Church Revitalization is not a Bad Word

Whether in church or personal life, we all need seasons of revitalization. Our temptation, though, is to pretend nothing is wrong and conduct business as usual because, if things change, we may look like we failed in our endeavors. I have a reminder for you: The results were never ours to boast about in life or church ministry. We are faithful servants. The results are always in God’s hands—for every person, church, and everything else. When we feel like failures, that is because we thought highly of ourselves and little of God who actually works all things together. Better yet, He works all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called to His purpose (Romans 8). Not our self-invented purpose, but His. I am greatly encouraged by that fact. We get so consumed in the work that we forget the entire Christian religion is about resting from our weary labors. Those who come to Christ from the busyness and burdens of worldly religion will receive rest. 

In an American context, we are conditioned to see life and ministry as either a success or failure. Thinking in those terms really heightens depression and anxiety. It facilitates many of the mental health issues of our day. Even loosing ourselves of sin isn’t spoken about in Scripture in terms of success and failure. It is spoken about in terms of faithfulness and sanctification. Christians still sin but are pursuing Christ and sinning less and less as they live with Christ. In life and ministry, the ups and downs are ordained by God according to His purposes for our good.

I want to spend a few moments speaking particularly about church revitalization because many people see that as a bad word. It means things are about to get difficult. If we admit that our churches need revitalization, most commonly because the attendance is in decline and has been for years without reversing the trend, then we have to admit that our ways of doing things are not working. Instead of gathering the strength to talk about real problems and solutions, it is much easier to ignore whatever problems there might be and simply put bandaids where the body is bleeding. So, we try to hire the “right person,” do everything we can to make sure our ministries don’t stop working the way they have been working, make sure we have a full staff so the church looks as successful as it has always been according to worldly standards, and make sure the money is there to make the building look as good as possible. Different church bodies in need of revitalization do different things, but the fact remains. Most people are placing bandaids over bleeding wounds. Bandaids don’t stop the bleeding. They just cover it. If the bleeding doesn’t stop, the body will still die. Sadly, this happens to about 7,000 congregations each year, many because they considered revitalization a bad word. They were going to keep the church going by their trying harder, but bandaids don’t heal the body.

Most new churches will close before they reach their fifth year. Others will survive and thrive until the generation that started them can’t keep it thriving. That’s a likely reason the median age of churches in the US is 73 years. That’s not an indication of how godly or ungodly any generation is. It is just a number, but the fact is that half of all churches haven’t survived the generation that started them. When people, particularly young families, start realizing the need for revitalization in a church, they are quick to jump ship so they can find a place that already offers something for them. Sometimes that response is warranted. Sometimes it is not. It does show that most people are in church based on what they can get rather than what they can give. That’s the selfish religion the world conditions us to pursue. It only contributes to the overall problem, which I wrote a little about here. Like a construction site that has 8 foremen and 2 guys working, so is the church with many people spectating and making demands without any skin in the game.

This all seems very scary. Just because of the statistics, with most churches in decline and considering the average age of churches in the US, there is a 50% chance that you are in a dying church in need of revitalization—probably higher than a 50% chance because you most likely found this article using related search terms in your search engine. I want to first ease your mind, reminding you about God’s sovereignty, providence, and goodness. Church decline is not outside the scope of the Almighty’s authority. I also want to encourage you to stop thinking about revitalization negatively. A congregation that realizes a need for revitalization and actually commits to it is likely healthy despite its shrinking size. It means the people are willing to forsake their pride in the interest of the local church’s future gospel impact in its community. They are willing to live beyond themselves and beyond their generation. Revitalization is a good word.

Being an introvert and logistician, I have a pretty decent capacity to think deeply about problems, reflect on them to work them out, and see how systems can be used to produce a final result. It’s like a math equation to me, which most likely sounds very boring to you, but I love it. It also means most of the things I think about deeply and regularly would be of interest to almost no one else. That’s why I always look like I’m thinking about something but don’t really spend a lot of time sharing my thoughts—at least until they are organized using normal-ish language that more people can understand. While most people will say churches need to change everything they are doing, do more, or work harder, I recognize that their advice, if it works in the short-term, only prolongs the inevitable. Despite years of church revitalization advice being shared on the internet and in books, the statistics remain the same. Any sound structure is built on a solid foundation. In many cases the foundation cracks, and people want to fix the problem by putting in more studs or crossbeams to keep the walls from sinking. In reality, we need to fix that crack in the foundation. No one is necessarily at fault for the crack in the foundation, but over time, our systems break down. We can’t fix a foundation by casting blame on anyone, but we do have to look at the crack and develop a plan to repair it. The foundation itself wasn’t necessarily the problem. The crew that poured it didn’t necessarily do anything wrong. Repair is not a bad word. It is bad to neglect the repairs that need to be made. Each church will have to run its own diagnostic, which typically can’t be done in a short time. It takes someone coming in, getting to know the congregation, and paying attention to the stories people tell. It takes someone who is not willing to merely put another bandaid on the body so the church can look good enough for short-term growth while it’s bleeding out. It requires longevity, sincerity, and a willingness to be obscure rather than using the church as a platform for personal ministry advancement—which will kill the church faster. That’s why many “pastors” today are bad for the local church and the restoration of the church overall in the US. As a society, we are raising a different kind of preacher than existed prior to the 1940s.

