In my last post I launched into exposing ten myths about the revitalization of churches. I began with this “googled” definition:
Revitalization is the “action of imbuing something with new life and vitality”.
In light of this, admittedly, secular definition, instead of asking if every church needs revitalization, maybe we should be asking if any church doesn’t need revitalization.
And I think we all want our churches to know the “be continually being filled with the Spirit” experience – from a literal translation of the Greek – described in Ephesians 5:18, as illustrated by Acts 4:31:
“After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy
Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.”
So any church can and probably should be praying for new life and vitality on an ongoing basis.
Could we possibly bear too much fruit? Could we go overboard with the joy of Christ? Could we be overly filled with the Spirit? I can see why churches with beautiful buildings might not want their edifices shaken too much, but are we ever even close to being overly bold in our proclamation of the gospel?
So here’s how I described the revitalized church last week:
A revitalized church is an established congregation of saints who are once again experiencing heaven-sent life. They are praying and seeing answers. They are bringing people to faith in Christ – because they want to – not because they have been “programmed” to do so. They love the Bible, not as a trivial pursuit, but as a passionate, personal pursuit. They are seeing miraculous Christian growth in themselves and in others. They are not without conflicts and disagreements, but they are handling their conflicts and disagreements with heaven-sent love, wisdom and patience. They are doing good works out in the community, again, not just because they’ve been roped into it, but because they want to. They are worshipping God with help from the Spirit of God Himself, demonstrating and expressing their love and loyalty to God. Within their fellowship they are practicing the one-another commands of the New Testament and using their spiritual gifts to serve one another.
Now let’s return to the revitalization myths I explained last week, with five more added:
- Church revitalization is a new concept. Hardly! It’s as old as Acts 4:31.
- Church revitalization is only for the severely troubled church. Could any church have too much heaven-sent vitality?
- Church revitalization requires a new pastor. A dangerous idea if there ever was one!
- Church revitalization requires a young pastor. Energy is over-rated; wisdom is under-rated.
- Church revitalization can be produced by way of a packaged program. Can revival come in a box?
- Church revitalization can be reduced to a universal process. I used to look for the church revitalization book – the one with the light shining down from heaven on it – that would outline a start-to-finish process for church turnarounds. A friend helped me understand that no such process is possible because every church is unique. So I wrote a playbook (The Revitalization Playbook) with five scripted plays and fifteen optional plays instead of a universal, consecutive process.
- Church revitalization can be done without miracles. I’ve always found it amusing to hear Christians differentiate between “miraculous” spiritual gifts and the “other” (non-miraculous?) spiritual gifts. Really? You mean the gift of teaching (Romans 12:7) can be ordered from Amazon?
Other believers say that they don’t believe “miracles are for today,” but isn’t the new birth just about the greatest miracle of all? Isn’t sanctification (II Corinthians 3:18) another astonishing act of God? The implication of course, is that whatever else we do, if we want heaven-sent revitalization, we’ll need to get serious about prayer.
- Church revitalization can be done without leadership. Here’s the other side of that equation. Revitalization is a miracle, but life, as seen in the simplest living thing, is organized, not chaotic and organization requires leadership. Someone will have to lead your church’s revitalization efforts. Even the miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes required one supervisor and twelve guys running around with baskets.
- Church revitalization can’t be done with an interim pastor. Not many revitalization miracles will reach their zenith during the tenure of an interim pastor, but many revitalization miracles begin during interim times. I know this because I was a gob smacked interim pastor who saw this happening.
I don’t want to “limit God” (as if we could!) by saying how many years a revitalization takes. Realistically, it can take seven years – think of seven miles for a complete U-turn for an aircraft carrier – or seven weeks, if God wants to do it in seven weeks. Don’t forget Nineveh. Most often however, a revitalization process that begins with a heaven-blessed interim process will be brought to completion during the tenure of the interim’s successor.
- Church revitalization can be accomplished without widespread cooperation. I don’t think any pastor, however young and gifted, can fit a revitalization miracle into his backpack. I don’t think any exceptional church board can superintend a revitalization either. It seems to happen where a pastor-leader works effectively with a core group of leaders, a larger circle of leaders and at least some in the outer ring of the congregation who are passionate about their church becoming a powerful force for the gospel.
May God give your congregation’s leaders and followers a burning desire to experience the heaven-sent revitalization that God is waiting to give you!
