger demographic and is thus ineffective in reaching the community.

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• They need a replant pastor who can maintain unity and care for the congregation, while being a catalyst for new ministry and helping them navigate the significant changes required to most aspects of the church -- all of which are difficult but far better than the alternative of closing.

• The replant pastor needs to continue to minister to the existing congregation, often keeping their traditional service going but who also has the freedom to begin new ministries and services to functionally start a new church in the existing building.

Another difficulty that impedes understanding the church’s starting point is generational values and fears.

The typical replanter is younger and values what is new and hip, and is given to leveraging technology. The average member of a replant church is typically older and values stability, control, and history. There is deep meaning attached to each item in the church, to each event and each part of the event or service. Unless the replanter understands, both intellectually and emotionally, the value system of those in the church, the replanter is going to miss the real starting point.

Restarting: • The church doesn’t have enough people and/or money to be able to carry out the Sunday service of a typical church. The elderly congregation has neither the energy nor capacity to implement the significant change required to change the trajectory of the church from its steep decline.

• This can take several forms such as a merger, being enfolded into another congregation, or becoming a campus of a multi-site church.

• Note: since our focus at Overseed is on revitalizing/ replanting the church itself, we don’t go into other options such as legacy.

If the replanter is going to grasp the actual starting point of the church, they are going to have to spend lots of time with individual members of the church. It will take many hours of listening to their stories,dialoging with them about the church and the community until the starting point will begin to take shape. It is not something the replanter can just think through, it takes prayer, input from others, and the Holy Spirit giving insight.

Determining the Starting Point A common mistake seen among church replanters is their failure to do the hard work of discerning the starting point of their church. If the church replanter fails to grasp the starting point, then their plans and ideas are often unhelpful and typically face greater resistance from the congregation.

The difficulty of determining the starting point is compounded by language. For example, the replanter often hears members of the congregation stating their agreement with the replanter’s assessment that the church needs to grow. However, often their definitions of growth are very different. For some members, growth means bringing in just enough people to meet the budget but no more, since they like a very small church and the type of community that a small church brings them. For others, it means more people attend but not changing anything about the church or the worship service. For others, growth means going back to the glory days of old and re-introducing programs and ideas that worked fifty years ago. Almost always, the replanter’s definition of growth is radically different.

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Discovering the starting point of a replant church is time consuming and difficult. Overseed provides a revitalizer/replanter with two resources to help determine the starting point.

• Basic Stage of Church Decline assessment • “Exegeting the Local Church” Coaching Topic Email info@overseed.org for a free copy of these tools.

Jim Harrell is the Founder and President of Overseed, a organization that coaches Revitalization Pastors in New England through the difficult process of revitalization, so they can successfully lead their church to health and reach their community for Christ. He is the author of Church Replanter: Learning From Nehemiah’s Example of Leading Change When Things Are Really Broken. You can contact him at jim@overseed.org.

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