Revitalization in the Small Church

THE

CHURCH

Revitalizer A Revitalization Retreat in Every Issue

Revitalization in the

Small Church

May/June 2020 Vol 7, Issue 3

“The only magazine dedicated to Church Revitalization.�

ChurchRevitalizer.Guru

From The Editor Welcome to the Church Revitalizer Magazine!

I am so interested in what this edition brings to the church revitalization community relating to the small church. I have been a revitalizer of small churches and large ones. Never has there been a greater need to keep the cause of church revitalization and renewal focused on saving declining and dying churches. I have a longtime friend who writes for this magazine named Dr. Harry Fowler. Please be sure to read his article: HOW WE GREW FROM 100 TO 305 IN ONE WEEK! Harry was the individual who inspired me to even begin considering what it takes to plant a church, grow a church, and revitalize a church. Early in my ministry Harry taught many of us in New England how to grow a church and keep it going towards growth and victory. It is a joy to have him write for the magazine and for his friendship. You will notice his newest book being advertised in the magazine. I wanted to give a shout out today to Dr. Fowler for his investing in me well over thirty years ago.

Now for the Church Revitalizer. Please hear me. When we get humble enough, low enough, desperate enough, hungry enough, concerned enough, passionate enough, 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 to come out of the pandemic lockdown, for an awakening within all of our souls so that heaven will give us an outpouring, earth-shaking revival in our 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:

What is the Starting Point for Church Revitalization?

Keep Staying 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: Small is the New Huge Ken Priddy

p. 16

Priorities for Revitalizers in the Smaller Congregation Bill Tenny-Brittian

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

The Great Church Comeback Ron Smith

p. 28

Bob Whitesel

p. 24

Helping the Stubborn Little Churches Terry Rials

p. 18

p. 30

Also in this issue: The Revitalizer

Book Review Rob Hurtgen

p. 72 4

Younique: Designing the Life that God Dreamed for You

by Will Mancini

May/June | Vol 7, No 3

Becoming a Different Kind of Small Church Steve Smith

p. 34

4 Keys to Replanting Rural Churches Recognizing Roadblocks to Revitalization in Small Churches George Thomasson

p. 36

The Key Metrics of Small Church Revitalization Pete Tackett

p. 40

Matt Henslee & Kyle Bueermann

p. 44

Supersize Rob Hurtgen

p. 50

The Community Connection Steve Sells

p. 70

There’s a Breakthrough in Your Future p. 46 Bud Brown

At Death’s Door: Is the Church Ready to Grow p. 68 Desmond Barett

Critical Clash With the Critical Mass p. 55 Jim Grant

Improving Your Sermon Delivery p. 76 Joel Breidenbaugh

The Leadership Link: Creating a Culture of Change Within Your Ministry p. 58 Michael Atherton

How We Grew from 100 to 305 in One Week p. 78 Harry Fowler

Confessions of a Small Church Revitalizer p. 62 Mark Weible Church Size and Revitalization: Is Your Church a Cat or a Dog p. 64 Jack L. Daniel

I was Here Before You Came p. 82 Tracy Jaggers

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THE

CHURCH

Revitalizer Volume 7, No. 3

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.

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Centrifugal Buzz:

Small is the New Huge

By Ken Priddy The American small church is in the right place at the right time to make a huge impact for the cause of Christ IF small church leaders will recognize the opportunity and seize the day. Oh, and many of these churches could experience revitalization in the process. Not since the first megachurch cast its giant shadow over the ecclesiastical landscape has the large church been so disadvantaged and the small church so well positioned for effectiveness. It’s a classic case, once again, of how God leverages calamity and crisis to bring about His will and move His plan forward. Let’s take a walk down Bible Memory Lane.

Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, imprisoned on false accusations and, then, rose to power in Egypt, setting the stage for Israel’s migration to Egypt and being preserved during a time of famine. Moses was born into a world where Pharaoh had commanded, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live,” (Exodus 1:22). Moses went into the river, alright, but in a basket and you know what happened from there.

Esther, Nehemiah and Ezra rose to prominence while in exile and served in vital ways in God’s plan for redeeming His people and returning them to the Promised Land. Esther intervened on behalf of the Jews, saving them from annihilation, prompted by Mordecai’s famous words to her, “Who knows whether you have not come into the kingdom for such a time as this,” (Esther 4:14b). Nehemiah returned from exile to lead the rebuilding of Jerusalem and reestablishing godly governance. Ezra returned from exile as both priest and scribe, reestablishing the law of God as the law of the land. We’re told in Ezra 7 that he was a descendant of Aaron and that he was also skilled in the law of Moses, an embodiment of the Exodus one-two punch that led God’s people out of Egypt and into the Promised Land the first time. Ezra “had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statues and rules in Israel,” (Ezra 7:10).

John the Baptist literally lost his head as he most definitely “decreased” while Jesus “increased,” (John 3:30). Jesus suffered arrest, humiliation, torture and death in order that He might pay the penalty for sin and be resurrected as the first fruits of the resurrection. In a post-resurrection, pre-ascension appearance, Jesus proclaimed that His disciples would be His witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8). It seems, though, that this worldwide witness bogged down in Jerusalem until persecution against the newly forming Christian community broke out and the followers of Christ were

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“scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria,” (Acts 8:1). All to say, again, that God leverages calamity and crisis to bring about His will and move His plan forward.

So, that brings us to today’s calamity and crisis, the COVID-19 Pandemic. How, then, is small the new huge?

My thesis, as already stated, is that the small church is well positioned for Gospel effectiveness in the midst of today’s health challenge IF, and that’s a big IF, small church leaders will step up and seize the day. How so?

First, let me draw from the wisdom of a few noted church analysts. In Small Congregation Big Potential: Ministry in the Small Membership Church, Lyle Schaller highlights the importance of empowering the laity. The large church tends to be a professional church, relying heavily on professional staff for leading and carrying out the lion’s share of the church’s ministry. Often, laity is viewed more as supporters or spectators whose leadership and functional contribution is overlooked. Thick organizational structures and topheavy personnel budgets are now difficult to navigate, but an empowered laity could continue to move a small church’s ministry forward.

In One Size Doesn’t Fit All: Bringing Out the Best in Any Size Church, Gary McIntosh describes the process of change in a large church as Top-Down while the process of change

in a small church is Bottom-Up. Again, a base of lay leaders in a small church provides a useful mechanism for quickly making changes and adjustments to accommodate quickly changing and increasingly limiting conditions. In Turn Around Strategies for the Small Church, Ron Crandell identifies twelve “critical tasks” for turning small churches around. Task #12 is, “Plan to take risks and take them,” (p.

23). Admittedly, small churches are not known for their tendency to take risks, but, given the push-comes-toshove nature of coronavirus reality, the small church is positioned by its small structures and small cadre of leaders to adjust quickly.

My own study, experience and observation of churches over the years leads me to recognize several other advantages that a small church might have at the moment. First, though the congregation might be small, a much higher percentage of that congregation might be considered “core” than that of a large church. Large church congregations typically include many who remain on the periphery, virtually anonymous and not truly engaging or stepping up to serve. A small church is more likely to include a high percentage of congregants or attendees who are truly engaged and willing to share the weight of ministry.

Second, that same “core” tends to know each other well and is likely to have known each other over a longer period

of time. Their level of loyalty to each other and to the church is likely higher than that of many large church attendees, rendering them more patient and more faithful in sticking through the tough times together.

Third, there is the matter of social distancing. At this point, we’re being asked as good citizens to refrain from mixing in public. We’re to confine our movement to that which is essential, maintaining a six-foot distance from those around us when we do go out. My guess is that public spacing will remain in force even when the ban on mixing in public is lifted. This is a bit of a back-handed advantage, but many of our smaller churches possess somewhat large buildings with small congregations inside, e.g. a sanctuary that seats 150 with an average attendance of, say, 63. In such cases, which are numerous, spreading out and maintaining safe distancing will be no problem. On the other hand, large churches tend to have lots of people connecting in very close proximity, from the parking lot to the main assembly space to the children’s and youth areas.

Finally, fear and isolation throughout our population might well compel folks to consider God, faith and/or the church more seriously than people were just a few weeks ago.

While the large church is easier to attend while maintaining anonymity, it’s the small church where newcomers can quickly become known and served IF thought, prayer and preparation are strategically engaged such that this unique time of opportunity can and can render a harvest.

Small church, this is your moment. Don’t miss it. Do your part in making small the new huge.

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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Priorities for Revitalizers in the Smaller Congregation

By Bill Tenny-Brittian In my experience there are three difficulty levels in church revitalization: Hard, Harder, and Small Church. The truth is, small churches can be the most difficult to turn from declining to growing. There are a lot of reasons for that, and if you’re the leader in a small church (and if you’re reading this, it’s about a 100 percent guarantee that you are!), you likely already know nearly all of them. Lack of support for change, entrenched leaders, few visitors, fewer returnees, unresolved conflict, high member care expectations, insider decision making processes, low tolerance for innovation or risk, limited resources, limited technology, veneration of the past, fear of the present – let alone the future. And those just barely scratch the surface.

So if you have a heart for revitalization work, and a passion for the intimacy of smaller congregations, you’ve got a tough row to hoe, so to speak. The odds of successfully turning around any church is pretty low, but the odds of revitalizing a smaller church are lower still. Nonetheless, you’re still reading, so let’s talk about what it will take for any measure of success. In a word, success will hinge on how you set and maintain your priorities.

The reality is, no matter what size church you’re revitalizing, your priorities have the power to make or break your efforts.

However, the smaller the church, the less control you may

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have over living out your priorities. Any turnaround effort is fraught with risk, but it tends to be a lot easier to “get rid of the pastor” in a smaller church. In fact, we’ve frequently seen pastors kicked to the curb after they got sideways with a single member, and sometimes not even a prominent member! Tick off the wrong member in a smaller church and you may be looking for your next gig in less than a week! That being said, the best strategy for launching a revitalization strategy is to build alliances with the powers that be before you start anything. (For more on building alliances, see my article at https://effectivechurch.com/growing-your-church-youll-need-alliances/ .) In fact, if you can negotiate the strategies and tactics for turnaround prior to your being called, all the better.

We’re all faced with setting priorities in our lives. Some are wise enough to be intentional in setting them, whereas others let the tyranny of the urgent set them on their behalf.

And yes, you will need to balance your family obligations and personal self-care in the midst of all this – and if you’re bi-vocational, you’ve got a “real” job to do. Regardless of your situation, though, we’ve found that there are three key priorities for success in the revitalization of any church, but especially the smaller church: (1) How you prioritize your time; (2) The people you invest in; and (3) The ministries you engage in.

