David Drury has a good overview of Church Revitalization Models at his Substack. I encourage you to read it. As a revitalization pastor myself, I had a few comments in reply.
- Yes, there is no one size fits all strategy or context, even though there are similar attributes and organizational life stage.
- Every congregation needs to realize they are maybe just two years away from needing at least a vision refresh, if not revitalization, because society is changing so fast.
- The leadership is hard, but I disagree on feeling unappreciated. I find that congregants appreciate the work and the worker a lot. District leadership sometimes does not. Revitalization is like turning a ship, and while I hear lip service to that, the expectation is still a quick turn-a-round. Other than full restart, I’ve never seen a sustainable quick turn-a-round. I have been denied revitalization status, even though that would help with resources and reduce my USF burden. Church planting gets a high budget value while revitalization is minimal.
- The campus/adoption model looks great in books, but I rarely see it happen, so it is basically a theoretical model, in my opinion. Small congregations resist coming under the authority of larger churches. Larger congregation resist giving their financial and people resources to another congregation. The context and people the large church is reaching is probably different than the small church. There is change resistance on both ends, which David addressed only on the small church end.
Photo credit Earthquake Stock photos by Vecteezy
Very helpful experienced thoughts here, Paul. They track with what I’ve heard others share about those matters too. Thanks for writing your thoughts down.
I agree with you Paul on this. As a pastor that came into a revitalization process I had no idea how hard it would be and the resistance I would face. I didn’t want to alienate the people who were there, but in my situation they never really asked for me but were kind of “given” me. So they came along but didn’t really get engaged. So I could have shut the church down and restarted but I think that would’ve alienated the church.
The reality is that each church and each pastor has a different DNA. And it’s easier to put it in a category, but it’s my experience that doesn’t really work. But I think one thing does and that’s someone who truly loves and cares for people. And that takes time and there’s really no way around that. And you can’t manufacture it. Love your community and love your people and work hard. It’s not the end all be all, but it’s a good place to start.
Now I’m rambling lol.
Tom thanks for the comment. I at least hope that church evaluations are getting better, especially before new pastors come in, so we all, pastors and congregations, have a better idea of what we are getting into.
We also didn’t know we were in need of revitalization until I was here for a few years. I was also in the same boat of not wanting to alienate people. There is a balance between loving people as they are and exhorting them to change that is always part of being a pastor, that is amplified in revitalization. Some of the strongest leaders/influencers may also be never adopters.