Based on the book by Mark Clifton
Course Introduction
About the course
A dying church robs God of glory, but thankfully, our God can bring dead things back to life. A companion resource to Mark Clifton’s book Reclaiming Glory: Revitalizing Dying Churches (published by B&H Books), this video study equips pastors and replanters to witness God’s work of renewal and start reaching their communities once again.
The bad news is, almost 800 or 900 Southern Baptist churches cease to exist every single year. That's tragic. A church that has sat on a corner for a hundred years, that has said, “We believe the Bible, we believe the Gospel. Jesus Christ was born of a virgin. He lived a sinless life. He died a substitutionary death. He was buried. And on the third day, he rose again. He sits at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for us, and he's coming again in power and glory. But he couldn't keep our church open.”
A dying church robs God of his glory. Now, there are certain places where the churches no longer need to exist. If the town is completely gone, or if the neighborhood is no longer a neighborhood. If it's all factories and industry right now. But unfortunately, that's not most of the cases.
The vast majority of times, when a church closes its doors, there are still people right around that church who need Jesus. There are still people right around that church whose lives are falling apart. There are people who are addicted to drugs. There are people who their marriages are crumbling. There are people who are worried about their children. There are people who are suffering through all kinds of physical and financial burdens, and they need Jesus. And in the midst of all of that, a church closes its doors. That robs God of his glory.
That's the tragic news. The good news is, God's at work in the most difficult places. God's a God about bringing things back to life, bringing dead things back to life.
The Scripture tells us that out of the stump of Jesse came a new shoot, a stump, something that's cut off, that's dead, that looks like nothing possibly could live there. And comes this shoot, and the shoot, the vine out of that stump became Jesus. Out of dead things, God brings life.
And God's bringing life back to dying churches all across North America, all around the world, in numbers we've never seen before. Jesus has a plan for every church, and He has a plan for your church. Now, Henry Blackaby once said, God is under no obligation, nor will He likely resource your plans for His church. But God will spare nothing from heaven to resource Jesus' plan for your church.
Our prayer as you go through this study is not for you to determine what your plan for your church is, how youmight take it forward, but what is Jesus' plan for your church and how do you come to obedience to live according to that plan. To change your agenda, to change your preferences, to be in line with His. So that a church that was dying and declining can be a church that's thriving and making a difference for the kingdom.
A revitalized church is not just a church that's larger in numbers. That's not at all what we're talking about. A revitalized church is a church that has a pattern of making disciples that can make disciples that result in your community being noticeably better because the people of God are there among the community.
We pray that that will happen to your church, that it will become a place where disciples are made who can make disciples, who share the good news, who see people converted and come to faith in Christ and become part of your church, and the church itself become part of the fabric of the community. So much so, that if your church closed its doors, even people who never attended your church would realize our community is losing something very important.
Because after all, those of us who've been dealt most generously with should be the most generous people in our community. and nobody has been dealt more generously with than those of us who've been redeemed by Jesus Christ. None of our own works. All because of Him. All the free gift. All of grace. And so, we need to be the most generous people with our time, with our resources, with our money, with everything. Therefore, we should make a difference in our communities.
We pray that happens with your church. And I know that if you follow Jesus' plan for your church, that will happen.
Course Textbook
Reclaiming Glory:
Revitalizing Dying Churches
Mark Clifton
What is there about a dying church that brings glory to God? Mark Clifton's convicting answer is "Nothing."
Because a local church is intended to represent the work of God in a community, when that church "loses it saltiness," not only is God's work pictured as irrelevant in that community, but also dishonor and disrepute may well become associated with God's name as a result.
In Reclaiming Glory, Clifton draws not only upon his own burden for revitalizing dying churches but also upon years of church replanting experience to offer passionate counsel for how to breathe new life into a dying church . . . all for the glory of the God who is building his church upon the immovable rock of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
About Mark Clifton
Chapter One: New Life for Dying Churches
Summary
There is an epidemic of dying churches in North America—even churches that embrace the fidelity of Scripture, hold tightly to sound doctrine and have members who are highly committed. To examine the condition of your church, consider the trends in attendance, average age of attenders and finances.
A really hard question to ask, but even a harder question to answer: What does it say about our church if I value control and autonomy even as the church continues to decline? I've been fortunate to be in this work for a number of years and helped literally hundreds of churches that have found a pathway to replant and revitalize, but I must be honest with you, also hundreds of churches that looked down that pathway and said, no, that's not for us, because it meant giving up what they perceived as control and autonomy. There are many conversations I'll have with churches where they'll call me in and they'll say, "You know, Mark, our church is in serious decline.
We've grafted it out. If things continue the way they are, we're going to be underwater in a few years. This church is going to have to close its doors."
What do we have to do? And I remind them, Jesus has a plan for every church, and He certainly has a plan for your church. And as we begin to explore that plan, it may become evident to them that His plan is very different than their plan. It may involve an outside partner who comes in and says, you know what? Let us take the steering wheel for a while.
You guys need to sit back and rest, and you need to let someone else lead for a little bit. As soon as we say that, immediately their defenses go up. And oftentimes, these are the words that come right out of their mouth.
We don't want to give up control. We don't want to lose who we are. Now, let me tell you what that really means, what's behind that.
Change is very painful, and the older I get, the less I like change. I long for the day when the phone was on the wall, and it didn't follow me everywhere I went. I long for the day sometimes when I didn't have 24-hour email and 24-hour text.
I miss some of the department stores I used to go to as a kid, and we shop online for everything now. And I certainly remember going to the gas station and somebody not only pumping my parents' gas, but actually washing their windshield and checking their oil, and all of that's gone. Our culture has changed so rapidly in the last few decades.
It's changed so rapidly in the last few years that we don't even recognize our communities anymore. And yet, there is one place we can go every week, some of us, and we can park in the same parking spot. We can walk through the same door.