Prioritizing Your Time

Although it may not be original with him, I believe I heard it first from John Maxwell: “Everyone gets twenty-four hours in a day, but some are able to pack a lot more in that suitcase than others.” Of course, you don’t really get twenty-four hours in a day to do revitalization work. Somewhere in there you’re going to need to sleep, invest in your marriage, nurture your family, and eat your Oreos (according to Warren Buffet, they’re the breakfast of champions). The fact is, though, that those who are serious about revitalization spend a good bit more than eight hours a day on their project church. But just spending more hours working will not a revitalization make – it’s what you do in those hours that makes all the difference.

Before looking at where you should invest your time, let me identify three tasks that get in the way of a revitalization.

me share a hard truth: church leaders who are critically concerned about losing their existing members will kill their churches trying to maintain the status quo. The truth is, in almost every revitalization project there are church members who desperately need to be exited. I know that sounds “not very Christian,” but let me send you to the big red letters in Matthew 16:15–17 about exiting members who are spiritually bankrupt … and then read Titus 3:10 to see how the early church applied Jesus’ directive.

But second, the whole pastor as caregiver for the flock isn’t biblical. In Luke 15:4 the “Good Shepherd” suggests leaving the ninety-nine to fend for themselves so he can search for the lost. Again, to see how the early church applied Jesus’ words, check out Acts 6:1–7. When there was a problem with membership care, who was charged with dealing with it? The membership.

The leaders were busy growing the church. In other words, members take care of members. The revitalizer deals with other matters.

“In my experience there are three difficulty levels in church revitalization: Hard, Harder, and Small Church.”

Preaching Unfortunately, most revitalizing pastors I know seem to think that the key to a successful turnaround church is great preaching, so they prioritize sermon preparation over pretty much everything else. Now, while bad preaching will kill a church of any size, there are a lot of churches stuck at one-hundred or less that have some very good preachers. Many homiletics’ professors are still teaching the “one hour for every minute preached” rule of thumb for sermon preparation. That’s a great idea if you’re worship attendance is north of 300 – the larger the church, the more important preaching is for growth.

However, for the vast majority of pastors who are leading churches with less than a hundred, that practice virtually guarantees they’ll never see 150, let alone 200 plus. To be transparent, I teach homiletics for the Ministry Training Program at Phillips Seminar with the expectation that the average student learn to construct a meaningful, relevant, and transformational sermon in less than four hours a week (including the time spent preparing worship materials).

However, when I coach smaller church pastors, the goal is to get the sermon creation process down to half that.

Member Care I’ll say more about this in the next section, but many revitalization projects go nowhere because the pastor spends a large portion of their time doing “pastoral care.” First, let

Church Administration Non-productive meetings, doing “office work” like creating and printing bulletins, keeping office hours, and so on is a distractive waste of time. Those tasks, and so many others, serve only as distractions from the work of revitalization. Yes, it’s good to find out what the women’s group is doing, but instead of attending their meeting, ask for a one paragraph report. Having a church bulletin may be important, though in a screen-driven service I really don’t know why. But it’s a task for someone else. Don’t have a someone else? Then stop using a weekly produced bulletin. Create the order of service on a halfpage of paper (Welcome, Song, Scripture, Prayer, Offering, Sermon, Song) and then laminate it. It’s not like you’re not announcing the hymn number from the platform anyway.

Prioritize Your Time Effectively Where should you spend your time? In a word: Fishing.

No, not for bass or trout.

But let’s pretend you were going bass fishing. Where would you go? If you were serious about catching fish, you’d go where the fish were. And if you were really serious about getting your daily limit, you’d go where the fish were biting.

Right?

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That wouldn’t be in your office. It wouldn’t be in your home.

And, to be honest, it probably wouldn’t be in the local coffee shop either! When I lived in Kansas, I had a friend who was a Fisherman’s Guide. We’d go out on Melvern Lake to fish for stripers. He knew all the best coves and breeding grounds – we never ever got “skunked” there. On the other hand, when I’d go to the local reservoir to do some catfishing, I rarely caught anything because I didn’t know where the fish were. In other words, context is everything. In your community, you’ll have to figure out where to fish for those you’re trying to reach. There’s no sense in hanging out at the Seniors’ Center if you’re trying to reach Millennials. And if you’re fishing for the lost, you won’t find them at the Christian Coffee House. In other words, you’re going to have to find the best “fishing holes” in your community on your own – unless you can find a guide.

and the leaders of tomorrow. Which is to say, the future of your church wasn’t sitting in your pews last Sunday. Certainly, your members make it possible for the congregation to have a future, but at best, they’re the hope for today and the stars of yesterday … with a heavy emphasis on the latter. Let’s be honest, if your church members were going to grow the church, they’d have done it by now and they wouldn’t need a revitalizing pastor. In other words, if you’re going to turn around your church, you’ll need to be the one hanging out with the unchurched, AKA, prospective new Christians. In fact, if your church has less than 200 in average worship, we recommend prioritizing your time so that you’re spending at least 50 percent of your working week with these folks. Note, I didn’t say 50 percent of your visitation time, and it’s not a typo – if you’re going to revitalize your church you need to be spending at least half of your time with prospective new Christians and prospective new members.

“The hope of any church turnaround is the currently unchurched living in the community.”

All that to say, when it comes to prioritizing your time, your highest priority should be spending it with the right people.

Prioritizing People

The question you may be asking about now is, “And who, pray tell, are the ‘right’ people?” First, let’s be clear … there’s no wrong people to hang out with. Over a wide enough period of time, you’ll want to spend time with your at large church members, your well-connected church members, those members and staff who are in leadership, your shutins, your denominational colleagues, and non-church members such as the Chamber of Commerce members, teachers, CEO’s, Executive Directors, networking groups, those at the coffee shop, and those at the bars. And of course, that’s just a very small sampling of the people groups in your church and community. So, no one’s “off limits” in terms of the “right” people and the “wrong” people.

Now that that’s cleared up, let me make an observation.

If you’re committed to revitalizing your church, there are three groups of people who should be on your priority AAA list.

• Prospective new Christians; • New church members; • Influencers.

In that order.

1. Prospective New Christians The hope of any church turnaround is the currently unchurched living in the community. They’re the members

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2. New Church Members The second people priority are your new church members.

In most smaller churches, new members last about a year before they wander out the back door. Sure, some stay … your choir director’s cousin who moved in down the street in August, but let’s be honest – if the congregation has taken in a half-dozen new members over the past year, most of them attend now-and-again at best, or Easter and Christmas if at all. It doesn’t make any difference how small or how big your church is, getting new members “connected” into the existing congregation is challenging. That’s why your second people priority are your newest members.

Of course, the trick to connecting new members into the church is to get them connected to existing members of the congregation. New members Mike and Michelle are avid bicyclists. If you happen to have other bikers in the congregation, plan on getting them connected. If you don’t have bicyclists in your congregation, you have several options.

You can take up riding (been there, did that, literally got the T-Shirt from the STP – the Seattle To Portland ride for the sake of connecting with Chip – see Hitchhikers’ Guide to Evangelism). You can find another common interest and try to connect them with a congregational member. Of you can get serious about reaching other bicyclists from Group #1 above.

On the other hand, don’t automatically presume that if you have a new member, they need to serve on a committee,

sing in the choir, and volunteer for anything and everything. Just because a new person is busy with church activities doesn’t mean they’re connecting with your members – in fact, the opposite is often true. It doesn’t take long for new members to discover they’re not “fitting in” with your members when they’re constantly reminded, “We don’t do it that way here” or when they find themselves on the fringe of the conversations.

By your spending time with your newest members, you’ll get to know them, you’ll hear how they’re connecting (or not), and you’ll discover ways to help them put their spiritual gifts, skills, and talents into practice both inside and outside of the church. Yes, they’ll probably find themselves connected to you, but if you’re intentional, you’ll eventually find ways to connect them with others.

3. Influencers Although the hope for the future of your church is found in Prospective New Christians, the key to that future is found in your church’s influencers. In fact, one of the most important jobs you have as the CCR (Chief Church Revitalizer!) is to identify who your congregation’s primary influencers are and then build influencing relationships with them. Indeed, if you’re going to move your small church forward, there is little that’s more important than finding a way to get the key influencers into your corner. Especially in the smaller church, logic, persuasive mission, and compelling vision statements will all fall far short in moving your congregation toward a sustainable and growing future if you don’t get the influencers pulling in your direction. Although your influencers are third on your priority list, it’s not because they’re less important than the first two. In fact, in terms of strategic success, bringing your influence to the influencers is the most critical of all your tasks. However, they are your third priority only because you shouldn’t have to spend significant amounts of time with your influencers once you’ve got them trusting you and working in harmony with your vision.

The Ministries You Engage In

Finally, when it comes to priorities, you must be ruthless in choosing which ministries you are a part of. In the smaller church, there is often an expectation that the pastor will not only support every ministry the church does, but they’ll be active participants. However, most smaller churches are involved in way too many church ministries. Besides weekly worship, typical smaller church ministries often includes Sunday school, Bible studies, prayer meetings, women’s mission groups, men’s breakfast meetings, Boy Scouts, church fund raisers, VBS, fellowship meals, and collections for the schools, for the food pantry, for the clothes closet, and for missionaries. That doesn’t include children’s minis-

tries, youth ministries, senior’s ministries, Thanksgiving baskets for the poor, Angel Tree gifts for Christmas, the prayer shawl ministry, the annual rummage sale and Christmas bazaar. In many small churches, the list can go on nearly endlessly. The sad reality is, though, that most of those bear no fruit in terms of recruiting new Christians, making new members, or growing your church.

As difficult as it is, a critical part of the revitalizer’s job is determining which ministries are fruitful, which have outlasted their usefulness, and which ministries desperately need to be shuttered. And that’s where the word “ruthless” comes into play. Leading a church to stop doing a “perfectly good ministry” isn’t exactly a walk in the park. But if a ministry isn’t in some way revitalizing the congregation, it needs to either be revised to make it fruitful or it needs to cease to exist.

To be honest, that paragraph doesn’t go far enough. A small church typically has enough resources for about one really good ministry outside of worship – any more than that and the church’s resources become so divided that every ministry suffers from mediocrity. And yes, I’m sure you can hear the howls of protest when you suggest the annual Lenten Lunches aren’t adding to the church’s revitalization efforts and need to be discontinued. “But pastor, we’ve always hosted those lunches – Mamie Ann is going to be just heartbroken if she can’t make her sweet cornbread this year!” But the more a small church does, the less it does well. And the fact is, we live in a culture that demands excellence and doesn’t tolerate mediocrity. The smaller church has finite resources, choose to spend them judiciously on a signature ministry that gets the church known across the whole community.

Do one thing and do it well.

As a revitalizing leader, you also have limited resources.

There are only so many hours in a day that you can invest.

There are only so many people that you can invest in. And there are only so many ministries you and your church can engage in with excellence. Set your priorities and then live by them – especially when you’re revitalizing the smaller church.

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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The Great Church Come Back

By Ron Smith In a span of forty days, everyday life has found a new identity.

