TLN Articles

A Truth in Love Network Publication                                                                                                           

Church Revitalization

By: Robert Canipe                                  

Revitalization is a pop word in today's church culture. The claim is that there are a tremendous amount of churches that are dying or dead, spiritually. My initial reaction, for a long time, to this accusation has been to ask, “Being a Christian is something that Jesus has done to a person. His work is great and powerful. Foremost, we have been brought from death to life. Second, the Spirit begins the process of sanctification. That is, a process of having been changed and being changed. There is therefore an expectation of life for the Christian and the church they attend. Do we have some kind of formula and think we are clever or powerful enough to regenerate that which has been regenerated by Christ?” This has been my impression and response. There has been a lot of money made on books and training for this strategy as well. If I were to make a Biblical examination of a local church that does not show signs of life, I would lean towards a conclusion that says they are either dead spiritually, apostate, or heretical. This would require a different approach altogether.

What about a church that is struggling? What do signs of life look like for a church that may be receiving a wrong diagnosis? A church may be missing some signs of life, but yet truly regenerate would be a church that is struggling. Isn’t that the case for us as individuals? Do we always have it together? A sign I would look for in a person that is struggling with their faith is the very fact that they are struggling. They have desire, they have concern but are lacking some key faith information or have been led in a wrong direction. Wouldn’t the same be true for a local church? If this is the case, what is the solution? What does revitalization look like based on this diagnosis? I think we must start with the two questions mentioned already. What faith information are they lacking and have they been led in a wrong direction? 

In my experience with church leadership, what most have had in common, is the frustration over apathy from their congregation. We do not understand why there is a lack of involvement in the church's activities. Why are the same people involved in every ministry? I believe it stems from a wrong view of the church. Most leaders have a sincere heart to see people come to faith in Jesus. However, the misconception is that inviting people to church is evangelism. It is the view that if our church grows, the kingdom is growing. Also, there is the idea that we need to have programs to attract people and we need the people to run the programs. Therefore, our church becomes this isolated entity, seeking to draw people into itself. Then, to maintain this growth, or inspire initial growth, we pressure and burden, and sometimes guilt,  our people into church involvement. We see, then, two things happen. First, you have a group that was converted to your church and not to Christ. They may have a zeal for the church, but not for Christ. Even though the right language might be used, so on the surface it seems correct. You will have apathy from this group because jobs, family, and personal time become much more important. Second, those that are faithful get burned out. It is a legitimate concern to consider the lives of our people. Our jobs and families do keep us super busy. Then, on top of those things, we are expected to be at church to run programs constantly. Eventually, you will have a church that needs to read a book on revitalization.

What is the right direction? What is the key faith information? In Ephesians 4, we are giving the identity of leaders for the church. The responsibility of these leaders is to, “equip the saints for the work of ministry.” No where in Scripture will you find the practice or mandate to develop any kind of program in your church. Our Biblical calling is to be saints that do ministry. Aren’t programs simply avenues in which saints can do ministry? No. First, programs aren't Biblical. Second, saints are the program that do the work of the ministry. We overburden and plead with our people to do things that they are not really interested in or called to do. How do we then reverse this mentality and practice? We must invest in our people, not our programs. We must invest in each other. We each are temples of the Holy Spirit. We each are ambassadors. We each are goers. The church is simply the place of collective worship, fellowship, training, and investment. If we want to truly revitalize our churches, we will knock down the sacred cows of programs, and invest in our people and their ministries.