Everything is exactly the same. The silk plants are the same. The curtains in the sanctuary are the same.
The softball trophies from 1974 are right there in the case. The painted baptistry scene is the same. It even smells the same.
I grew up in church. I could close my eyes, and you could take me to a church basement, and I would know what it smelled like. You could almost make a synod candle that would be church basement, and we would know what it is.
And frankly, in a world that's changing so rapidly, those things bring incredible comfort, and they bring a sense of control in a time when we feel like we don't have any control anymore. But here's the reality. It's not my church.
It doesn't belong to me. I may have served there for 40 years. I may have given incredible amounts of money, but I didn't buy it with my blood.
This church belongs to Jesus. It's His church. And frankly, He wants to do something with it.
The adversary has done something very, very dangerous. He is so wise and so cunning, and He wants to rob God of His glory, and He wants to rob you of your joy. So the way He does that is He gets to convince us that that comfort we feel with the sameness of our church, where everything is the same, and we know what to expect, and also I feel like I'm in a bit of a control here.
I can handle a business meeting. I can serve on a committee. I know where the money's being spent, all those things that give us control.
The adversary sometimes confuses us to make us think that those things are really what brings us comfort. In other words, the sense of control that we seek becomes an idol. Now, until you say I'm wrong, remember that among other things, an idol is something you run to for comfort, for meaning, and for security.
Let me ask you, if someone comes in and says, we may have to change your church's name, we may have to change the leadership, we may have an outside partner that comes in and does some of the direction, and if you think, whoa, wait a minute, what's that going to do? You have to consider, where am I finding my comfort, my meaning, and my security? Do you know how you can know if something's a false idol? When you're afraid of losing it. You're never afraid of losing Jesus. If He becomes our idol, then we don't have to worry about what the building looks like or what the sign on the front says.
All we have to be concerned with is, is this a church where He's going to be made much of for the next generations? What is it you fear most about a replant pathway? Is it the changes? As I said, change is difficult, but dying is harder. And actually, once you engage yourself in change, you'll find that it really can be a real opportunity for joy. You know, my wife and I are empty nesters.
We've been that way for quite some time. And many times she works, and she'll text me, and she'll say, let's meet for dinner somewhere. And we have a list of places that we like to meet.
None of them are any of those places where you have like cheap pizza, and kids play in ball pits and play video games. My wife and I never want to meet at one of those places. Oh, unless one of our sons calls us and says, we're taking the grandsons to one of those places.
And then within moments, my wife and I have beat them to the parking lot, and we can't wait to get in. I don't really like the pizza. I don't like the noise.
I don't get in the ball pit, and I don't play the video games, but I love to hang out with my grandsons and see them have fun. You see, change can be truly enjoyable if we focus on the people and not on the surroundings. Thirdly, if your church were to die because we chose not to yield some level of control and autonomy to a trusted partner, and that often happens, you think, how could a church choose to die rather than to live? I don't know.
The children of Israel, when they were in the desert in Egypt, after leaving Egypt, said, you know what? It's better we go back and die as slaves than live out here. I think sometimes the fear over change, the absolute resistance to give up autonomy and control or what we think is autonomy and control will actually sometimes cause us to make rather irrational decisions. You see, you and I at our age, if I'm talking to people my age, we have to make decisions with this church not based on what's best for the next 20 months.
What's best for this church if our Lord doesn't return for the next 20 years? What's the best decision there? And if we choose because we don't want to give up control, we don't want to give up autonomy to a trusted partner, I'm not talking about just giving it away. I'm talking about a trusted partner, another church, an association, someone that says, we love Jesus, we believe the gospel, we believe what you believe, we want to come along, we want to see something happen here more than you do. And we say, no, the cost is too high.
Well, what's the cost? Well, you'll have to give up control. We're not going to do that. So here's the question I want you to think among yourselves.
What blessings would the current members and future generations miss if we choose not to take a replant pathway? And ask yourself this question. Who? The people who live in our community, the people who need Jesus, the people whose lives are in terrible turmoil. What might happen to them if we choose not to take a replant pathway?
Lesson Notes & Questions
Additional Resources
Chapter Two: Diagnosing a Dying Church
Summary
Is your church thriving or dying? How would you know? It is vital that a church conduct a health inventory on a regular basis. In time, the small issues a church ignores today may grow into crises that lead to downfall.
When most of us think of our church, we think of us, our church, the needs of our membership, and obviously we should. But how often do we consider the needs of those who aren't in our church? I was a church planter for many years, and every church that I was part of planting, as we began, we were concerned about our launch team and their needs, but mainly we were concerned about the people yet to be reached. We wanted to know who was in the community, what their needs were, how we might reach them.
How often does your church consider the needs of the unchurched as you plan your ministry, as you share your resources? Many times we make decisions in churches based on not losing the people we have rather than on finding new people, and that's a dangerous way to go about it. All around your church, listen, your church's address is no accident. It may be that your church doesn't respond well to you.
That's true. We're against cultural headwinds none of us really expected. The church is not part of the community as we were two or three decades ago.
We're not as well received by any means, but that's not by accident. The sovereign Lord knew you would be here in these years. He knew your church would be there.
As my friend Sam Rainer has said, your church's address, it is no accident. The people who live around your church, you may say, well, they're not like us. They don't like us.
We can't reach them. They're not receptive to us. They are the ones that the sovereign Lord has brought to your neighborhood.
The people who live in your community are not there because of changing demographics. They're not there because of changing immigration patterns. They're not there because of the changing economy.
They are there because sovereign Lord brought them to your neighborhood. They are your mission field. So how much do you know about them? And how much do you love them? And how do you express that? And if you were to take a look at your church's budget and calendar, how much of it is focused on people who never attend your church? I've had people say all the time, oh, you don't understand.
