Seven Ways To Revitalise Your Church

Every church needs to be revitalised at some stage. It can't afford to be outdated. So, how can this be achieved? Max Palmer has some answers.

I recently attended a very ambitious and unusually pitched gathering of church leaders from both sides of the Tasman. The packed Australasian Billion Soul Leadership Summit was organised by James Davis a well-known mission leader from Orlando, Florida.

During the short but almost overfilled two days, we were encouraged by James as he cordially invited ministries to dream and strategise for revival throughout the global church. "We need a sweeping, reaping and weeping move of God to revitalise the church and to unleash a new call to mission, ministry and church planting," he said.

"Those of God's people who are longing for the work of God and a re-awakening of the church, are praying that the difficult economic conditions may lead to a re-assessment of value, a fresh stirring of love for the Lord and a fresh harvest amongst the unreached and unchurched."

Before you are tempted to dismiss all of this as hype and emotion, please realise that I am as sensitive as the next man to the habitual tendency of saccharine coated statements and glitz to over promise and under deliver. But I believe the revitalisation of churches and ministries is not only possible but also critical and essential if we are to see a moral turning of the tide in nations.

As a pastoral and missionary leader, networker and net-builder, I have worked for over 35 years to encourage, strengthen and resource leaders and churches to discover and express their God given diversity and to become part of the difference and solution, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender or class.

Let us remember that despite the world's ailing economy, the Kingdom of God is not in recession nor can we afford to be. We need to lean forward into hope and look up for a better tomorrow, confident of revitalisation. For all those who have put their hands to the plough let us ensure that the great commission is truly a co-mission and a mission possible.

Life cycles of a church

Let me ask a simple question - how does a church or ministry get to the point of devitalisation? What happens to the dream and passion with which a church begins?

As with life, churches and ministries have inevitable cycles - of newness, maturity, decline and then new seasons of growth.

A church in need of revitalisation will often exhibit no signs of being cyclical. It would have hit a plateau, be aging, lacking in fervour, be introspective, marginalised and mono cultural.

Ask yourself, what season and even what era is your church in? Has your church slipped in some area and become dated? Are you trying to reach a 21st century world with 20th century methods? Are your communication methods and values in touch with what is understood by the emerging generation, or are you speaking a different language and wonder why no one is listening? Are you too literal to the point of neglecting the visual and digital?

As futurist Len Sweet aptly puts it, "We must move from a Gutenberg world to a Google world."

So as a leader, where do you begin a journey from the lassitude of devitalisation to the verve of revitalisation?

Seven Key Approaches

1st be prayerfully and even brutally honest about where you are at personally and as a church community. Review personally and with those closest to you just how emotionally healthy you and your family are. Devitalisation will be working around you and even from you as well as in your church. We all need a Barnabus to help us make sense of life and ministry. We all need the support and benefit of pastoral supervision.

2nd consider the focus of your church - is it inward or outward in its stance toward the world? Much like the effect of fertiliser, churches and Christians work best when spread around as opposed to being heaped together in a corner.

3rd assess the health of your church as seen by its members and measure quality characteristics through a survey like the one offered by Natural Church Development (NCD). Check out www.ncd-newzealand.org.nz for access to this user-friendly survey and the expertise of a trained NCD Church Health coach.

4th consider courses like ALPHA - still one of the leading evangelism programs available to be offered and managed by any church to groups of any size. Alpha will put a friendly face on your church community and allow a relaxed non-threatening environment where, as they say, the big questions of life can be considered and hopefully answered.

Additionally, the Alpha marriage course also offers outstanding and helpful insights on marriage and relationships.

5th consider the health and vibrancy of your ministry and leadership team. There are some great informal leadership and team development tools available, including those that focus on gift discovery and leading with your strengths and personality preferences. These can release the inherent qualities of your team members and help you place the right people in the right places of ministry.

6th review and strengthen your children and youth ministry focus by appointing part time or full time trained, passionate and relevant workers to these positions.

A church in Christchurch has recently given over their Sunday evening service to a one hour MX format of music, dance, drama, visuals and the gospel, all intended to attract and reach an emerging generation.

7th Finally, as we all live in very racially diverse communities, consider how friendly your church is to those from other ethnicities and cultures. The immigration wave is rolling all over our towns and cities and people of all backgrounds are looking for places to belong. We must seek to accommodate instead of assimilate and always make room for them.

I personally have learnt and am still learning a great deal from writers and practitioners such as Mark Deymaz and his book 'Building Healthy Multi Cultural Churches' and David Boyd and his book 'You don't have to Cross the Ocean to Reach the Nations'.

Acts 2 in the Word describes for us a vitalised attractive church to which people were naturally drawn - I am persuaded that we can also grow similar churches in our towns and cities and so do our part in fulfilling the great commission.

Moving from devitalised to vitalised is surely from the heart of our God and Father in the authority of his only son Jesus Christ and by the ever-renewing power of the Holy Spirit.

Max Palmer - Pastor, Mission Leader and Director