News broke with details of the Coronavirus and fear quickly set in. In panic, we grabbed the essentials – some with wisdom, others in excess. Only time would magnify the differences between nice essentials, and necessary ones.

Can we trust being closer than six feet? Will I ever look at grocery shelves the same? Will I offer a handshake so readily?

Will I recognize you without a mask on?

Life has been re-shaped, creating a pause. This pause is a positive attribute in our everyday. We can and should learn from this pandemic pause. Pauses slow down your movement and heighten your senses, specifically your sensitivity to detail.

This slowness has magnified the value of the essentials – the essentials of coming back. We can learn a lot from this. Specifically, how to come back to the basics of our faith. Coming back will help us move forward.

The Value of Soap (Trust) Soap is valuable. Let me just say my handwashing skills greatly lacked. These extra seconds scrubbing make me feel like a surgeon prepping for brain surgery; and I’m okay with that. Soap has increased in value to me for the lessons it has taught me on purity, cleanliness, and paying attention to exposed areas I thought were clean. Is 20 seconds really that long? How come I didn’t notice the places on my hands I was missing before? It’s worth the time to make sure I am clean – for my benefit, and the benefit of others.

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The Value of Hope (Hope) Hope has always held a place of high value in my life and in my preaching. But when you experience the moving force of hope in action, there is no value that can be assigned; it is priceless. I can preach it a thousand times, “we cannot live without hope.” But experience covers a thousand sermons.

People need hope. In Christ we find real, tangible hope, not just hope in hope. The new normal has awakened us to the depth of the hope we’ve always had access to. It’s like we were leaning on a fallen table, only to find our footing on the bedrock that was beneath it the whole time. As followers of Christ we have rediscovered the value of hope and the power it has in our lives. When the things of our normal life were shaken – our jobs, income, education, and groceries – we learned our hope in the Kingdom of God is not shaken.

The Power of Community (Faith) When curfews and stay-at-home orders initiated, we immediately found ways to gather. Humans are funny. When we see signs like, “wet paint, don’t touch” we touch it. When we hear, “stay at home” we say, “Oh no, I’m going out.”

Once again, we are reminded how much we need community. We rediscover how we are made for other and how others were made for us. The most popular phrase during this time was, “we’re in this together.” This statement crossed all boundaries.

For the church, it was a wake-up call. For many followers of Christ, it hurt to not gather. We were made to gather together and when we cannot, it hurts our walk – because we are a body. Bodies were made to move. We were made for community worship, community teaching, community serving, and community living. We are a body. The church is not a building, but the church needs a gathering place to move as one.

Fair weather Christians were challenged by the alarming fact that their roots of faith did not run that deep. COVID-19 stripped away non-essential dependences and exposed the need for the necessary essentials – faith, peace, and dependence upon Christ.

The Power of Hugs and Handshakes (Joy) 40 days is a relatively short time, but that is all the time it has taken to create a pause of distrust. How long will it take to trust a handshake? How long until we are comfortable greeting and comforting others with hugs?

The basics of our faith once again became essentials.

When I see my church family out in public, I want to highfive, hug, and shake hands. For me it will not take long to return to these habits. For others it might take a bit to trust the handshake again. The power of communicating welcome, appreciation, comfort, encouragement, and greeting is so necessary to the daily human experience. None of us can deny the power of greeting each other and comforting each other closer than six feet apart.

The Fabric of Family (Peace) One of the hardest things about this time has been the struggle of family. Weddings have been postponed. Funerals have been observed at a very unnatural distance. Families have not been able to visit loved ones sick in the hospital or in the facilities of care.

On the other end of the family spectrum some have struggled with education, creative crafts to stay engaged, and trying to manage life under one roof when we are around each other 24/7 with no margin of peace.

And yet, when the struggle settles, we are reminded how valuable the fabric of family is. Many have found power in the family dinner table. Many families have discovered sports and other extra-curricular activities aren’t the necessary essentials they believed they were. The power of family-time strengthens the bonds of life that are critical for emotional and spiritual health.

Just like we see our planet healing itself with the reduction of activities, so we see the family fabric being restored without the wear-and-tear of activities. No other thing can serve as a substitute for the fabric of family.

The Come Back Essentials Crisis has a way to help us discover the roots of our beliefs.

Faith over fear became a foundational mantra, along with hope over worry, and peace over panic. When the world we placed more stock in (economy, food supply, and health) is shaken, we pivot to find more solid ground.

Churches that were not prepared for such a time are finding it hard stay alive (Proverbs 29:18).

Trust. Hope. Faith. Joy. Peace. Worship. Prayer. Gatherings.

The necessity of the local church as a gathering and a belonging place, where we can experience and express the essentials of our faith, is essential not optional. These are the essential elements for the church to make a come-back.

Romans 15:13 says, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”

As we fix our focus on God as The Essential, we realize He is the God of hope. He alone is the one who can fill us. This recognition elicits the same response as seen throughout the Bible.

Whenever God provided hope, His people gathered for worship. Returning our focus to God causes us to long be in His presence with other believers.

As we gather with family as a family, we cannot help but express this joy greeting each other with handshakes and hugs.

There is something about the power of community that restores our faith. There is something powerfully refreshing about community that resets our faith. We need community.

We were made for community.

As the pieces begin to fit like a puzzle, we are returned to the God of hope who causes our hope to abound. When hope is in the house trust is in the heart. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.”

This is how a church makes a come-back. Believing in the God of hope!

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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Helping the Stubborn Little Churches

By Terry Rials Small churches can be very stubborn when it comes to engaging the processes of revitalization, stubborn to the point of even strong resistance. Revitalizers like myself would leap for joy if smaller churches would simply open their doors to us and embrace the help they need. Like a couple whose marriage is in trouble, small churches often wait too long to get help. Too much damage has been done. Too much time has elapsed. The window of opportunity has passed. We are always looking for new inroads into the struggling church, but we are restrained by local church polity and local church stubbornness. Perhaps they would be more open to the possibilities if we could make this process quicker, simpler, and without as much change, but we all understand that is not possible. So, this begs the question – when can we help the smaller church? I have a few thoughts that may help frame the situation.

First, you can help people if they are about to die.

The first thing they teach lifeguards is that you can only save people who want to be saved. If lifeguards swim over to a person who is still kicking and flailing, they can grab a hold of the very person trying to save them and drag them under, killing them both. Many church pastors have ended their ministries by staying at a church that did not

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want to be rescued, only to discover that the church tried to destroy them as well. I am convinced that a church can be helped but only when they discover for themselves that they are about to die. Oddly, one of the quickest ways to save a church from immediate death is to tell it that it is about to die. The very first church I ever helped with revitalization had that very scenario. They were in real trouble, very near death. I told them in no uncertain terms that they had twelve to twenty-four months before they would be dead, based on their trajectory. This made a couple of the people in the church so mad that they stayed alive just to prove me wrong. I am so glad they did! They are still small but are now much healthier and growing more than eleven years later!

Second, you can help people when they let you help them.

Let me tell you about my father-in-law, whom I love dearly. He is ninety years old, lives alone, but cannot do many of the chores physically around the house. His two sons and his two sons-in-law offer to do certain projects for him all the time. We really need to do some work on his roof, work on his plumbing, and we need to spray his yard for weeds, but there is one giant barrier to doing these projects. He won’t let us! He knows they need to be done,

but for whatever reason he has in his head, he doesn’t want us to help him. You can chalk this mindset up to his generation’s thinking, if you wish, but he maintains control in his life by making decisions about how and when people can help him. Once again, the stubbornness factor kicks in. Churches are autonomous so we revitalizers have no right to intrude or impose on the local church; we respect their autonomy too much to do that. Instead, we wait until they decide that it is time or the conditions are right for revitalization to begin. I was so excited a few weeks ago when I spoke to a leader from a church I have been trying to help who told me that they were now ready to have me come in and help them with revitalizing the church. They decided to let me help them.

Third, you can help people when they don’t even know they are being helped.

This sounds a little sneaky, and it may be, but I am willing to take the chance. If we are creative, we can find ways to engage our struggling churches and help them without them even knowing they are being helped. My dad had a very different way of teaching me auto mechanics that will sound very strange to you. He insisted that I learn how to work on my own car when I learned to drive. On occasion, he would go out and do something to my car that would keep it from starting. If I wanted to go someplace, then I had to go out and diagnose what was wrong and fix it. And he wouldn’t even help me. Bizarre right? Yeah. I used to get so irritated that he did this.

He never denied doing it, but he wouldn’t tell me how to fix it either. By making me diagnose my car trouble, I was learning. Dad was teaching me to fix my own car. It must have worked because I was working as a mechanic before I took my first church as pastor. You can help churches by having individual conversations with pastors and church leaders. You can privately provide resources or offer ideas.

You can befriend, and train, and coach. You can gain their trust over time and help them without being too overt about offering your professional expertise.

future to a novice in the field of revitalization. They want to know if this revitalization business has helped others and to what extent. You will hear this question, “Can you give us examples of where this has worked?” Of course we can, and we better be prepared to answer those kinds of questions and give specific examples and contact information. They want to know how much time this will take and how much it will cost. They expect solid answers. We had better have good ones for them. Let me offer this word of caution, be sure to remind them that revitalization works, not because it is the product of our hands, but because it is the will of God and the product of His hands. We cannot revitalize a church. We can only do the work necessary to position the church to experience the mighty movement of God in their midst.

Ask any pastor who has seen his church revitalized and he will tell you what GOD DID! The Jerusalemites only followed that foreigner named Nehemiah because he convinced them that God was at work and that God’s hand was upon him.

“Like a couple whose marriage is in trouble, small churches often wait too long to get help.”

Finally, you can help when you demonstrate that you can help.

Churches want to understand that their efforts will not be in vain. Smaller churches frequently have low energy levels, so they do not want to expend unnecessary energy. They want to know that you know your subject well.

Few small churches will run the risk of entrusting their

As we deal with the stubbornness of the small church, we could complain about it. We could get frustrated by it as well, but perhaps we should thank the Lord for that quality that kept them alive long enough to get the help they needed. I am thankful that God is raising up a generation of revitalizers to help His church, stubbornness and all.

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.

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Becoming a Different Kind of Small Church Pastor

By Steve Smith “I feel like a failure.” The confession hung in the air between me and the small church pastor as he admitted to grappling with resigning. He had tried everything he had been trained for in seminary. His preaching was above average.

He had added a D.Min. to his collection of degrees. He had been innovative. But nothing changed in his congregation.

Oh, they were supportive of his work and glad to have him as a pastor. It had come down to this—he was ready to quit because his filter of truth told him he had flunked at pastoring.

Too many pastors leave ministry under an unrealistic black cloud, thinking they are permanent failures or they are in the wrong calling of life or that somehow God will not give them favor. What do they feel proves this? In the three or four or five years they have been in this or that church, there had been no growth. No new disciples. No revitalization. No community impact. “If I leave,” the pastor thinks, “there is a chance that someone new could come and revitalize this church. Just not me!”