We've had block parties and we've had face painting and we've had cotton candy giveaways and we've given away diapers and we've had moonwalks and they all come and take that. But then they don't come to church on Sunday. And my answer to that is really quite simple.
That's because on Sunday, you don't have a moonwalk. You don't paint faces. You don't give away diapers.
I mean, they come for those things. You don't have a block party. You don't give away things.
You don't serve the community in order to get people into your building on Sunday morning. You have a block party. You put up a moonwalk.
You paint kids' faces. You serve the community. You give away diapers. You give away food so that you get the people who are in your building, your church members, to be engaged in the lives of people who don't know Jesus. That's why you do it. So how do you do that in your church? What does that look like? In what specific ways in the last two years have you made sacrifices and actual opportunities to reach your community? Secondly, people are always saying in a declining church, we need young people.
I've never been in a dying church in my life where they said, here's the problem. We have an overabundance of young men between the ages of 18 and 35. It's just the opposite.
They always say, we just don't have enough young people. So as you look at your church, this is a really important factor in revitalization. What percentage of your church's membership is under the age of 30? And more importantly, even than that, specifically in what ways do we engage young people under the age of 30 in roles in leadership in our church? You see, everybody wants young people in their church.
We just don't want young people changing anything in our church. We don't want them changing the building, the organizational structure, the music. We just want them to come and like the things that we like because they're good for us and we like them and the young people just don't come anymore.
Many times I've had churches say to me, could you help us find a young pastor? Sometimes I want to say, well, what do you mean? Like eight or nine years old? How young do you want to go there? They don't think that's funny either. But the point is, it's not as simple as finding a young pastor. When I ask them, why do you want a young pastor? You know what? They always tell me, well, we don't have any young families.
As if just bringing in a young pastor will change all the problems in the church that causes it to be a place where young families do not feel like they can actively participate. That may be very hard for you to hear, but I could probably put you in a car and drive you somewhere in your county and take you to a church on Sunday morning that is filled with young people. Young people, young families will go to church.
They do go to church. They just aren't coming to your church. And the answer isn't to go hire a young pastor.
The answer, first and foremost, is to ask yourself this simple question. What decisions have we made or what decisions did we fail to make that resulted in this place being a place where young people didn't think they could flourish? Our job, when I say our job, people my age, our job is to give that next generation a strong on-ramp to the church, to pass off literally the leadership, not years from now, but now, to find our joy in seeing young people lead. And if you'll let them lead, they will.
But if you let them lead, they're going to change some things. They're going to change perhaps the way the building looks on the inside. They're going to change perhaps the way the worship is organized.
They're going to make it their own because that's what you and I did in our generation. And if we really care more about the gospel and we care more about lost people and we care more about the glory of God than we care about our preferences, we will rejoice when that happens.
Lesson Notes & Questions
Additional Resources
Chapter Three: Replanting Pathways
Summary
Jesus has a plan for every church. Churches at a replanting crossroads must embrace Jesus’ plan for their church. While the remaining members often want to maintain control, leadership and their historic identity, this may be in direct conflict with the plan Jesus has for them. Renewing your church will require change. What Replant pathway is right for your church?
When most of us think of our church, we think of us, our church, the needs of our membership, and obviously we should. But how often do we consider the needs of those who aren't in our church? I was a church planter for many years, and every church that I was part of planting, as we began, we were concerned about our launch team and their needs, but mainly we were concerned about the people yet to be reached. We wanted to know who was in the community, what their needs were, how we might reach them.
How often does your church consider the needs of the unchurched as you plan your ministry, as you share your resources? Many times we make decisions in churches based on not losing the people we have rather than on finding new people, and that's a dangerous way to go about it. All around your church, listen, your church's address is no accident. It may be that your church doesn't respond well to you.
That's true. We're against cultural headwinds none of us really expected. The church is not part of the community as we were two or three decades ago.
We're not as well received by any means, but that's not by accident. The sovereign Lord knew you would be here in these years. He knew your church would be there.
As my friend Sam Rainer has said, your church's address, it is no accident. The people who live around your church, you may say, well, they're not like us. They don't like us.
We can't reach them. They're not receptive to us. They are the ones that the sovereign Lord has brought to your neighborhood.
The people who live in your community are not there because of changing demographics. They're not there because of changing immigration patterns. They're not there because of the changing economy.
They are there because sovereign Lord brought them to your neighborhood. They are your mission field. So how much do you know about them? And how much do you love them? And how do you express that? And if you were to take a look at your church's budget and calendar, how much of it is focused on people who never attend your church? I've had people say all the time, oh, you don't understand.
We've had block parties and we've had face painting and we've had cotton candy giveaways and we've given away diapers and we've had moonwalks and they all come and take that. But then they don't come to church on Sunday. And my answer to that is really quite simple.
That's because on Sunday, you don't have a moonwalk. You don't paint faces. You don't give away diapers.
I mean, they come for those things. You don't have a block party. You don't give away things.
You don't serve the community in order to get people into your building on Sunday morning. You have a block party. You put up a moonwalk.
You paint kids' faces. You serve the community. You give away diapers. You give away food so that you get the people who are in your building, your church members, to be engaged in the lives of people who don't know Jesus. That's why you do it. So how do you do that in your church? What does that look like? In what specific ways in the last two years have you made sacrifices and actual opportunities to reach your community? Secondly, people are always saying in a declining church, we need young people.
I've never been in a dying church in my life where they said, here's the problem. We have an overabundance of young men between the ages of 18 and 35. It's just the opposite.
They always say, we just don't have enough young people. So as you look at your church, this is a really important factor in revitalization. What percentage of your church's membership is under the age of 30? And more importantly, even than that, specifically in what ways do we engage young people under the age of 30 in roles in leadership in our church? You see, everybody wants young people in their church.
