My first real experience of Christian ministry was in the context of church revitalisation. A little Pentecostal Church between Bradford and Leeds had fallen on hard times, suffered a split and was down to its last half a dozen elderly members. My dad had preached there regularly after they first approached a larger church for help. I started to preach there too and then began to do some door to door work leading to us beginning a Sunday afternoon outreach drawing in local families. Eventually some people from a church within that denomination took the work under their wing when I moved south for employment.
I’ve had an interest in revitalisation since and had the opportunity to be involved with a few churches at different stages. Talking to another friend who is also concerned about this type of work, I remember him commenting that most churches at some point need revitalisation. We can assume that it is only when you get down to your last half dozen and are about to close that you need this. However, strictly speaking, that type of revitalisation is a replant.
Revitalisation is really about reinvigorating a Gospel work at any point but particularly if there is a danger that the church has lost its way a bit. Many pastors and elders are engaged in this without ever realising it or would not use the word for fear of offending their congregations.
So, two misconceptions about revitalisation are first that it is about size, a large church may need some form of revitalisation even when one much smaller does not. Secondly, that it is about age. We often assume that this concerns older churches. However, it may be that a church that has fairly recently been planted needs help to get it back on track or even a replant/relaunch.
Revitalisation therefore begins with taking time to understand how a church has got to where it is. There will be a number of factors at work. These include:
- Simply time and stage in the life cycle of the church. We like to think in terms of growth being this exponential and ongoing for ever thing. However, the reality is that we go through different stages that include growth, fruitfulness, pruning and rest/abiding.
- Environmental factors including changing demographics with people moving away from an area.
- Decisions that the church have made that have constrained Gospel work
- Spiritual issues including sin and conflict within the church
- Doctrinal gaps. This might involve a failure to give serious attention to the preaching of God’s word or space for the work of the Holy Spirit.
So, revitalisation prayerfully understanding why you are where you are before moving to think, talk, dream and pray about what the future might involve. I’ve had a number of these types of conversations with churches over the years, some have led to change others have not.
If you would like someone to come and talk and pray with you about your church situation, especially if you are located in the West Midlands, please feel free to get in touch via the contact form below.
Faithroots 