Okay, for starters, 85% of all North American churches are small, with 180 or less attenders. And most are less.

The average size church is 75. This means that 85% of all pastors are in small churches. These facts are a reminder that most of you not only pastor smaller congregations, but that you probably grew up in one. If so, you learned how to pastor by observing your pastor behaving as a small church pastor.

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There is a style to small church pastoring which has little to do with its spiritual health. I know a number of small, vibrant churches where the believers love people, are walking faithfully with God, and whose community knows they are there. I know just as many stuck and sick small churches that are the opposite. But in both, the way the pastor does ministry is very similar. They are all what I call ‘high-touch shepherds.’

A high-touch shepherd is intimately involved in the lives of every attender. Preacher, counselor, listening ear, friend— sometimes parent substitute—and companion for fun times. The pastor provides all the services a congregant needs and finds that people are offended if he does not call to check on them if they miss a Sunday, or personally visits them in the hospital.

On top of that, he attends each church event, leads a lion’s share of the Bible studies and is Google calendared in for every meeting that goes on weekly. Added duties perhaps include cleaning the building, keeping up its maintenance and being there to unlock doors when others use it. Maybe he is the event planner, fund raiser, and church’s outreach as well. The first to arrive on Sundays and the last to leave, locking up behind all the others.

There is no shame in being a high-touch shepherd. If God has made you that way, embrace it and thank Him for His gifts for you. Your church can be spiritually sound and

happy in the Lord without you changing your way of doing ministry.

But understand that this high-touch shepherding style is limiting. It limits not just your ministry, but may limit the growth of your attenders as disciples. It limits the lasting effects of revitalization, since in many churches, the congregation stagnates while watching you to carry out many of the church’s functions for them.

mentality on the part of attenders is, “I have to have a relationship with the pastor to belong.” This is the thinking of what is called ‘single-cell church,’ with you being the nucleus. You have to recognize this is part of the trap you’re in. Begin planning how to be a ‘multi-cell church,’ where people connect to each other through your small group system instead of depending on you alone. Planning this will lead you to the following step.

“ ‘I feel like a failure.’

The confession hung in the air between me and the small church pastor as he admitted to grappling with resigning.”

I give pastors a card showing the 18 ministry systems and ask them to circle every system for which they are responsible. High-touch shepherds will circle on average seven or eight before sheepishly admitting that they are doing way too much for the church.

What this exercise is meant to show them is that they’re failing to equip believers properly for the work of ministry, which Paul says in Ephesians 4:11-12, is the reason Jesus gives leaders to the church.

Having an audience for a congregation instead of a serving army often leads to feelings of failure as you wear yourself out on their behalf.

If you are seeking to be an effective revitalizer in a small church, you have to change your pastoral style. You have to refit yourself for the role of an equipper. Focus yourself on the task of training your people how to serve, witness, disciple, lead in ways they have depended on you to do for them. By equipping them, you are raising up co-workers to serve with you to create a greater gospel impact on your community.

How do you make this transition? Be ready to accept that this will not be an overnight change for you. And it will take some time for the congregation to accept the change as well. But let me give you the biggest steps in the process.

Make the emotional shift. You will find you have an emotional attachment to the high-touch shepherd role which will pull you toward staying in that wrong role. There are a lot of personal rewards for being there for everyone, being their personal shepherd, for being everybody’s friend. Lots of admiration and thankfulness comes your way. Accept that making this change will hurt at first. You will probably need a mentor to help you get through it.

Change the connection system. In small churches, you, the pastor, are the connection system. Small church

Train lay shepherds. Teach them the skills you have learned about giving spiritual care to others.

Use them to lead small groups.

Train every ministry leader in the church to lead one. After you train them, publicly present them to the rest of the congregation so the attenders will know that these men and women will be taking on the responsibility for their spiritual care. This will help the congregation accept the change and free up your time to be the pastor who leads the church where God wants it to go.

Train mature believers to disciple the younger ones. It’s not enough to make disciples yourself. Teach the ones who are growing in maturity to guide others in the process. This will do more to make them co-workers than anything else you do. And do not forget that being a witness is part of being a mature disciple!

Train leaders to take over significant ministry systems.

You can’t just stop overseeing evangelizing or discipling or the weekly gathering if no one is ready to take over the responsibility. Identify and teach the right leaders how to do it well. Teach them how to team with others so they can share the load. Then give the ministry system over to them.

I know you can do this. I did it myself in the small church I guided in revitalization. But you have to make up your mind that you will. You have to depend on the Spirit to empower you to change. If you need more answers or guidance, let me know.

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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By George A. Thomasson Imagine that you are driving at highway speeds on a twolane country road. You are listening to music and fail to see a sign that reads, “ROADBLOCK AHEAD.” You don’t know it, but you are in imminent danger. If you don’t react quickly, you could crash and burn! The same can be true when a revitalizer attempts to restore health to a rapidly declining small church.

Churches of all sizes may need revitalization at some point in their lifecycle. However, it seems that smaller churches may in fact present more difficulty than their larger “sisters.”

Before beginning a revitalization effort in a small church, a revitalizer should recognize potential roadblocks. With an understanding of these roadblocks, he should be able to skillfully detour around the dangers and avoid a tragic crash. Following are some of the roadblocks to revitalization in a small church.

1. The PASTOR Roadblock If the small church still has a pastor, it poses real challenges.

In most cases, if he were going to be able to lead the church to again become a vital, growing, reproducing church, he would have already done so. Why would this be true? More than likely he is a wonderful, godly shepherd. He loves the Lord, cares for his people, and ministers to their needs. However, his gift and skill set are not that of a visionary leader who can think strategically, set direction, and motivate his people to embrace a fresh vision.

On the other hand, if the small church does not have a pastor a different challenge may be encountered. The congregation usually thinks that the “silver bullet” needed to grow the church again is simply to call the right pastor. Surely, he can set their church on fire again. That may well be true, but because of the following roadblocks, it is doubtful.

2. The HISTORY Roadblock Every church has a history. The need for a new church was

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evident, so godly pioneers left the comfort of their established churches and paid the price to birth a new congregation. They called a pastor, found a meeting place, rolled up their sleeves, and went to work.

The new church flourished and grew. There was excitement and joy as people were being saved and baptized. Sunday School classes were formed and lifelong friends were made.

But as the church matured and the new wore off, the church shifted into a “maintenance” mentality. The efforts and resources of the church changed from an outward to an inward focus. Attendance declined, offerings decreased, and the spirit of joy waned. The leaders looked back at their history and tried to interject the same outreach programs that worked in the past. What they failed to notice was the next roadblock.

3.The COMMUNITY Roadblock Decades have probably passed by now and the community surrounding the church campus has seen dramatic changes. It may have included a socioeconomic shift. Or a very different ethnic diversity may now mark the neighborhood.

People of color with different heart languages now compose the population.

The problem: The church carried on business as usual having “church” to the total disregard of the transitioning of their community. Probably many of their families have moved to more desirable neighborhoods but still drive back to their “home church” for worship. The church leaders did not adjust to the changing community and it eventually resulted in their inability to identify with, or minister to, the people who now live around them.

4. The FINANCIAL Roadblock Not in every case, but in many, small churches desperately in need of revitalization have money in the bank. They have no debt, have trimmed their expenses, may have a part-time or

bi-vocational pastor, and can pay their bills. They may even keep the facilities in good shape. As long as they feel financially secure and are having “church” they are not desperate.

Why do they need to make radical changes?

5. The PREFERENCE Roadblock No longer do the people have a burning passion to reach those who are far from God. Oh, they may give to the mission offerings, but what about their “Jerusalem?” They have an immediate mission field, but even if they do want to reach their neighbors, one of two attitudes exist. First, they may adopt the opinion: “We are here every Sunday to preach the gospel. If they are interested, they are welcome.” No real thought or effort is given to finding ways to reach out to the unchurched. Second, they may also be of the opinion that the way they have always done things is good enough. As a result, the church members become inflexible and hold tenaciously to their “preferences.” They either forget or never knew that the priority should be “function” not “form,” especially when it comes to worship style. They are not about to adjust to a worship style that will be relevant to the people they want to reach. They will fight for their favorite music, never asking, “What will it take to reach our community?” It’s all about them and their preferences!

7. The FAMILY Roadblock In most small churches in need of revitalization there are a few faithful, older couples who hold things together. They are faithful to tithe, open the building, take care of the sick and do what little maintenance they still can to keep the facilities presentable. The demise of these churches may be as fragile as one or two of these couples passing on to glory.

“If a declining small church does not awaken from spiritual slumber, admit Her need for radical change and commit wholeheartedly to a revitalization process, it will surely die!”

6. The LEADERSHIP Roadblock Sadly, a small church in need of revitalization always experiences a leadership vacuum. Members of the church who were progressive, capable, gifted leaders tried repeatedly to get a hearing with the pastor and church body. They desired a fresh mission that would help the people to answer the question: “Why does our church exist?” They also wanted the church to agree on and adopt common values that would define: “If you cut us, what do we bleed?” They also felt a need for a clear strategy answering: “How do we go about reaching our mission?”

After multiple attempts with little or no meaningful response, these leaders finally saw the handwriting on the wall and reluctantly left the church. The result – a gradual migration of the people who could have affected revitalization – a leadership vacuum! What is left is a few good people who love the Lord, but who do not have the strength or resources for revitalization.

Another dynamic of the family roadblock can be very harmful.

A few families really have control over the church behind the scenes. They think that they are protecting the church from an aggressive, evangelistic pastor who wants to change things in order to reach people with the gospel.

Their attitude may be, “We were here before the pastor came and we will still be here when he’s gone.” They often pour cold water on every initiative he proposes, resisting change and eventually resulting in the pastor’s resignation. Those who loved their pastor leave disillusioned and the church loses even more vitality.

8. The INEVITABILITY Roadblock To be blunt…If a declining small church does not awaken from spiritual slumber, admit Her need for radical change and commit wholeheartedly to a revitalization process, it will surely die!

The wise revitalizer will recognize these roadblocks and address them carefully and prayerfully. When he does, the Spirit of God can work in and through him as a catalyst for new life.

Note: Among the many tools for church revitalization is my book: RESUSCITATE…How to Breathe New Life into a Gasping Church. It is available on Amazon.

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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WHY SMALL GROUPS?

From the Old Testament to the New Testament small groups are used in very significant ways.

Small Groups have always been part of God’s plan to develop and grow believers. In modern times from Sunday School to the contemporary Small Group movement the churches that embraced small groups in a significant way experienced the most growth in evangelism and discipleship. Small Groups should be a fundamental strategy for every church that seeks to be a Biblically complete church.

OUR VISION – Why We Exist

To see every church develop significant small groups that are healthy and growing.

OUR MISSION – What We Do We come to the church and partner with the pastor and staff to evaluate the current condition of their Small Group Ministry and then develop a custom plan to renovate and reinvigorate their groups. Our plan includes developing comprehensive goals and strategies.