We just don't want young people changing anything in our church. We don't want them changing the building, the organizational structure, the music. We just want them to come and like the things that we like because they're good for us and we like them and the young people just don't come anymore.
Many times I've had churches say to me, could you help us find a young pastor? Sometimes I want to say, well, what do you mean? Like eight or nine years old? How young do you want to go there? They don't think that's funny either. But the point is, it's not as simple as finding a young pastor. When I ask them, why do you want a young pastor? You know what? They always tell me, well, we don't have any young families.
As if just bringing in a young pastor will change all the problems in the church that causes it to be a place where young families do not feel like they can actively participate. That may be very hard for you to hear, but I could probably put you in a car and drive you somewhere in your county and take you to a church on Sunday morning that is filled with young people. Young people, young families will go to church.
They do go to church. They just aren't coming to your church. And the answer isn't to go hire a young pastor.
The answer, first and foremost, is to ask yourself this simple question. What decisions have we made or what decisions did we fail to make that resulted in this place being a place where young people didn't think they could flourish? Our job, when I say our job, people my age, our job is to give that next generation a strong on-ramp to the church, to pass off literally the leadership, not years from now, but now, to find our joy in seeing young people lead. And if you'll let them lead, they will.
But if you let them lead, they're going to change some things. They're going to change perhaps the way the building looks on the inside. They're going to change perhaps the way the worship is organized.
They're going to make it their own because that's what you and I did in our generation. And if we really care more about the gospel and we care more about lost people and we care more about the glory of God than we care about our preferences, we will rejoice when that happens.
Lesson Notes & Questions
Additional Resources
Chapter Four: Six Replanting Imperatives
Summary
Would your church seriously consider doing whatever it takes to see renewal take place? Your church doesn’t have to close, but it’s quite likely it will have to change the way it views the building, the neighborhood and those in the community God wants to use you to reach. Your church will have to change the priority from focusing on yourselves to focusing on God and His mission.
Here's a question, as a church member, you have to answer, and you have to be specific. If we choose not to take a replant or revitalization pathway, if we choose to continue the way we are because it feels better this way, it's just too hard to make change, I don't think we can do it, if we choose to do that, then you have to ask yourself this question, in what specific ways would this community be impacted by the closure of this church? Would the unchurched even notice if our church was gone? Let's talk about that in just a moment, but let's begin with this, in what specific ways would this community be impacted if your church closed? We've talked about this in an earlier session, you may have the answer, you may say, oh, I know, I know, it doesn't really matter,because there's another church down the street, or there's another big church up the road, okay? But remember what we said in an earlier session, what about the people who passed by this church for years, looked at the sign, maybe have never visited, they might have looked you up on the internet, believe it or not, many people do, just to see what you're about, and they know you're a Baptist church, and they hopefully know something about Baptists, and that they are people who believe the Bible. So, even your closure, even you may think it doesn't really matter, other people are here, they can go to other churches, even the closure of your church, you have to seriously consider, what does that say about the glory of God in this place? And after all, this church has been there for generations, I'm sure, many of you I'm talking to have some of the most wonderful memories of how God has met you among the gathered church in this place.
Maybe some of you were baptized here, some of you were married here, some of you've had loved ones who've had their funerals here, some of you've seen missionaries sent out from this place, some of the greatest teaching you've ever experienced has been here, I understand all ofthat, you don't want to be the ones to be the last people on that great commission chain, you don't want to be the ones to turn out the lights and close the door, you don't have to be, Jesus does have a plan for your church, it may not be your plan, but it's His plan, and if you'll embrace His plan, it'll be more joyful than anything you could ever imagine. So, I want you to seriously consider, how would the community be impacted if our church were to close? Now, if you say, I don't think it would, well, that's a whole nother topic, because if you were to close your doors in the community, maybe not even notice it, except to say, well, there's another church that closed, so all that stuff they preach must not be true, because a God that they believe can't even keep a church open, it's like a restaurant that comes and goes, or a chain store that's here, and then it's gone, it's like everything else, it's transient. Hey, there's one thing in your community that shouldn't be transient, it's the church of Jesus Christ, built on a solid rock, that doesn't come and go.
No, no, no, no, you say, well, not every church has always been here, and some churches need to die. Do you know there's only one place in the entire New Testament where the death of a church is spoken of? The Apostle Paul never suggests for a minute that Corinth should shut down, and it was a pretty hot mess, actually. The only place in all of the Scripture where the death of a church is spoken of is in the book of Revelation, where Jesus is walking among the seven churches, and He says, I will remove your lampstand.
Dear saints, I want you to realize the closure of your church is a serious matter, because it doesn't have to close. I said before, if there's no neighborhood there, if the neighborhood is gone, if the town is gone, if there are no people around, then obviously the need for the church is not there. But if there are still people to be reached, you have to seriously consider what does it say to the community if we close this church? And then the second part of that, as I said, if you do close the church and no one in the community really notices, what does it say about the way we have been the church in this place? You see, the church needs to be an important part of the fabric of the community.
You've heard us say before, we should be the most generous people in the neighborhood. Let me ask you a question. Most of you who are listening to this have a church building.
You may not have as many people in it as you used to. You may not have as many young people as you used to, but you have a building. How many people a week make use of that building that are not members of your church? How many people in the community are able to utilize your facility? Most churches that I know of have some kind of a kitchen and a fellowship hall.
One of the churches that I was part of replanting, we realized that some of the people in ourneighborhood didn't have very big dining rooms, didn't have very big kitchens, and if they had afamily gathering, if they had some sort of a wedding, not a wedding, excuse me, an anniversary, if they had an anniversary for a grandparent or they had a birthday party, they might not have aplace to have that in their home. So, we did something pretty radical. We told the neighborhoodlook, if you live in the neighborhood and you need to have a 50th anniversary party for yourgrandparents, you need to have a birthday party for your kid, you've got a family reunion, you can come and use our fellowship hall and use our kitchen.
