Three Phases of Church Revitalization: Phase Three

A three-part series on what to expect and how to lead through revitalization.

In two previous posts (Phase One and Phase Two), I introduced the concept of church revitalization, I offered a little of my background and experience, and I described what I believe are typically the first two phases or seasons of leading a church through revitalization. I recommend that the reader consider those other posts before continuing here.

In this post, I will describe the way church leaders might help a church rebuild on a healthier and better foundation. During this new season of church-life, pastors can also help church members recalibrate their expectations and make good use of their resources for years to come. In some ways, this is what it looks like to do ordinary pastoral ministry in the life of a healthy church. There is nothing fancy here, and every church leader might do well to apply the perspective and practices I’m outlining below.

Phase Three: Rebuilding and Recalibrating

In my experience, in my conversations with other church pastors, and in my reading of books and articles about church revitalization, I’ve noticed what seems to be three phases of this work. The first two are more intense in some ways, and a senior pastor (especially) is likely to experience a real sense of battles and respites, wins and losses. Just surviving and remaining faithful can feel like successful leadership during the early years of church revitalization. So too, the victories are often obvious - bad programs die, unhealthy membership practices cease, and the local church begins to display an orderly expression of love for Christ and love for one another. These mile markers are usually visible and effective in fostering church health.

This third phase, however, can feel far less intense and triumphant. Sometimes churches do grow numerically after having become healthier, but that’s not always the case. In fact, some churches become quite small, and they may continue to be so. Sometimes, after the busy church calendar becomes less demanding, church members and leaders can feel as though their church has become less active and/or effective. Sometimes the church budget becomes constricting and church-life can feel discouragingly monotonous.

During this third phase of revitalization, it is vital that pastors lead toward rebuilding with quality and also that they help church members remember and understand the purpose and benefits of the progress they’ve made. Pastors must lead the church in rightly evaluating their success and in stewarding well what God has provided. In many cases, church members still retain at least some of the assumptions that led to chaos and lacking health in the past. New members will also bring their own perspective when they join. Pastors must lead, and this responsibility continues after church health has been established (or re-established).

Rebuild Church Programming

The most important labor of revitalization is the building or rebuilding of a church’s shared beliefs, biblical polity, and meaningful church membership (i.e., the three C’s - Confession, Constitution, and Covenant). But once pastors lead a church in addressing these matters, it is definitely time to rebuild, and it’s probably time to take a look at the church’s building(s) and property. We’ll consider the material resources below, but rebuilding should include a whole host of church programs and activities.

Now that your church is healthier, your church members are likely keen on getting back to the activities that once held their attention. In my own experience, during phase two of revitalization, our church-life had become focused heavily on defining who we are and explaining how we function. However, after we largely settled these matters, our church members were interested to rekindle their passions for evangelism, discipleship, benevolence, fellowship, and the like.

Each church will have to decide how they will structure their official church calendar and what activities they will leave to a kind of free market among church members. In my church, we have decided to maintain a mere church calendar so that church members will have great freedom to engage organically with one another and with friends and neighbors. Our official calendar includes: the main Sunday morning church gathering, weekly small groups (or Sunday school), a mid-week Bible study on Wednesday evenings, a monthly Sunday evening prayer meeting, a monthly potluck lunch, and bi-monthly members’ meetings. Everything else our members do is ad hoc and unofficial. This structure of our church-life is the result of our rebuilding a church calendar based on our priorities.

Rebuild Church Budget, Buildings, and Property

Most churches that experience revitalization are older and established. They’ve been around for a while, and it’s likely that their resources (i.e., money and property) need to be rebuilt or renovated according to their newly recovered priorities. Over time, unhealthy churches often become indiscriminate in their use of funds and unsystematic in their care and maintenance of church property. When there is no clear leadership in the allocating resources and planning for upkeep, budgets and property tell the tale of various pet projects and areas of neglect.

Church budgets acquire line items for unnecessary or unwise expenses. Pastors must lead by taking responsibility for aiming church funds at those people and places they value most. In a healthy church, pastoral leadership, functional meeting space, and resources for basic church activities are paramount. Of course, partnerships for missions and church planting are also of great importance, but this is where money goes when there’s a surplus, and staff and property should not be neglected for the purpose of keeping a missions budget highly financed.

So too, church property can become ignored or unattended. Pastors must take responsibility for leading the church toward being a good steward of the building(s) and property they have. In fact, one way the community around a church evaluates the integrity and care of a local church is by assessing the building and grounds. Churches would do well to make plans and maintain their property as well as they are able. This will include both functional and cosmetic maintenance. Every building will need maintenance at some point, every parking lot will need resurfacing sooner or later, and every air conditioning unit (especially in Texas!) will need repair and eventual replacement.

Church size, maturity, demographics, and surrounding culture will all play a big part in a church’s resources and the prioritization of how money is spent. During this third phase of church revitalization, pastors must lead the rest of the church to make the best use of what they have for the good of the church, the good of Christ’s kingdom beyond, the good of the community around, and the glory of Christ.

Recalibrate Expectations

If a church has become unhealthy, it is likely that one of the main culprits has been a misunderstanding of success and a mismeasurement of results. When churches measure success by the size of their budget, the number of their members, or the busyness of their scheduled activities, they can often lose sight of greater priorities. One of the main features of pastoral leadership during this third phase of revitalization is patient and charitable (and incessant) teaching on what it truly means for a church to be successful.

My own church has held steady at about the same level of church membership for the last five years. Some church members have gone, and some new ones have come, but we’ve basically stayed numerically the same. This lack of numerical growth can be discouraging for church members (and pastors too), espeically if numerical growth has been a measurement of success in the past. Pastors must become content with whatever the Lord provides in the way of numbers, and pastors must teach church members (by both example and word) how to be content as well.

While the tangible features of church-life have not changed or grown much for my church (membership, baptisms, budget size, etc.), the intangible features have improved quite dramatically. It is hard to observe growth in spiritual maturity, greater intentionality in evangelism and discipleship among church members, or the raising up of godly men who are both aspiring for church leadership and qualified to do it. However, pastors can help church members better recognize these qualities of church health and success, and church members need to learn how to see and celebrate them.

The overall mission of a local church is to make disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ by sharing the gospel, baptizing new converts into membership, and teaching everyone to obey what Christ has commanded (Matthew 28:18-20). God may give numerical growth to a local church, but He has not promised to do that. What we must do is aim for faithfulness to the task we’ve been given, and we will all benefit from a recalibration of how we measure success.

Conclusion

I’ve tried to explain, with these three posts about church revitalization, that there seems to me three distinct phases of this labor. The first phase includes both winning and losing. This can take years, and it is often a trying time for all involved. But if pastoral leadership can survive those hard days, a better season of razing and building may come.

The second phase is when a local church leaves behind the unhealthy structures and practices that produced their failing health and constructs (or reconstructs) something new. When a church experiences this second phase, it can be a refreshing season for both pastors and church members. At this point, churches often become more genuinely united and more intentionally aimed toward Christian faithfulness and growth.

The third phase, as I’ve tried to outline above, is a time of rebuilding and recalibrating. Pastors offer a positive plan and strategy for maintaining church health over time. Pastors lead in rebuilding a healthy schedule of activities, a wise and prioritized use of church funds, and a responsible care for church resources (such as buildings and property). This third phase is not glamorous, but it is essentially the work of ordinary pastoral ministry.

I pray that the Lord will provide local churches with good men as pastors, men who will take up the responsibility of wise, humble, and faithful shepherding. And I pray that many more churches will experience the sort of health that God grants when the biblical priorities are embraced.