We also provide training and custom resources for the churches we serve.

www.DynamicSmallGroups.org

407-965-9515

Two Key Metrics of Small Church Revitalization

By Pete Tackett Churches across denomination lines seem to have an arc of enthusiasm, stability, and decline, whether they are small churches or large churches. A key difference in today’s culture between large church and small church revitalization has to do with margin of error, or how much of a blow to attendance, leadership, or finances they can take without folding.

The small church in America has always had a smaller margin of error, simply due to the economy of scale.

I recently had 11 adult guests show up over a twoweek period from a small sister church a few miles away. If 11 of my people left at one time, it would hurt my heart but not the progress of the church. The sister church, whose pastor I immediately called, only had 40 regular attenders to start with so 11 people was Âź of their congregation. It is a stark illustration of this economy of scale.

Because of this economy of scale, small churches that hit bumps in the road, or who just have the bad fortune to be planted in a declining neighborhood, are far more likely to need purposeful revitalization and professional help. Unfortunately, depending on what brought them to that point, small churches are typically less likely to seek that kind of help, preferring to work it out on their own.

The revitalizer going into such a church should recognize there are some metrics or numbers that will both help him to understand the issues that led to

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the need for revitalization and some metrics that will help him recognize when they have turned the corner toward health.

There are two trends the revitalizer should immediately seek to understand that are not vastly different than a large church process but pose much greater risks in a small church environment. To understand some of these numbers, he will need to go outside the church to get accurate information. Just as when a pastor search committee paints a rosy picture of the church and its openness to moving forward to a candidate, the leadership of a struggling church will often give an unrealistic view of the current circumstances. It is not an overt attempt to lie, but most people that are left when a church needs revitalization remember a day when things were good and feel like the pieces of the puzzle are still there if they can just figure out how to arrange them.

Before he seeks to lead a small church to revitalization, he needs to understand what kind of small church he is dealing with. Not all small churches are the same, nor are they small for the same reason. The North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention frequently points out that the normative size church in America is less than 100 in average attendance so by definition almost all churches in need of revitalization are small. However, not all small is the same.

A revitalizer going into a church of 50 needs to know the trajectory. Chances are they would not be seeking revitalization if the trajectory was good, but consider both the direction and speed of the numbers.

A church of 50 attenders that has been bouncing between 50-60 for a decade or more will need a different kind of leadership than one who was averaging 80 3-5 years ago and are now falling past 50. The revitalizer in the first church will need to spend some time selling the idea of change quietly to individuals before it is ever considered officially. In the second church, there is likely to be greater urgency as people can still remember when they were healthier and moving in the right direction. The best way to get the true picture of the trajectory of the church is through the denominational reporting systems or by digging into attendance records. (Unfortunately, in my denomination, as churches begin to struggle, they sometimes either don’t report accurate information or provide inaccurate information.)

to what happened 30 years ago. The potential is different, but health can still be attained and measured.

That potential change happens not only in rural environments but in enclaves of suburban and urban neighborhoods. For many years, I partnered with a group in Park Slope, NY, before gentrification took over. I described it in those days as being like any small declining town in America but instead of being surrounded by fields and farms, they were surrounded by other similar communities. The revitalizer cannot assume because the church is in or near a major city, it has the potential growth of that city’s population or demographics. It is important to know who lives within 2-5 miles and the trends in age, race, and economics. Whether in a rural or urban setting, those demographics need to be laid alongside the church’s for comparison.

“Not all small churches are the same, nor are they small for the same reason.”

The revitalizer also needs to recognize the potential is different in a small church environment. Look back at the numbers and see the highs over the past two decades and identify what was different at that time.

You might find there was a factory in their community that closed and many of their people had to move away to find work. You might find the town once had a small school that was the epicenter of community life and it was consolidated and the community life shifted away from where the church is located.

While there are certainly internal reasons why churches need revitalization and many of them are rooted in sinful behaviors, it does behoove a revitalizer to recognize the limitations of growth potential so realistic measures of health and revitalization can be established. One of my favorite churches is First Baptist Church in my hometown. While I was never a member there, their youth ministry greatly impacted my life. At one time in the 1980’s, if they had a weekend youth event, it would cause the school to close on Friday, at least unofficially. 35 years later, it is a much smaller and older church as population has declined, jobs have left, and the community has grayed. In a rural town of now 1,200, success cannot be compared

As you begin a process of revitalization in a small church, knowing the trajectory will give you a sense of the urgency of the need and the speed with which you must travel and can travel. There will always be that tension of needing to move a little faster than people like because you are dealing with life and death issues for the body of Christ.

Knowing the potential will allow the church to acknowledge that not everything that contributed to their decline was the fault of a person, a pastor, or even sin. It will also allow you to paint a picture of the possible and develop a game plan that will appreciate the new normal of their community and demographics and seek to position the church to be a healthy spiritual influence in that new normal.

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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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.

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

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.

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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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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.

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.

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 focus on the one yes will overshadow the thousand

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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Critical Clash With the Critical Mass

By Jim Grant The perspective of this article is with the small church dynamics – what a revitalizer will have to work with if a revitalization attempt is made. It is vital to understand the internal dynamics of a small church in its context before trying to implement change. Revitalization is a multi-faceted world. The particular environment where revitalization is needed does not have a specific geographical or demographical setting, except that the church is in an unhealthy position or trend. I have been involved in pastoring and counseling various churches over the last 20 years. I have found the most difficult church to adopt a renewal/ revitalization process is the small church. While having said small church, even this term must be defined accurately. We have been told, by various studies and denominational leaders, that the average church in our denomination is roughly 75 people. If this is a normal sized church, then the small church must be fewer by definition. There is the concept among counselors and revitalizers called Critical Mass. Critical Mass has been defined as churches that have an active membership of less than 50 people. With these two definitions in place, then we can understand the statement that 85% of the churches in America are in plateaued, declining, or a dying situation.

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When we look at trying to implement a revitalization strategy within a small church there are several points that must be considered if the work is to be successful. Points of consideration begin with whether the church is urban, suburban, or rural. In each of the community dynamics the churches will carry a different ideological philosophy of church life. In respect of the urban or suburban church, the question of history will play a significant part in WHY the church is unhealthy. In other words, the community dynamics come invariably into play. If there have been shifts in the ethnicity or economics in the community, then they will have an incredibly significant impact on the downward spiral of the church. Usually the congregation resisted the changes around them and adopted an isolationist position over a period of many years. Churches do not die because of the community changes as much as they die from within themselves by choosing to defend and maintain an outdated method of ministry. If we look further into urban/suburban churches we find that the urban was at one time a suburban church; but as changes in the demographics occurred, the church moved to a “safer place� that looked more like them.

Now looking at a small church in a rural environment; well this takes us into quite a different setting.

Rural churches are just that, they are in a farming or less populated geographical location. The mentality of the rural population is significantly different than either of the small churches in urban or suburban settings. Rural people and churches do not think like the aforementioned churches. Life is slower and seasonal for the rural small church. [A Good reference book on this topic Church Revitalization in Rural America: Restoring Churches in America’s Heartland. I contributed to this book written by Tom Cheyney.]

from the membership. Sometimes, the authority over the people comes from a position of leadership held in the secular setting. People think that leadership in one aspect of the world automatically qualifies them for leadership in the church. Servant leadership is the mandate for the church. So, really the revitalizer must deal with these people directly, for they are not going to give up their positions easily.

There is a sub-category to the power brokers called the Matriarchal or Patriarchal people of the church. Usually these church members have been in the church for a great number of years. Most likely they are charter members.

This means they have been in the church long enough to wield influence either from a large family connection or have outlived everyone and assumed control. I actually had a matriarchal person in one of my churches that was so influential that if I had a conversation at church, she would know what the conversation was before I could drive to her house. To say that this type of person is a manipulator is an understatement. I have found that other church members are unwilling to go against them because they will be ostracized by the church if it ever got back to the person that they disagreed or challenged the matriarchal or patriarchal decision.

“Whether rural or urban, small churches often are small because of unhealthy relationships within the church that have been ignored and allowed to fester in the congregation.”

Let us move to the next area to consider; that of critical mass. When churches get to a point of critical mass, it means there is a lack of people to be able to function as a church. I know so many churches less than 50 that think they are still a functioning church, but the truth of the matter is they are really only going through the motions of gathering together with no ministry occurring. Truth – gathering together does not make a church any more than being in a garage make one a car. The functioning of church is more than a few people in the same place. I know that may sound harsh, but truth is truth.

Critical Mass occurs when the church members are too few to be able to engage in the five functions of church life: evangelize, disciple, worship, ministry, and fellowship. What I mean by this is there is a leadership void that either is not available or unwilling to do the work of the ministry.

Moving onto another characteristic called Power Brokers. Power brokers are the congregants that seemingly hold the church hostage because of their influence or the amount of finances they contribute.

Obviously, the key word to this group of people is power. I have worked with several small churches; I have learned to watch the congregation when a critical question or process is presented; they all look to certain ones in the meeting for their reaction to the change. Power brokers get into their position because others will not engage in the work of the church. The authority of the power brokers comes

Blog: preachbetweenthelines.com Jim Grant is the Executive Director of the Galveston Baptist Association. He is an Air Force veteran, retiring with twenty-five years of service. 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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The Leadership Link:

Creating A Culture Of Change Within Your Ministry Context

By Michael Atherton The principles of revitalization may be the same, regardless of your context. However, your context is going to dictate how you apply those principles. Are there differences in application between the small church and the large church? Sure, there are! Are there differences in application between the urban church and rural church? No doubt.

Suffice it to suggest; there is no one-size-fits-all model of church revitalization because every church is different, and every context demands its own thoughtful approach. A discipline that is going to be necessary, regardless of your setting, is in leading change.

It is suggested that nobody likes change. Though you might want to challenge the notion, you do not have to be in ministry very long before you realize the veracity of the statement. There is something about change that tends to bring out the unique qualities in someone. But truth be told, even though you may be a change agent, you also likely do not like change. I have spent the past fifteen years helping bring about change in the local church, the classroom, and in individuals’ lives, but please do not ask me to change. When I get home and happen to notice that my wife has moved my socks from the right side of my top drawer to the left side of my second drawer, it elicits the same question I get at church; why? What was wrong with my socks being in the top drawer? Why did you feel the need to move them? We tend only to want change when we perceive that change is going to better our life or situation. And, make no mistake about it, every individual gets to decide for themself if the proposed changes will better their life or situation. More on this in a bit‌ The first step in leading change is creating a culture of change within the church. The challenge is to try and create a culture that allows people to see that change from a perspective they want to embrace, not resist. Clearly, that

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is easier said than done. There is one major issue that every leader must acknowledge when leading change: the cost.

What is the proposed adjustment going to cost the follower, emotionally, physically, mentally, financially, socially, spiritually, etc.? What is the cost of the change?

