Sept/Oct 2019 Vol 6 Issue 5
THE
CHURCH
Revitalizer A Revitalization Retreat in Every Issue
“The only magazine dedicated to Church Revitalization.�
ChurchRevitalizer.Guru
From The Editor Welcome to the Church Revitalizer Magazine! I absolutely loved my experiences at seminary. My Masters of Divinity and two doctoral degrees were all wonderful journey’s in my maturation process as a minister. A I look back on all the things I learned in seminary, there are a few things about church revitalization I wished I had learned. First it must be said that when I graduated no one was thinking about church revitalization and renewal. There were many schools that were only interested in church growth and spent most of their time teaching about that discipline. Back then church planting was not even on the radar of most seminaries. Thankfully that has also changed. In revitalization, knowing how to create things such as websites, brochures, bulletins, and flyers so that cost could be kept low, would have been a great class for preachers to take. These skills go a long way toward presenting the church in a professional light. Attractive stewardship brochures and new member pamphlets help people take the information inside seriously. A clean and easy-to-navigate website raises the expectations of potential members for the spiritual guidance and opportunities available inside the church. Today so many declining churches are led by pastors that have little or no technological experience. Since most revitalization projects have little or no resources, having a leader who can navigate this arena is a plus. Spiritual formation and discipleship are two other things that I wish I had learned how to pass on to others. I took a few classes on discipleship but was not equipped sufficiently in the fundamentals of actually being a better equipper and spiritual formation teacher. While all of us know what discipleship is, we are seldom fully invested in giving that part of our lives away in significant ways. I wish I had left seminary armed with a more robust definition and understanding of discipleship. It is not about programs and booklets offered to talk around it. We need to learn how to disciple people.
Connecting to the community you serve is not an option but a mandate. Far too many declining churches are led by leaders who are invisible to the community they are called to serve. Attending community meetings, participating in festival planning, and supporting large community functions, displays to your church, and to your community, that you care about the place you live. It is not only about what you are doing within the walls of your church. Another thing that would have been great to learn during seminary is that ministry is not accomplished in a bubble. Except for one evangelism class where we weekly went out and witnessed in the community, the rest of my seminary experience was spent inside the protective bubble of the seminary campus. Classes created to get a student out into the community might have been the prescription for a generation of ministers who want to hunker down in their offices. You must work hard and not coast as a minister. Internal motivation is a key to success in most pastorates. Often the pastor of a declining church is one who has taken their hand off of the throttle and begins to coast. Doing ministry on auto pilot is dangerous and a class on creating traction, recruiting, training, investing, and stretching individually, would have been helpful. Within this edition we want to look at:
Things I wish I learned in Seminary About Church Revitalization. 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
Things You Must Know Woring in Church Revitalization Tom Cheyney
p. 10
Centrifugal Buzz: Seminary – Then What?
The Church Revitalizer and Pastoral Succession–Part 2
Ken Priddy
Lee Kricher
p. 17
p. 20
Murphy’s Law for Churches: Lessons That Every Minister Needs
Expository Preaching Through Books Can Bring Revitalization
Ron Smith
Joel Breidenbaugh
Diagnosing Your Current Reality
George Thomasson
p. 26
p. 28
p. 32
Also in this issue: The Revitalizer
Book Review Rob Hurtgen
p. 76 4
Henslee and Bueermann’s Replanting Rural Churches: God’s Plan and Call for the Middle of Nowhere, published by Acoma Press in 2019 Life After Death: A Strategy to Bring New Life to a Dead Church (Orlando: Renovate Publishing Group, 2019)
Sept/Oct | Vol 6, No 5
The Church Needs a Pastor Not a Preacher
What Did I Get Into? Steve Smith
p. 36
The School of Hard Knocks
Tracy Jaggers
Bud Brown
p. 52
THE LEADERSHIP LINK: The Value of Focus Michael Atherton
p. 61
Fred Boone
Evangelism in the Real World p. 44 Mark Weible
Steve Sells
p. 66
Seminary Perspectives From a Professor Steve Sells
p. 72
p. 42
Sunday School: Dead or Alive? p. 38
Dealing WIth Difficult Church Members
8 Things I’ve Learned Since Seminary About Church Revitalization p. 56 William Chaney Jr.
Lessons I wish I had Learned p. 78 Chris Irving
Excavating and Exegesis in Church Revitalization p. 50 Jim Grant
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