Now, I know some of you heads are exploding right now, and you say, well, that's risky. Yeah, ministry is risky. If you don't want to be risky, you're like the priest and the Levite, you pass by on the other side.
If you want to be risky, you stop and you get down and you kneel and you spend money on somebody that you're never going to see again. That's what ministry is. And by the way, Jesus told us to do that.
He said, go and do that likewise. I'm not suggesting you open up your building and not have anybody there. The best part of that is you simply say, one of our members will be there to host you.
And so, there you go. Now, you can put rules on there, you know, no drugs, no smoking, no drinking, no dancing if you want to, you can do whatever you want. But you can say, and even,listen, even if they don't use the building, just the thought that they know that you're willing to let them use it says something about how you love the community.
I one time had an intern at one of our churches who went to a dying church and they had, like many churches, they had a lot of Sunday school classrooms they weren't using. And yet, around the neighborhood were a lot of apartments and duplexes, a lot of single parents, and they didn't have washers and dryers in their apartments or duplexes, and they'd have to go to a laundromat. You try putting two or three children in a car and the laundry for a week and go to a laundromat and sit there and do laundry while you try to watch your kids.
So, what they did is, they didn't have any children in Sunday school, so what they did is, they took one of those empty Sunday school rooms and they put some washers and dryers in it, and then they told the neighborhood, the community, Thursday nights and Saturday mornings you can come and do your laundry for free and we'll teach your kids about Jesus. And they did. Think about how your church impacts the community.
And if your church were to close and the community not notice, what does that say about your church's presence? Secondly, how does decision-making process in your church help or hinder your ability to respond quickly to the needs in the community? Now, you may say, yeah, we have needs, but sometimes the smallest church can have the most complex decision-making policy. As a matter of fact, in a lot of churches, a lot of people can say no, and no one's real certain who can say yes. There's a lot of hoops you have to jump through, a lot of process you have to take.
And even though we may see God at work in our neighborhood, you know, Henry Blackaby madeit so abundantly clear that God is at work all around us. We may see Him at work in our neighborhood and we may want to join Him in that work, but maybe our decision-making process as it is at the church is so cumbersome and so lengthy that we can't respond in appropriate time.Let me ask you this question.
Do you have a prayer strategy in your church? Do you pray for your community? If you come together on Wednesday nights and pray, it's all right to pray for the sick, it's already right to pray for the community, but do you pray for yourself to love the community? Do you pray for yourself to be more passionate about sharing the gospel in the community? What is your prayer life like in the church? Richard Blackaby has always said, we always want our church to be a church that loves to pray and loves to read the Bible, but what about the way we pray or read the Bible and gather worship makes anybody say, I can't wait to go home and do that? If you spend more time in announcements on Sunday morning than prayer, you probably have a problem. You see, it's through prayer that God changes our heart, listen, gives us a compassion for the community that makes us willing to adapt to the changes that need to be made in order for that community to come to know Jesus. It's through prayer that we're willing to lay down the idol of our building and open it up and let people use it for the glory of God.
It's prayer that changes our heart so that our heart aligns with what God wants. As we've said so often in this series, Jesus has a plan for your church. How do you determine what his plan is? Through prayer.
Spending more time with Jesus. You see, the ultimate question is never, should we do something? Should we open up the kitchen and let unchurched people use it if we're there to host it? Should we open up our building and do something with it and let unchurched people use it if we're there to host it? The question isn't, how many people think we should do that? That's never the question. Here's the question.
How have you prayed about it? And what did Jesus tell you he wants you to do with his building? That's the only question that really matters. What does Jesus want you to do with his church, not what do you want to do with his church? And if those two things are different, the answer is spend more time with Jesus. See the world through his eyes.
See the world through his heart.
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Chapter Five: Stories of Transformation
Summary
Staying in control of a local church and resisting any type of change won’t lead a church to life, but to death. Churches that embrace revitalization make significant pivots, submitting their desires for the church to God. If your church follows Jesus’ plan, you will experience a joy much greater than you would by holding on to what wasn’t yours in the first place.
If you've watched any of these, then you know, the question for the day is, what does Jesus plan for your church? Because it's His church. As I've said before, you may have been here for 45 years, you may have given more money than anybody else, you may have put the roof on yourself.As a matter of fact, you could sell everything you own and give it to missions.
You could cash in your 401K and give it to foreign missions. You could actually move into the church and live there and serve 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You could take your paycheck and have all of it direct deposited into the church.
And you know, all of that activity and all of that generosity wouldn't buy you one minute outside of hell. The only reason you and I have eternal life, the only reason we escape God's eternal wrath,the only reason we have a home in heaven, the only reason Jesus, He said, I go and prepare a place for you in my Father's house, there are many rooms and I have a room just for you. Think about that.
It's not because of what we've given to the church, it's not because of how much you served in the church, it's because of what Jesus has done for you. Ultimately, it is important how you serve the Lord, but ultimately, listen to me, compared to your eternal salvation, what purchases your salvation, what moves you from death to life, what moves you from hell to heaven, what raises you from death to life, isn't what you've done for this church in the last 40 years, it's what Jesus has done for you in the last 40 seconds and what He'll continue to do for you for all eternity. Until we understand that, we never fully understand this is His church, not mine.
And when we know it's His church, not mine, then I want to seek what is His plan because He will resource His plan for His church. So how can my church actively seek Jesus' plan? Well, you're doing it right now. You're studying His Word, you're gathered together, you're listening to these messages, you're seeking Him, that's where it begins.
It's laying down your preferences and seeking what He wants. It's an act of worship. Specifically, I know the Constitution and bylaws are important in your church, but how about spending some time in the book of Ephesians and the book of Colossians and seeing what the New Testament says the church is really all about and letting the Lord speak to you through those words and asking Him to open your eyes and melt your heart and speak to you and lay down your preferences and say, what is your plan for this church? And if you can't get to the place yet where you want that, spend more time with Jesus.