Now, if you desire to create a culture in which change can happen, as a leader, you must balance the scale, or even tip the scale. Let’s consider three components that we will eventually have to counter-balance.

A leader must address the follower’s dissatisfaction with the status quo.

Very simply put, is the follower dissatisfied with the way things are? It has been my experience in leading revitalization efforts, that it does not take long to find the people who are absolutely satisfied with the status quo. Sometimes they find themselves content because they are complacent people. Other times, change represents a loss of power or control; therefore, they resist any attempt to change the current status.

The reasons can be numerous.

However, understand without those persons coming to the point of dissatisfaction with the status quo, your goal of leading change will be all the more difficult.

around aimlessly on the change carousel. Your congregation is desperate for some reasonable assurance that the proposed changes, when enacted, have some probability for success; by whatever measures that is defined.

“Unless the members have an eternal, kingdom-driven lens through which they look at the church, they will likely resist the change.”

A leader must address the benefits of the proposed change.

Like it or not, change for change’s sake is just not much fun to most people. Most congregants, particularly in revitalization contexts, want to know why the alterations are happening. Very literally, they are asking, will these changes have any benefit for me. If yes, they will at least entertain the proposed change. If no, they likely will resist.

So, presuming that this is true, let’s spend just a moment getting very practical. Think about how a pastor’s decision to change the worship style, citing the need to appeal to the outside world, falls upon the ears of the current membership. Very literally, the current members like the music the way it is and do not see any benefits to changing. Unless the members have an eternal, kingdom-driven lens through which they look at the church, they will likely resist the change. As a pastor, you cannot comprehend why they are resistant. The answer is that you are looking at the kingdom value of changing, and they at personal benefits or lack thereof.

A leader must address the probabilities of success.

Your followers continually ask themselves, if we allow the proposed changes, how can we know that it is going to fix the problems we are facing. How many times have we walked through monumental changes only to get on the back end and not see any advancement in the challenges we were addressing? This lack of progress is a brutal reality of leadership but, pastor, people are tired of riding

You see, the reality is that every eighteen to forty-two months, they have a new pastor, with new ideas, ready to overhaul the church completely. When the new ideas do not prove to work, the pastor leaves and the congregants are left to pick up the pieces. They are tired of continually being told they are not good enough, and all they need to do is change. Eventually, they dig their heels in and decide that they will just outwait the pastor’s tenure.

A leader must tip the balance.

If you want to help prepare congregants’ hearts for significant change, you must figure out a way to ensure that the success of the three components discussed above is greater than the cost of the proposed change. The result will be a culture in which changes will be more readily accepted. Apply this logic to a relocation, curriculum changes, adding a service, a building project, or whatever else you desire. When the cost of change is too high, the question in the mind of a congregant becomes: why would I ever want to make “this” change? As leaders, it is of paramount importance for us to consider the cost of change from the perspective of the congregation.

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.

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Confessions of a Small Church Revitalizer

By Mark Weible The church was desperate for a pastor and I was desperate for a church. But I knew in my heart that God had called me to serve them. As we were leaving one city and two jobs, going to another city with no job, my wife asked me what I would see myself doing if it was not being a pastor. Wow! I had not really thought of that before. I had been preparing to pastor a local church since I was a teenager. I knew that God had called me to do that and I had never questioned it.

But my wife was beginning to have her doubts and that did not make me feel very confident at the time.

A couple of months later, I walked the hallways of Kingsborough Ridge Baptist Church on a Sunday morning. I peeked into the Sunday School classrooms where children were supposed to be learning about our awesome God. However, I did not hear the voices of little children, nor the sounds of teachers sharing the wonderful mysteries of God. I heard nothing but silence and I only saw willing teachers sitting in their rooms with their Bibles and no one else. I asked, “Where are the children?” One by one, the Sunday School teachers explained that they had not had any children in several weeks, but they continued to sit in their classrooms week after week waiting for them to come. “Then, we have to go get them,” I found myself saying over and over again. I said the same thing when I saw less than 30 people in the worship service on my first Sunday and when I had my first deacon’s meeting. “We have to go get them” was my church revitalization strategy.

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I had never heard the term “church revitalization” nor did I think of myself as a church revitalizer. I was a twenty-seven-year-old inexperienced pastor and I had never been a part of a declining church. I did not even know that churches could plateau or decline.

When I met with my deacons for the first time, I asked them to assess the church’s current situation and explain how the church had gotten to that point. They had all been there long enough to remember better days and they had plenty of explanations (let’s call them excuses) as to why the church was in such a sad state. “We are not getting any new visitors” is what I kept hearing from these men. My only response was, “Then we have to go get them.” That was all that I knew how to do. Every other church that I had been a part of did not just sit around and wait for people to come to them. They went and got them.

Each morning, when I went into my office, I would pray for God to give me wisdom to lead these people well. I also prayed that God would show me some church members who had a little free time and who wanted to go get people. One morning a woman stopped by the church office to ask for money to buy gas for her pick-up. She told me that she went to Vacation Bible School at our church when she was five and that the people were kind to her and that is why she came to us for help. She was a single mom with six kids living in a mobile home park less than one mile from the church building. I asked her if she would be interested in hosting a women’s Bible

study in her trailer. She responded by saying that she would love to do that, but she had no one to watch her kids. I told her that I would find a woman in the church to lead the Bible study and that I would lead a Bible club with her kids and her neighbors’ kids in her yard. I followed her to the nearest gas station and put a few dollars in her tank. I told the woman that we would start the Bible study within the next two weeks. She seemed to be excited.

said, “See all of these kids running around? Let’s give them the cookies and Kool-Aid.” Not long after that, we were holding kids Bible clubs in that mobile home community and two other apartment communities.

We purchased a van and started bringing the kids to church on Sunday mornings. They filled up our empty classrooms and our empty worship center.

Before long, we started seeing more adults on Sunday mornings as well. It was because of our “we have to go get them” approach that our church was getting noticed in the community. Now, I don’t want to oversimplify it. We did eventually go through a revitalization process using an outside consultant provided by our denomination with something called: Process Assisting Churches in Transition or PACT. The consultant helped us to turn our inward focused church to become more outwardly focused. We developed compassion ministries such as ESL classes, counseling services, parenting classes, and a food pantry. We earned the reputation of “the church that cares”. We got some free publicity from the local press and that too helped us in the long run. However, we learned that no matter what, we still have to go get them.

“It was because of our ‘we have to go

I prayed for God to show me a woman in the church, who was going to lead the women’s Bible study in the mobile home park. Her name was Audrey.

She came to our home unannounced one evening. Over the next couple of hours, Audrey told her story to my wife and myself. She concluded by saying that her doctor had told her that she needed to become more socially active with more people for mental health reasons. Audrey was a grandmother who lived by herself. Her husband had passed away a few years earlier. He was a WWII vet, POW and confined to a wheelchair due to polio. Audrey had spent most of her adult life taking care of her husband and now she had nothing to do but to waste away by herself in her own home.

I realized right away that Audrey was the answer to my prayer. I told her about the opportunity to start a Bible study for un-churched women in the mobile home park. She was reluctant at first, but after praying for a few days – she said yes.

get them’ approach that our church was getting noticed in the community”

In the following days, Audrey passed out flyers at the mobile home park, inviting the women to come to a Bible study in the home of one of their neighbors. A few days later, we went back. Audrey was prepared and ready to start the Bible study. I was geared up to start the kids club. We had cookies and Kool-Aid and we were ready. However, none of the women showed up for the Bible study, not even the hostess.

There was no sign of her or her six kids. The neighbors said that she left just before we got there. Disappointed, Audrey asked, “What do we do now?” I

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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Church Size and Revitalization: Is Your Church a Cat or a Dog?

By Jack L Daniel In my early years as a pastor, I recall how excited I would get when our church’s Sunday attendance would increase from an average of 70 to an average of 80 or 85 for a few weeks. And how discouraged I became when it shrank back to its normal 70 as some of the newcomers stopped attending and some of our regular members drifted into inactivity. You can imagine my confusion and frustration— it seemed 70 was our default number, and we just couldn’t grow past it. I desperately wanted to see our older, inwardly focused church reach out and be revitalized. I would wonder what was wrong with me as a pastor. I would beseech God with ever more desperate prayers, double down on visitation, and work harder on my preaching.

Then God answered my prayer through a recovering alcoholic in my congregation. A casual conversation with this friend helped me understand a profound truth. He said that AA has a definition of insanity: “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” At the time, I had never heard that saying. My friend helped me understand that if I wanted a different result, namely for my church to be renewed and grow, I would have to take a whole new approach to ministry. That saying, now widely understood for many situations, is a truism, so obvious or self-evident that it goes without saying. Andy Stanley puts it a bit differently; he says, “Every church is perfectly engineered to get the result it is getting.” My church was functioning exactly as the members had shaped it to function and as they wanted it to function.

The “size culture” of our church was what locked it in at 70 people. The very way we were “doing church” kept my church small and ineffective. It was the strong relational bond among the existing members that effectively excluded newcomers and kept the church at the same size.

My 70-member church was not going to become a healthy 200-member church simply because I prayed harder or worked harder. Clearly, we were going to have to do a new thing.

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Kevin E. Martin’s book The Myth of the 200 Barrier helped me better understand how the size dynamics of a church can work for or against church revitalization. He proposes that there are essentially three different size churches: • The FAMILY size church, the most common, with an average Sunday attendance (ASA) of 3 to 75 people • The PASTORAL size church, with an ASA of 76 to 140 • The PROGRAM size church, which can further be divided into Small PROGRAM (ASA 200-400), Medium PROGRAM (ASA 400-600) and Large PROGRAM (ASA 600-900) For practical purposes, let’s confine this discussion to family and pastoral size churches since the vast majority of churches in America that are in need of revitalization fall into these two categories. These two church cultures are so different . . . well, they are different animals altogether.

CATS.

A family size church (ASA up to 75) is like a pet cat: it is independent, and self-sufficient. A family size church can function without a settled pastor for months and even years because its identity is in relationships, traditions, and shared history, not in its pastor. The members bond to the church and to Christ through their church relationships, not through the pastor or program.

On the positive side, healthy family size churches have wonderful strengths. These include a deep sense of belonging, genuine care for one another, “all-hands-on-deck” member participation, and an ability to enfold a limited number of broken people. These churches highly value everyone knowing everyone else, people over program, financial solvency, faithful church attendance, cherished traditions, and maintaining church property. Healthy family size churches may be the most pure form of Christian community. And they can frequently grow into larger churches because healthy organisms tend to grow. But, they must do something different to get there.

