Leading Church Revitalization

The reality is this: when we look at churches that are healthy, vibrant, and growing, it is incredibly common to see a pastor (or pastors) who has been serving that same congregation for many years through both the good times and the bad. This is especially true in a revitalization context where it takes perseverance to lead a dying or declining church back to health. It takes time to see the healthy fruit of a revitalized church. In this episode we will consider 10 reasons for long-haul ministry.

In this episode, we will consider five strategic ways a church can begin to make an impact on their community through their building. What might these look like for you and your congregation? We will also address seven potential obstacles or challenges you might face leading this kind of change.

Many declining churches have been blessed with a building that has been used for effective ministry in the past and can be used for effective ministry once again in the future. However, right now, much of the building sits silent and untouched throughout the week. In this episode, let’s consider four reasons why declining churches ought to seriously consider pursuing new ways of redeeming their empty building space for Gospel ministry.

In our last episode, we considered some of the unique challenges, as well as some of the unique opportunities, for youth and children’s ministry in a church revitalization context. In light of these, let’s get really practical in this episode and consider eleven core strategies to help you develop and build a healthy, biblical ministry to kids, teenagers, and their families.

How does a declining church effectively minister to children and teenagers? This is the question we are going to explore this week and next on the podcast. While there are no doubt unique challenges that come with ministry to children and teenagers in a church revitalization context, there are incredible, unique oppor- tunities as well.

Last week we considered why pursuing an evangelistic vision is so important in church revitalization, today we're going to look at how to actually do this. How do we mobilize a congregation for this type of strategic, evangelistic ministry? Let's consider a simple, but doable strategy called I:3.

One of the great challenges in church revitalization is that oftentimes, dying churches have lost their vision and passion for sharing the gospel with a lost and dying world. Even for a pastor who is passionate about gospel proclamation, it can be hard to motivate a weary congregation. As a result, some pastors start to give up or start to wonder if it is really worth all the effort. Today let's consider 6 reasons why it IS worth the effort to mobilize our churches to evangelize the lost.

Let me state something obvious: Ministry is all about relationships. For this reason, it is crucial that as replanters and revitalizers we are committed to consistently build relationships of love and trust with as many people as we can in our community. This is at the heart of networking, which is the topic we will be considering on this episode. How do we grow as effective networkers?

Reaching a community effectively begins with the hard work of getting to know the “ins and outs” of that particular neighborhood. This is why community exegesis is so important. However, it’s not enough to simply know about the community; you need to take the next step and begin to serve there with the love of Christ. 

One of the challenges (and sad realities) in church revitalization is that a dying or declining church has most likely become a non-factor in their community. People don’t care about what’s going on in the church; those in the neighborhood may not even know that the church is doing anything anymore! This should really bother us. In fact, this ought to be one of the reasons why we want to see a church revitalized in the first place; to see a congregation become a lighthouse for the sake of the gospel in a community that desperately needs it! If this is going to happen, we have to get serious about getting into the neighborhood. To help us do this well, there are three words I want to discuss over the next 3 weeks on the podcast that can help drive and direct our community engagement: Know, Serve, and Network.

The bottom line is this: In revitalization, knowing, serving, and networking are critical to loving your community with passion, persistence, and purpose.