Can I just be honest? You discover Jesus' plan for your church on your knees as you listen to Him.What are the specific roadblocks that keep your church from seeking and discovering Jesus' plan? Well, the roadblocks, we've talked about them. They're pretty obvious.
I have to give some things up. You realize how all the roadblocks kind of are focused on me? I have to change this. I have to give up.
I lose control. I lose things that perhaps I have preference for. Dear Saint, Jesus made it abundantly clear.
He who seeks to save his life is going to lose it, but he who's willing to lose his life for my sake, he's going to find it. You're going to find joy. You're going to find meaning.
You're going to find purpose as a believer in your church when you release it to Jesus and you say, I'm going to trust you. Listen to me carefully. If you know Christ as your Savior, and I pray you do, then you know He has saved you.
You know that He has created a heart of flesh from a heart of stone. You know there came a moment when He regenerated you. You know, oh, you know that He's going to raise you from the dead.
My friend Andy Davis has once asked the question, what's your plan B for resurrection? Do you have a plan B for resurrection? Well, of course not. Jesus is going to raise me from the dead. I can't raise myself from the dead.
Let me remind you of something. You can't revitalize a church either. Jesus can't.
And we really shouldn't have a plan B for our church. Just one plan. Whatever Jesus wants.
So overcoming these roadblocks is really getting our heart right with Jesus to want what He wants. Evaluate your own heart. And imagine the church suggesting some radical change that could particularly have an undesired impact on you or your family.
Well, would your first response be to spend extended time in prayer asking Jesus what He wants you to do with His church? How different might your church be if praying over decisions in this way became part of your church's DNA? Again, I learned a long time ago as a pastor, the worst question I could ever ask is, who's for this and who's against this? It doesn't matter who's for it and who's against it. All that matters is, is Jesus for it? And is Jesus against it? So the right question for us to ask is, how have we prayed over it? How long have we prayed over it? And in our praying over it, what has Jesus revealed to us that He wants us to do with His church? What if that became the DNA decision-making of your church? Instead of a whole list of committees and everybody having their preferences and everybody sort of bargaining for their turf so that everything in the church is done the way they want it, what if we laid all of that down and we said, all that matters is what does the head of the church, Jesus Christ, want us to do with His church?Because that ultimately will bring our greatest joy. Doing what He wants you to do, it's costly, but the reward is far greater than you could ever imagine.
If you'll allow me to tell a personal story from my own experience. When I went to a church on Warnell Road in Kansas City that the book is about, there were 18 mostly elderly members the first Sunday I was there. Sanctuary seated 632.
So I knew we could cram, I don't know, 500 or so more in there, 590 in there if we needed to. It was hard to preach to 18 people in a sanctuary that seated over 600. It was a tough time for that church.
But as God began to move, things began to change. And some young people began to come. And some of the older people in the church had to endure some changes that they weren't particularly always happy about.
One of our members was an older man in his late 70s at that time whose wife was an invalid and unable to be at church. They had no children, and he was her caretaker. The church was very important to him.
He'd been a member of that church for 40 years, and he'd seen it in its grand days, you know,when the sanctuary was filled and it was a church of tremendous influence in the city. And then he'd been there through all of its demise down to, as I said, about 18 people ready to close its doors. And then he was there when I came and all the changes that God brought, and he endured those changes as best he could.
And the time came for his wife to go to heaven. So I went to the funeral home to work out the arrangements for the funeral, and I asked the funeral director who the pallbearers were, and he said that they didn't have any that the funeral home would provide them. And so I called this gentleman, and I said, we can provide the pallbearers.
He said, oh, Mark, those young men at your church, at our church really, he said, they've never met my wife. She's always been homebound. They don't know who she is.
I said, I know they want to do this. And so I texted him, and sure enough, the next morning, all these young men showed up at the funeral home. And when it came time to carry his dear wife out of the funeral home into the hearse, it was those young men in the church that weren't there a few years ago that came because of all the changes that Jesus brought.
They picked up his sweet bride, and they carried her. And then they got to the cemetery, and they carried her from the hearse to the grave, and they stood there and put their arms around that old gentleman who had no children of his own, and they loved on him, and they cared for him. It wasn't long after that until one of those young men called me and said, you know who showed up at our Thursday night home fellowship this week? I said, no, and it was that elderly gentleman, and he continued to show up.
And let me tell you, the joy he had in that church because of the relationships he had far outweighed what he lost in the church not being what it used to be like. That's what I mean. When you do what Jesus wants you to do, he has joy in store for you far greater than what you think you're going to have by trying to hold on to something that's not yours to hold on with to begin with.
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Chapter Six: Defining Success
Summary
For too long we have focused too much attention only on numerical attendance. Clearly, we need to change the scorecard. A healthy church regularly evaluates its ministry footprint in the community. Healthy churches also evaluate the degree to which members are becoming more like Jesus as they help others to do the same.
We always think our church tends to do more than it actually does. Maybe sometimes the church does more than we actually know. That would be really great, and I think that's true sometimes.
But oftentimes we think, our church loves people. We're a friendly church. Someone once said, you know, people aren't looking for a friendly church.
They're looking for friends. And sometimes we think, well, we impact our community. And when you ask them to be specific about tangible ways you've impacted people who do not attend your church but live in your community in the last month, what could you say? That's an important question to ask every month.
What are the tangible ways your church has truly impacted the lives of people who don't attend your church in the last month? If you really have to struggle to come up with some specific examples of that, well, what does that reveal about your church? And why do you suppose this is so? And what role could you have in changing those things? The first thing you have to know is your community. You truly have to know your community. Everybody thinks they know their community.