On the negative side, when family size churches are no longer healthy, they exhibit characteristics that make revitalization harder. First, small, ailing churches are often resistant to pastoral leadership because their pastors have typically had brief stays. They assume that the current pastor will be leaving soon and are reluctant to let him or her introduce changes, fearing they will be stuck with those changes when he or she leaves. Second, family size churches are often controlled by one or two families who resist yielding leadership to newcomers. This ensures that new people will not stay around long. Third, an unhealthy family church focuses on meeting the needs of the existing members, and the calendar and budget reflect this. There is no time, money, or energy left to fulfill the Great Commission in the wider community. And finally, since these churches function like extended families with everyone accepted “as is,” unskilled or poorly trained members are in leadership, and worship services and programs reflect a lack of quality, making them ineffective in reaching outsiders. Like a dysfunctional family, unhealthy family churches will often tolerate bad behavior on the part of some members, becoming even less appealing.

In short, the close-knit family bond that holds them

together and gives them their identity is what makes it difficult for them to attract and enfold outsiders.

However, if pastors can assure their people that they intend to stay and can patiently build trust by accepting the flock as they are, faithfully preaching the gospel, caring for their spiritual needs, and winning their support for a new approach to ministry, then unhealthy family churches can gain health and growth. It will take time; every good thing does. As one very effective family church pastor I know says, “Preach, Pray, Love, Stay.”

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DOGS.

If the family size church is like a pet cat, then a pastoral size church (ASA 76 to 140) is like a pet dog. Both the church and the dog are eager to spend time with their leader and are good at following commands, but unfortunately both are very dependent on their master (pastor) for their care and feeding. The chief characteristic of a pastoral size church is that, unlike a family church, it is too big to lead itself. It must depend on pastoral leadership. In a pastoral size church, high value is placed on everyone knowing the pastor and having direct access to him or her. Also, the pastor is tasked with providing overall leadership and direction. Pastoral churches have a traditional understanding of the pastoral role and expect the pastor to be present at all functions and active in all visitation and care. Unlike family churches, pastoral churches become more anxious when they are without a pastor.

On the positive side, pastoral churches are able to support a full-time pastor and are more willing to follow the pastor’s lead, even in initiating change. They are big enough that they can allow newcomers to integrate somewhat easily, even into leadership. Further, they can often provide ministries to children and youth, making them more attractive to families who are seeking a healthy church.

On the negative side, a pastoral size church will rarely grow beyond ASA 150 unless the pastor introduces a new style of leadership. This is because 150 is the approximate number of people that the average pastor can effectively relate to and lead. This number seems to be hard-wired into the psychosocial make up of human beings. It is observable in other leadership-dependent social systems such as tribes, military units, and corporations.

In pastoral size churches, pastors are the gatekeepers, and people are drawn to the church through them because of their personality and friendship. People are also attracted because of their ministry skills, especially preaching. Individual members connect to the church because of and through the pastor. He or she is the glue that holds everyone together. Consequently, as the membership exceeds the pastor’s capacity to relate meaningfully to everyone, some members will start to disengage, feeling that the pastor does not have time for them anymore. A frequent complaint is that the pastor pays too much attention to newcomers. Furthermore, the pastor

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inadvertently becomes a bureaucratic bottleneck for the development of ministries. Because everyone defers to the pastor for leadership and approval, everything takes longer to happen.

What happens when a pastoral size church reaches its growth ceiling of around 150 and the pastor starts to hear complaints about spending too much time with newcomers (that is, not enough time with us)? The pastor’s natural tendency is to absorb the blame and devote more time to the old guard by visiting, counseling, and other pastoral care duties, which robs time from outreach to the wider community. This response pretty much guarantees that the church will plateau.

A better approach would be to teach the congregation that it is God who is “giving the increase,” that this is His blessing and an opportunity for everyone to discover, develop, and deploy their spiritual gifts. The pastor must shift from being a shepherd to the people and become a shepherd to the shepherds, those volunteers and paid leaders who are providing care to groups within the church. So instead of trying to be all things to all people, the pastor must focus on some people more than others, developing leaders and vesting them with authority so they can help shepherd the flock.

This is a very difficult shift to make, and the pastor-dependent flock will push back against it. In fact, some pastors will not be able to make this change because of their own co-dependency. They simply cannot bear the thought of not being the gatekeeper, all things to all people, and fully in control. However, if a pastor is persevering in teaching this truly biblical understanding of the pastor as the “equipper of the saints for the work of ministry” (Ephesians 4:12), a pastoral size church can be revitalized, become healthy, and grow.

Whether you serve a church that acts like a pet cat or a pet dog, God has called you to lead it to greater health.

—Excerpted and adapted from Patient Catalyst: Leading Church Revitalization, by Jack L. Daniel, Overseed Press, 2018.

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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The Community Connection

By Steve Sells Dennis Bickers in his book The Healthy Small Church says, “I believe God still uses small churches in big ways. They’re important to the kingdom of God because of the impact they can have on the people surrounding them.” Generationally speaking, some mega-church congregations tend to be spectators. The mega-church pastor is the preacher of the gospel and the executive administrator, but it is almost impossible for him to provide much pastoral care.

That is done by staff. In small churches the congregations tend to become participators. The pastor of the small church is not only the preacher of the gospel, but he can offer pastoral care to the members of his flock. Since at least 90 percent of our churches have under 200 in weekly attendance and 80 percent are under 100, it is imperative that the small church know and minister to its local community. In short, the small church must have a sustainable “community connection” to be healthy.

Many may argue that small churches cannot be healthy because of their size. The fact is the smallness or bigness of a local congregation does not determine the churches spiritual health. There are some extremely healthy small churches but there are some that are one step away from death. The same is true with large churches as well. When a revitalization effort takes place in a small church there are several questions that must be answered honestly by the pastor and congregation. Answers to the following four questions should help the small church to determine their ability to be effective in ministering to and meeting the needs of the people surrounding them.

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need to be answered for the church to know, understand, and connect with the area around the church and how to best meet its needs.

That knowledge should cause the church to really care about the people in the community. The church must be a vital part of the community even to people who do not attend. It has been said “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Involvement in the community is critical for the church to become and remain healthy.

Question #1: Does the, pastor/leader and/or congregation know your community? For the church to become relevant in the community it must first learn its community.

They must know that communities are occupied by people who have life problems just like those individuals in the church. They are looking for spiritual answers to their difficult situation.

Question #2: Does the church have a “positive” or “negative” influence in the community? The Barna Group has released a new study revealing that “three-quarters of U.S. adults believe the presence of a church is very (53%) or somewhat positive (25%) for their community.” This study makes it clear that the church does carry a strong influence in the average community. The church itself decides, by its ministry or lack thereof, whether that influence is positive or negative.

The leader and congregation must know the strength and well-being of the community. Is the community in transition, culturally and ethnically? Is the community strong and vibrant or are people leaving and the community is dying? Is the community aging out? Are all the young people leaving? Is the community churched and unchurched? Answers to these and many other questions

In instances where the community has not been impacted by the local church often churches from outside the community come in to reach the people living there. This is evidenced by the rise of the “church bus ministry” of the 1960’s when churches from outside the community picked up people and took them to churches outside the community where they live. However, the “greatest” impact on a

fy the changes that need to be made and then make the necessary changes to become compassionate toward the community. The strategy must cultivate and promote an outward evangelistic and disciple making focus. These two must become the primary mission of the church.

The church must re-tool for ministry success. Ministry must be the primary focus in the new strategy. Ministry in the form of evangelism, disciple making, and caring reveals a compassionate, loving church. Sometimes that means out with the old and in with the new. Re-tooling is the process of examination of old programs, processes, and practices and, when needed, the implementation of new programs, processes, and practices to connect with the community.

Question #4: Does the church utilize that strategy to become involved in an important part of the community fabric? Every community is unique. The components of every community are its religious, civic and social life. The church must become the main actor in the religious life of the community. It will never overtake the influence of some of the other components, but it can help give direction to the civic and social components found within the community.

The church must have a goal of becoming a central part of the fabric of the community for the gospel’s sake. community must come from the churches inside the community. Churches that are not reaching their community leave a poor impression on a community that is need of spiritual guidance. The fact is God places churches in communities to be an influence for the gospel. Rather, many churches have decided that the community is there for them and their well-being by seeking to reach them for numbers and finances rather than opportunities to win and nurture them into children of God. If the church desires to be a positive influence, it is not enough to engage with the community once a year. The church should keep the community informed about activities and services as much as possible. As a result, the community will feel like a part of the work of the church.

Ron Edmondson says, “there must be a lifestyle—getting the church into the community—being community builders—so we can eventually be Kingdom builders.” He states further that “the community has to know—and believe— that we really do care for them.” If we show we care, the community will notice, and the church will have an inroad into the fabric of the area for the kingdom.

Question #3: Does the church have the right ministry strategy that can be woven into the fabric of the community? The church strategy must be one that fosters hospitality through a loving and caring congregation.

The strategy must be visionary in its approach to identi-

In conclusion, it should be understood that the church exists to serve the mutual concerns of the community, and that service creates a unique influence on the culture. The church must learn to walk alongside people in the community while using the influence of the gospel to change their lives. The small church must be a place where people can come and feel comfortable, secure, and loved. Sometimes the only roadblock to a “community connection” is the members themselves. The small community church must step outside of itself, swallow its pride, and extend a hand to the community around it, even if it is not like them.

I personally believe that people, in times of need, seek out the help of a caring church when the difficulties of life come at them. I also believe that most people who are in spiritual need do not want some human fix but are looking for a spiritual fix. That is how important the small community church is. It must learn how to connect with its community for the sake of those who need a savior and for the sake of the gospel.

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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The

Revitalizer LIBRARY

This edition of the Revitalizer’s Library focuses on one book.

Younique: Designing the Life that God Dreamed for You, by Will Mancini. In his book, Mancini engages his reader’s in a process of discovering and designing their own life calling. At the time of this review writing the globe is in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. Many people, including ministry leaders, are asking themselves what their future looks like, the roles they will have, and how they can leverage the short years they have been given for a lasting impact. The timeliness of this work is not lost.

Mancini’s work adds to the growing collection of the category of self-improvement materials. A recent search on a bookseller’s website indicated that there were more than 80,000 books in the category of self-improvement. What makes Mancini’s distinct is his rejection of platitudes and the implementation of his vision framing process. A process that in his previous works has been applied towards church leadership. Mancini has essentially transferred his organizational vision principles into a personal setting.

What makes this work stand out is that Younique gives this reviewer the impression that it was written from the notes of Mancini’s process to discover God’s design for his own life.

He does not seem to have drafted a theory on finding one’s life purpose, field-tested it, and then packaged the process.

The process seems to flow from his reflections, trials, and errors. In that regard, the procedure carries greater weight and authenticity.

Criticism of the work rests in the vagueness of the phrasing. Mancini, drawing from his training as an engineer, proposes a very distinct and precise process that results in assigning vague phrases. For example, he describes a meeting with a woman named Susan and working through his method with her. In their time together he tells her that he thinks God created her to honor Him by “designing enjoyment” (pg.