While every church is different, I can point out some foundational things because they are in Scripture for us:

So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved (Acts 2:41-47). 

When Peter shared the gospel in Jerusalem, the first local church was born. After people received the word, we see the results—how the reception of God’s word worked out for the foundation of the first local church.

1. They were baptized.
2. They continually devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching.
3. And to fellowship.
4. To the breaking of bread.
5. And to prayer.
6. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe.
7. Many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles.
8. All who believed held all things in common.
9. They began owning less so they could share what they had with anyone in the church who had need.
10. They first had their own conversations at the Temple.
11. They broke bread from house-to-house.
12. They took their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart.
13. They praised God.
14. They had favor with all people.
15. Their numbers were being added to daily.

Granted, Luke’s words are descriptive. I am under the impression that the Holy Spirit does not change. When people come to faith and come together as a church, I think these things result because of God’s immutability. I don’t think most churches today have really given thought to each of these foundational characteristics of a local church. Perhaps we have majored on a couple of them, but there might be more cracks in the foundation of the church in the US than we realize. The first local church did not have a church building, budget, staff members, deacons, specialized ministry for children and youth, and many of them didn’t have any money at all—yet it was more vibrant than even the fastest growing megachurch in our day. When we look at it, I think quick megachurch growth is actually a sign of overall church decline, but we can talk about that another day.

Members were baptized, signifying their commitment to Christ and the body of believers. They “broke bread” regularly, meaning they observe the Lord’s supper or eucharist. They were devoted to the apostle’s teaching. This didn’t take the form of modern-day preaching, which was more a development of the Middle Ages with the advent of scholasticism. It was more socratic and comprised the reading of Scripture, short explanation of theology, and application. People weren’t putting on shows, telling stories about their own lives, or filling time with illustrations or gimmicks to try keeping their audience’s attention. God’s word as explained through the people who walked with Jesus personally was more important than the ramblings of people. We’ve gotten away from that in large part in the modern church. While there is some revival of more expository presentations of Scripture, it is still not wide-ranging. 

They were devoted to fellowship. In many churches today, fellowship is relegated to a certain time during the church service. Foundationally, Christians ate their meals together from house-to-house. In the modern day, we keep office ours, schedule our church meetings, and put potlucks on the calendar. Those can be good things, but we often neglect what it means to actually have fellowship—to live life together. It is tricky in the modern age because society overall isn’t built for fellowship like the world used to be. Now, everyone has their jobs at certain times during the day, we go home at the end of the day, and mostly stay there until the next morning. We really only see our church families on Sunday morning because it’s part of the schedule. When we interact with other people, it’s on social media (which ironically disconnects people from real fellowship). People can easily view sermons online, which removes them from the presence of the church body and fellowship. Even our pastors can’t enjoy fellowship with the body because they are burdened with so many responsibilities during the week, even spending all their time on content development and sermonizing that largely won’t make a difference anyway instead of being available to people. Maybe we need to get back to sincere life-on-life fellowship—being less busy and together more, doing less, but having a higher quality time of togetherness.

They devoted themselves to prayer. We often get away from prayer to try to fix things or build something with our plans. Constant prayer is essential. If God is the one working all things together, I want to ask Him to work rather than trying to do all the work myself. His work is sure. My work may or may not produce the results I want, depending on God’s will anyway.

People felt a sense of awe because wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. This probably does refer to healing miracles and especially speaking in tongues like described earlier in Acts 2. Since none of the apostles are still alive, we shouldn’t expect the apostles to normatively perform signs and wonders for us. We should, however, expect the Holy Spirit to be moving. While it looks different following the time of the apostles and serves a different purpose according to 1 Corinthians 12,  it is still awe-inspiring. We should not neglect true spiritual gifts meant to build up the congregation. We need to have more of a conversation about the appropriate use of spiritual gifts, but this suffices for my purpose in this article.

Along with constant fellowship, people also shared what they had and sold their excess. Today, we go to church to get. In the first church, people were part of a community to give. We should pay much attention to that difference.

Finally, they had favor with all people. The community at large had no disdain for the church, probably because the church cared about the community and didn’t constantly condemn it for being bad or getting worse. The Gospel promise is good news for the community. Society is not going to Hell in a hand basket. Christ is saving the world. The church is part of that. We take this good news to our communities and follow through by caring for and taking the community in.

There might be many symptoms we try to address to correct the decline of our churches in the modern age. If this foundation is cracked, our churches are constantly in the ER being kept alive until the plug is pulled. Brothers and sisters, check your foundation. Then, you can grow again without bleeding out. Now is the time for revitalization and revival. Don’t wait.

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In this post, you read about the start of church revitalization. If you have any questions about church revitalization, please don’t hesitate to reach out.