But communities are not stagnant. They don't stay the same anymore. I serve in a rural community of 400 people in Kansas.
You would think that would be a place that would be very stagnant. But people move in and move out all the time. The community's always changing.
That's part of the frustration for many of us. That's part of the reason many churches are in decline, that the church and the community used to be homogeneous when they started years ago. But the church has stayed the same, but God has made the community different.
And it's hard for us to keep up with that. And sometimes, just about the time we think we figure out the community, it changes again. We've often said maybe one of the best things you can do is on Sunday morning, take a look at who's in your sanctuary and then drive to the nearest fast food joint in your community, walk inside.
And if the people standing in there or in line in their cars to get their food, if they don't look like the people you just left in your building, you might have a problem. Their ages, their ethnicity, their backgrounds, does your church reflect its community? You see, you're really not going to be able to meet needs until you know your community. And many times we think we know it, but we really don't.
And also, if we don't know the community, we're not going to be compassionate about the community. And meeting needs begins really with understanding the needs and then havingcompassion to meet those needs. And again, frankly, if your church, you look at your budget, how much money do we spend on things that are not about our ministry? How much do we spend on people that have needs outside of our church? How much time do we spend with people who have needs outside of our church? As I said before in a previous episode, some of you say, well, we do that and they don't come to the church on Sunday morning.
And remember, I said, that's not to get them in the buildings to get you in their lives. It's to let them know that people who love Jesus love them. To let them know that the gospel has transformed my life so much that I'm more generous than anybody else you could ever meet.
It says much about Jesus. It glorifies God when we love people who don't love us back. It glorifies God when we serve people who can't do anything for us.
So, in what specific ways does your church help people to grow to become more like Jesus? And if they do, how can you tell if those activities lead to a transformed life? You know, sometimes when you see a new believer come to Christ, they become so generous. They want to help everybody and do everything and tell everybody. And then some of us who've been saints for, I don't know, 40, 50 years, we get a little set in our ways and we get a little concerned about ourselves and maybe we're not as passionate about reaching people, as passionate about ministering to people as we once were.
That's because we're not being discipled. Are we becoming more like Jesus? Look, I don't care if you're 18. I don't care if you're 8, 18 or 88 or 98.
If you're a follower of Christ, you need to be more like Jesus today than you were yesterday. You need to love people more today than you did yesterday. And frankly, if a church is filled with disciples, then those are people who…it's not just a head knowledge.
It's not just the understanding of the text, the understanding of the doctrine. Remember the priest and the Levite in the Good Samaritan story. They had the understanding of the law.
They knew the law. They just didn't have compassion. And discipleship is where we understand the doctrine, but we also understand how to put it into practice.
It's like knowing and doing. Discipleship is knowing and doing. I think many times in our churches, we have people who know a lot, but don't do what they know a lot.
It's also dangerous to be doing stuff without knowing why you're doing it. I mean, doctrine is absolutely essential. You can't function without it, but doctrine without doing it…and some would say, well, sound doctrine would tell you to do it, and I would agree with that.
Think of it as the two pedals of a bicycle, knowing and doing. And when you have two pedals working together, you're moving down the road. And so, in your church, if people know sound doctrine and they want to do something because they know that, then the church moves forward.
In other words, it's discipleship that makes people love Jesus more and love the community more and want to be more generous. So, what are the steps your church has to make people more like Jesus? And if you say, well, Sunday school and evening worship and morning worship, those are great things, but what else? In other words, if you have those and yet the church continues to die and continues to decline and the community is not being reached, are they truly making disciples? If people are not being transformed, what might we do to encourage change in this area? That's a really good question every pastor, every leader ought to ask. It's not a matter of just continuing to do what we're doing.
If people are not being transformed, if they're not being made into disciples, and if thatdiscipleship doesn't result in them caring and impacting their community, how can we address that? How often and in what format does your church celebrate community impact and disciple making? That's what I mean. Sunday mornings, how many times do you celebrate community impact on Sunday morning? I think it's far more important to celebrate the size of your church's ministry footprint than how many show up and gather worship on Sunday. How many show up and gather worship on Sunday is important, but more important, I think, to the kingdom is how big a ministry footprint do we have that week? How many lives did we touch with the gospel of Jesus Christ this week? How many people who are broken and hurting were loved on by people who are disciples of Jesus this week? And how do we celebrate that when we gather on Sunday morning?Because the church tends to do the things they celebrate.
And how do you celebrate disciple making? How do you give people on ramps? How do you give them enough margin in their life to create time to have relationships to be in a disciple making relationship? And do you have opportunities, even on Sunday morning, to talk about the benefits of discipleship? Maybe someone has a testimony about how discipleship has been important in their life that week. Do you have an opportunity for them to share that? Again, in order for your church to impact its community, it has to be full of disciples. In order to be disciples, there has to be an intentional disciple making process.
And we tend to do those things we celebrate. What is your church's process for growing people in Jesus? And how do you celebrate that, both in community impact and in discipleship making?And if you don't, how could you begin to do that right now? Thank you.
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Chapter Seven: Am I a Replanter?
Summary
It pleases God to use people to accomplish His work. That’s why He is calling pastors to lead churches in need of renewal. And these pastors tend to have certain God-given gifts and abilities. Some of these gifts and abilities come naturally, while others are developed over time and through experience. If you think God might be calling you to replant or revitalize, consider taking the Replanter and Revitalizer Characteristics Survey.
One of the greatest joys in my ministry in this season of my life has been to see God activelycalling people to the hard work of revitalization and replanting of dying churches. I mean, for generations, most leaders ran from dying churches. It was a place you wanted to get away from.
And we would just go plant new ones in our own Southern Baptist convention for decade upondecade. We could count about 1,000 new churches a year from planting or bringing in congregations already existing who are now Southern Baptists, about 1,000 a year. But as we've said in an earlier episode, 700 or 800 Southern Baptist churches cease to exist every year.