96.) The phrasing is beautiful and poetic but leaves this reader wondering, “What in the world does that mean?” The creative and beautiful wording seems to deviate wildly from the highly analytical process creating more confusion than crystalizing clarity.

Overall, Younique; Designing the Life that God Dreamed for You is a good book. The process of designing your life is hard to work through but worth the effort. This review recommends the work for the Revitalizer’s Library.

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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Impro ving Yo ur Sermon Deliver y

By Joel Breidenbaugh If I wrote to you a few years ago and asked you to think about a time when you would be stuck in your home for several weeks and one of the only options was to have some sort of video for your weekly worship and preaching ministry, you would have laughed at me and thought such an idea was completely unrealistic. Obviously, no one is laughing anymore as the vast majority of churches have come to a grinding halt in their weekly gatherings and various ministries. While some churches have gone several weeks without offering anything, many churches have offered at least weekly preaching and teaching in online formats. Such preaching and teaching have emphasized the importance of sermon delivery.

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siders to understand). I’ll give suggestions at another time about ways to enhance your word choice.

Sermon Delivery Categories When we talk about sermon delivery, there are three main categories: verbal, vocal, and visual. Each of them is essential to video preaching or delivering your sermon before an audience.

Vocal The vocal element of sermon delivery has to do with your tone, speed, pitch, and volume. These parts are important any time you speak, but they are especially crucial when you speak via video. If you are like me, you can get fired up during your preaching and begin to talk fast and loud.

That can communicate excitement to the people in the worship center with you, resulting in an “Amen” or two. But when you are preaching on video with no one in the room, you will want to slow down and avoid yelling. That doesn’t mean you preach monotone, remaining low and slow with your voice. You should still pick up the pace at times and get a little louder, but think of it as having a conversation with someone next to you where you get passionate about a subject. You will get your point across without yelling at them (hopefully).

Verbal The verbal element speaks to the word choices you use to convey your message. While we can always seek to improve this aspect of our communication, it won’t have an immediate impact on your sermon delivery (unless you live in certain parts of the country known for a certain type of twang in your accent—those words can be hard for out-

Visual Now before I deal with the third and final element of sermon delivery—the visual—let me address a common criticism against improving visual delivery. Some hard-core proponents argue that the power of the gospel is in the words we use and how we stress them. Thus, any focus on the visual is an attempt at manipulation.

Of course, the gospel message is a message comprised of words. But to suggest there is no value in the visual is to miss the impact God’s Word and work can make through visual observations. I cannot help but wonder if Jonah still looked a ghastly green or smelled like vomit when he preached to Ninevah, adding a certain seriousness to his message (cf. Jonah 3:1-5). Undoubtedly, the Roman centurion was moved by what he witnessed when he watched the innocent Jesus die in the place of sinners (cf. Matthew 27:54; Mark 15:39; Luke 23:47). Peter opened his heart to preach to Gentiles after he received a vision from the Lord not to consider them unclean (cf. Acts. 10:10-29). I could go on but you get the picture—visuals can positively affect the message we share.

The visual element of sermon delivery relates to eye contact, appearance, body movement, facial expressions, and gestures. Video recording underscores the value of these issues. While overall movement should be minimized when preaching strictly to a camera, probably from a seated position, everything else must be elevated or it will make for a boring presentation. You will want to maintain good eye contact with the camera and rarely consult your notes. There’s a reason why news reporters read from teleprompters.

Moreover, think about how you will appear. I think it’s ridiculous for preachers to wear 3-piece suits in the comfort of their own homes, but they shouldn’t wear a T-shirt and shorts either. A polo and slacks communicate you care what you look like. Also, think about the background and seek to avoid distractions. While children or pets walking onscreen can be amusing, no one remembers the point you are making when they are distracted.

Since you will probably be seated and limit your body movement, don’t forget to use gestures appropriately. You shouldn’t always “talk with your hands,” or that can get distracting, but you should use them from time to time. Furthermore, your facial expression communicates more than you realize. If you talk about sin or hell, your face should show remorse and concern. If you talk about the greatness of God or heaven, your face should demonstrate joy and hope. Too many preachers share the good news of Jesus Christ with a straight face, forgetting that people are learn-

ing from their faces even more than they are learning from their words. That’s why prosperity-gospel televangelists often focus on their facial expressions—people will believe them if they look happy about it. How much more should men of God be happy about the good news?!

When I was called to preach at age 17, I was extremely nervous when I had to preach the first couple of years. I am a bit of a perfectionist so I wanted to go through the message several times and get it down as best as possible. I even practiced my message in front of a mirror to see how I’d look when I made certain gestures and facial expressions.

I gave up that practice long ago, but the practice was helpful.

If you haven’t seen yourself in a while, you may want to practice in front of a mirror. But even better yet, you should practice in front of a camera. You, or a family member/ friend, may need the practice on operating the camera. But take the time to watch yourself later. What did you do well? What needs improvement? The adage “the camera never lies” is often true. It picks up our nervous mannerisms, our stutters, our out-of-place hair and more.

“When we talk about sermon delivery, there are three main categories: verbal, vocal, and visual.”

Conclusion One of my family’s favorite shows to watch together is AFV (America’s Funniest Videos). We have gotten a lot of laughter at the expense of others’ misfortunes. Some of the best home videos are those which capture a person’s reaction and facial expressions. Looks of surprise, fear, laughter, and anger truly communicate to viewers. The same is true for those of us who preach. We want our viewers to believe what God has laid on our hearts. There is a better chance they will listen to us and look at us if we are trying to deliver it well. May the Lord grant us grace to deliver His message faithfully and effectively!

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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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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I Was Here Before You Came

By Tracy Jaggers “I was here before you came, and I’ll be here after you leave!”

These were the words I heard a grumbling, stubborn, elderly church member echo to his pastor while discussing the possibility of taking their church through our ReCHARGE revitalization process. Many small church pastors have heard those words. It’s an all too familiar phrase directed at the pastor who is attempting to make some necessary adjustments for the health and growth of the congregation. This old codger did not mean he was unwilling to be moved. He was vocalizing his resistance to former worthless changes that did nothing. He thought his way was all about keeping the heritage and mission of their church family. He was unimpressed by past efforts to “fix” his church and he did not want to lose the familiar. “Leave well enough alone; I don’t like surprises; If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it; Stay with a sure thing;” and, “What’s wrong with the way things were?” are all phrases or questions that have been verbalized numerous times over the past decades. The voices are in churches of every tier level, but they just seem much louder in the small church setting.

The church had numerous pastors in its past 75-80 years.

There was no wall in their building large enough to hang the portraits of each one. He was not bitter, but he felt that their way had stood the test of time and had persevered through every one of “those preacher boys.”

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Not all small churches have this reputation. If a pastor would embrace being a long term part of the church family, lead his family to be endeared to the church members, love the people, preach the truth of the Gospel, exude a positive attitude, stick with the flock with confidence and perseverance, and offer sound biblical grounds for the proposed adjustments, they would be more prone to follow his leadership with a smile on their face, respect in their heart, and gratitude on their lips. Of course, you might also need a red cape and a big “S” on your chest!

I was blessed to serve numerous years at a church in the middle of a small cotton growers’ community. Everybody knew everybody else and most of them were somehow related. It was nothing to see our church staff listed in the community news and hear what we had done the past week. The pastor and our family were small town celebrities.

The church grew from an average of 209 to 318 in just less than a year. We developed a strong emphasis on discipleship, evangelism, and mission mindedness that morphed our personality and enhanced our effectiveness. We began caring about the community; partnered with other churches (there were no boundary wars); we supported and were actively involved in missions locally, nationally and interna-

tionally. 69% of the members were regular participants in small groups and 15% were actively part of the discipleship process. The average attendance was 318 in a community of 123 people and a county population of 29,296. The church averaged about 18 baptisms per year and members drove from as far away as 40 miles. Our mantra became, “The difference is worth the distance.” The driving theme for many years was “Flourish Where You are Planted.” We did not just plan to survive or maintain; the goal was to thrive and spread like wildfire.

Today’s paradigm shift is 180 degrees from the ministry of that small-town church. The people craved to be part of each other’s lives and to reach every person they encountered the Gospel. There were no privacy fences or gated communities. There were open hearts and welcoming arms. If someone baked a pie or cake, be assured you would get an invitation to put on coffee because they were on their way over!

dates for new ideas and future visioning, will be a leader that any old or new member will embrace. When I love someone, and I am certain they have my best in mind, I will follow them anywhere and support them in any plans that will glorify my King and my God. It is not about size; it’s about pushing Christ’s agenda and not ours! The power of God is found in prayer, expanded in discipleship, received through compassionate missions, and practiced in the arena of our community.

“The voices are in churches of every tier level, but they just seem much louder in the small church setting.”

The force and foundation for this level of ministry is found in Psalm 1 and Matthew 13:3-43. Psalm 1:1-3 (NKJV) says, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the Law of the LORD, And in His Law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.”

We must be steadfast and consistent in our presentation of God’s Word.

The principles for being a healthy church are the same whether the church is small, large, or medium. Strong, loving leadership; Exciting and engaging worship; Biblically founded; Guided and maintained in prayer; Ministering to the lost and oppressed; having clear and compelling vision; seeking to be innovative and relevant in the presentation of truth; equipping members in holiness and righteous living; open communication between leaders and members and an externally-focused mindset for ministry. These were all a part of that small-town church where I was blessed to serve. Everyone encouraging and challenging one another daily! That is not as likely in the medium to large tier church.

Therefore, what the old codger was fearful of most was losing that type of comradery. Relationships are paramount, A pastor that is willing to join the group, without immediately trying to change the group, slowly unpacking biblical man-

Are you called to serve and persevere in the small-town setting? As I offered earlier, a pastor who can receive the people in love, embrace being a long term part of their life and their family, lead your wife and children to be endeared to the church members, preach the truth of the Gospel without apology and without a club, be positive, and stick with them in the sunshine and the storms, you can be that leader who will be able to lead the people into the Promised Land of revival and harmony.

One final word of admonition - build your leadership team around people who know how to delegate and who find joy in celebrating their worker’s successes. Workers and volunteers should be celebrated no less than two times per year.

Small churches are the norm in our denomination, and we need more small churches to impact the areas of lostness that are untouched by the large churches of the metroplex.

I applaud the small-town, small church pastor, but I challenge you to strive for an uncomfortable attitude until every person in your church’s sphere of influence has been confronted with the Best News of Jesus Christ! The Kingdom of God will not be complete or productive without revitalized, renewed small churches! Be joyful being small, but be dissatisfied with remaining that way!

Tracy Jaggers is the Associational Director of Missions of the Gateway Baptist Association, Edwardsville, Illinois. He earned his doctoral degree in Church Revitalization from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He writes for state and national revitalization organizations and speaks for state and national revitalization conferences and webinars. He is contributing author for the book entitled, Practical Tools for Reinventing the Dying Church. His website is: www.churchoverhauler.com

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