Considering Church Renewal

I went to a seminar on church renewal a little over a week ago.  My Presbytery worked with our denominational board covering church planting and renewal to put this together.  Ken Priddy, a pastor and church consultant, has taken a part-time position with our denomination to assist in the revitalization of many of our congregations through United Front Ministries.  Ken graduated from RTS the year before I did.  Unlike Dr. Nicole, he recognized me.

Why did I go?  Statistics indicate that 80% of churches in America are either in recline or decline.  As a result, 80% of the churches I talk to about a new position will be in one of those positions.  So, I’ve got an 80% of leading a congregation in either recline or decline.  I thought it prudent at this juncture to add some more tools to my toolkit so I can be more effective.

Why Do Churches Go Into Recline & Decline?

– Recline is the bull’s eye that most pastors and congregations aim for.  This is an extension of the empty nest and retirement mentality.  We long for the time when we don’t have to work in the fields very much.  We forget that the rest awaits us (Hebrews 4:9ff).  Right now Jesus is building His church, through us.

– Our default mode is inward, not outreach.  We don’t have to spend much time advocating nurture (though we do need to instruct on what gospel-oriented nurture is).  But we must continually advocate outreach & evangelism.  We must fight to keep evangelism a focus.

– Vitality is lost over time.  Church life cycles are like other life cycles.  Unlike, say my dog’s life cycle, a church can begin again, returning to incline.  The farther you are in the cycle, the more severe the process will be.  It is actually best to begin a new cycle of incline before you reach recline.  This is probably what Mark Driscoll has been doing at Mars Hill with the changes that have taken place over the last year or so.  This is really just an application of the Law of Entropy.  Unless a church continues to invest energy and resources in growth, it will begin to die.  Positive change takes lots of energy- decline takes none.  Left to itself, any living system including a local congregation, will disintegrate over time.

What are the Characteristics of Each Stage in the Life Cycle?

Incline	Recline	Decline
Future Oriented- point of reference is where you want to be.	Present Oriented- stuck in the now.	Past Oriented (point of reference is where you’ve been).
Vision Driven	Program Driven	Structure Driven
Expanding ministry capacity	Maintaining ministry capacity	Shrinking ministry capacity
Community Reference-Community/Outward Focused	Congregational Reference- it’s about us	Core Group Frame of Reference- the smaller the core is, the more dominant it is, holding congregation hostage.
$ => invest in ministry	$ = provides security	$ = preserver or survival mentality
Growth by Conversion	Growth by Transfer (usually with a consumer mentality)	Loss

The church in incline has most of the characteristics of incline.  As it moves toward the end of incline and beginning of recline, more and more of the characteristics shift over.  At the peak of the cycle, it will has most/all of the characteristics of a church in recline.  If they are not shifted back into incline, they will inevitably shift into decline one by one.

So, where is your congregation?  Incline, recline or decline?  My goal is not to give you Ken’s solution or plan.  That would be unfair to him to be sure.  But to help you see if your congregation is in need of revitalization and another resource if you do (80% chance you do).

I’ve seen a few different revitalization programs.  I’ve read Harry Reeder’s From Embers to a Flame for instance.  The progam offered by Ken was more compatible with the idea of a Simple Church.  It doesn’t spend lots of time on mission and vision statements, but does force you to look at how your congregation will try to fulfill God’s purposes in your community.  Ken also spent some time talking about the types of people you will find in your congregation, and how some of them will hinder revitalization.

What it did lack (to be fair, it was only a morning seminar to orient us to the process so many of our older & smaller churches will participate; the habits of effective churches hit some issues of spiritual vitality) was the gospel-orientation you see in Lovelace’s Dynamics of Spiritual Life.  The gospel is to be continually preached, taught and applied for conversion and life transformation.  So I can see synthesizing the 2 so it is not just a vital organization, but a spiritually vital organization.