So when you realize that while we may gain 1,000 and we lose 700 or 800, we only net about 200 to 300 a year, and that doesn't even keep up with the population growth. And that's been going on for decades. But something happened a few years ago.
God began to call some of the best and brightest not to plant new churches, and we're grateful they do that. We keep planting churches. God began to call some of the best and brightest not to healthy established churches, and we're grateful for those churches.
Those are the partnering churches for many of our replants. But God began to call some of the best and brightest, most passionate soldiers of the gospel to the hardest possible places you could imagine, places that other people would look at and say, this church has one foot in the grave. This church is not well.
This church isn't going to survive. And rather than to say, well, it's not a place I want to be, God is calling people to those churches to say, this is the place where I believe God's going to do a mighty work. You see, that's it.
For some of us who are called to revitalization and replanting, we understand if God doesn't do it at this place, it is not going to be done. I cannot do it. There isn't enough charisma in the world to bring this church back to life.
I'm not talking about your church, but let's just use a hypothetical one. There isn't enough charisma in the world to bring this church back to life, but Jesus Christ can. And just maybe some of you want to be in a place where you realize only what God tells you to do will work.
You remember in the midst of the storm, the disciples are out there on the sea and they're holding on to the side of that boat. It's being tossed by the wind and the waves are crashing over it. It's dark as night and no one can really see.
And Jesus comes walking on the water and they're terrified. And Jesus says, it's I. And Peter says what? Lord, if it's you, bid me come. And what does Peter do? He jumps out of the boat and he walks across the surface of the water.
Now, Peter had been a fisherman his whole life. He'd never walked across the surface of the water. He'd never seen anybody walk across the surface of the water.
So why didn't the other disciples jump out and join him? Well, as the old preacher said, Peter didn't walk on the water, he walked on the Word. Peter said, if it's you, bid me come. And Jesus said, come.
And so Peter stood on that Word. You see, Peter was able to do something over and above and beyond anything he could humanly do because he responded to the Word of Christ. And that's the work of revitalization.
When God calls you to revitalization, you get out of the boat. You know, it may be if you went to just an established church, you might be able to hang out in that boat for a while. It might have enough money, enough people, you could keep going for a while.
But when you go to a church revitalization, the church replant, you're stepping out of the boat. And all the things the boat used to do, you're not there anymore. And it's either Christ is going to do it or you're going to sink.
And before you say, well, I don't want to get out of the boat because Simon Peter sank. I want to stay in the boat. Yeah, he began to go under, but don't lose sight of this.
Jesus didn't let him drown. Maybe one of the most exciting things Peter got to do in that whole experience was realize that failure is really not failure when Jesus is around. Jesus picked him up.
Man, I'd rather be soaked to the bone and in the arms of Jesus than dry and sitting in the boat. And the Scripture says that when they got back in the boat, everybody worshiped. Look, I'm not telling you revitalization, replanting is easy.
I'm not going to tell you there won't be missteps you'll make and times you're going to begin to go under, but I'm going to tell you if God calls you to this work, He will sustain you in this work and He'll bring you back safely. So is God calling you to this hard work? Hey, if He's not, don't get out of the boat. Don't you be leaving if He doesn't call you.
But if He is, is He calling you to be a pastor of a revitalized church, or is He calling you as a lay couple, a layman, to maybe go to a church that needs revitalization and work alongside that pastor? I am so confident that God has a huge movement right now in our very presence of revitalizing and replanting churches, and my confidence is based on this. He would not be calling so many of us to this work if He wasn't planning on completing this work. Is He calling you? If your church is currently without a pastor, how about those 13 characteristics that we identified in this previous chapter about using those in your process for looking for the next pastor, how that might shape your process? These characteristics, these are not things, as we said, we just pulled out of the air.
These are things we have seen God use in the lives of men who've been led to revitalize and replant churches. It's very important to take a look at these. These are gifts.
Not everybody has all of them, but as a pastor, if I realize there's some that I'm weak in, these characteristics help me understand where I need to strengthen myself and shore myself up and realize if I'm going to truly be part of a revitalization, I have to look at where these characteristics are in my life. And if you're currently without a pastor, I would ask you to look carefully at those characteristics and let that shape the process of searching for your next pastor. If you're exploring the call to serve a church as a replanter or a revitalizer, I mean, which of those characteristics do you sense God affirming in you? Which ones represent some sort of growth that's needed? You realize that maybe it's not there.
There's a survey you can take. There's a website there, churchreplanters.com. You can take a survey. Immediately, you'll get some of those results and it'll help you understand where you need to be in development as a replanting pastor, where your strengths are and where your weaknesses are.
And also, we can help you in getting some understanding of how to get a handle on thosestrengths and be equipped in areas that God wants to equip you. Ultimately, it is not your strengththat's going to replant the church. It's Jesus.
But it's as he works through you in these gifted areas he's already given you, and as you use those in a way that glorifies him. So, we are here to help you. And I'm grateful for every man and woman who's decided, you know what? Running toward a dying church is a pretty exciting thing.
I'm grateful that I live in a generation that dying churches are not something to run from, but they're an opportunity to display the glory and the power and the majesty of the risen Christ in a place that everybody else would give up on. My friend Mark Halleck says this, Jesus isn't done with dying churches, and he's not done with men and women like you who want to serve him in a dying church.
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Chapter Eight: You Can't Replant
Summary
The work of revitalizing and replanting is first and foremost a work of God—renewing a church and calling a people back to Himself and His will. In this way, replanting is spiritual first, then strategic. As you conclude this study, consider your next steps prayerfully. What is God uniquely calling you to do in the coming days?
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Next Steps
Launching Renewal Quick Start Guides
Contact the Replant Team