Church Revitalisation
This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
John 15:8
Church revitalisation is the key foundation of our 4 association vision pictures.
- We see a movement of transforming, healthy communities
- We see a movement raising and empowering Kingdom-focused leadership
- We see an extraordinary mission shaped movement of God across our churches and affiliated groups
- We see a movement impacting our society, culture and world
It underpins our desire to see:
- churches develop from gatherings to transformational spaces
- leaders birthed into a vast array of industries and ministries
- churches engage missionally with the world around them
- churches demonstrate biblical love for the world through engagement and advocacy
Revitalisation, no matter how capable a church is in each of these areas, can make a good thing even better and continue to transform churches of all shapes and sizes into thriving healthy communities.
This information, as part of the ‘A Thousand Healthy Churches in a Generation’ vision (GEN1K), will hopefully help you identify the life stage of your church and gain access to resources for possible approaches to improve it’s impact internally and externally.
Revitalisation Shape
This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
John 15:8
Church revitalisation is the key foundation of our 4 association vision pictures.
- We see a movement of transforming, healthy communities
- We see a movement raising and empowering Kingdom-focused leadership
- We see an extraordinary mission shaped movement of God across our churches and affiliated groups
- We see a movement impacting our society, culture and world
It underpins our desire to see:
- churches develop from gatherings to transformational spaces
- leaders birthed into a vast array of industries and ministries
- churches engage missionally with the world around them
- churches demonstrate biblical love for the world through engagement and advocacy
Revitalisation, no matter how capable a church is in each of these areas, can make a good thing even better and continue to transform churches of all shapes and sizes into thriving healthy communities.
This information, as part of the ‘A Thousand Healthy Churches in a Generation’ vision (GEN1K), will hopefully help you identify the life stage of your church and gain access to resources for possible approaches to improve it’s impact internally and externally.
Helpie FAQ
Small or large, network, neighbourhood or regional… the possible shapes of revitalised church communities are endless. However at the core of each will be a tangible transformational relationship with Jesus. A unique community of faith united to a larger group of communities by common passion for Jesus. Committed to growing disciples that make disciples.
Leader s in revitalised churches will be recognised early, nurtured continuously, equipped exhaustively and released broadly to the community and the broader Baptist movement. Healthy leaders building healthy leaders will be the expectation in all churches.
Revitalised churches will be intentionally and incarnationally taking the gospel into the community they serve. Stories of new commitments to faith and church growth will be the norm. Churches will have the desire to reach communities that do not know Christ and do everything, including the sending of people to birth new churches, to reach them.
A revitalised church will seek to be the hands, voice and compassion of Jesus into their world. Advocacy, social engagement and support of the vulnerable locally, nationally and internationally will be normal and expected.
What is a congregational life cycle?
It is a generalised way to look at a church to ascertain some of the typical victories, joys and challenges that they can expect at certain times in their life.
It is like a “lens” or a “window” through which we are better able to visualise where a church might be heading on its journey.
The growth phases are shown by the upwards side of the cycle and the decline phases are shown by the downward side of the curve.
Different churches will take different lengths of time to get to the same point in the life cycle although there is some evidence that worldwide the typical lifespan of a church, if they are left to follow their own path, is about 30 to 40 years. The great news is that churches can choose not to just drift along but intentionally take action to “re-launch” themselves into a growth phase. This happens when a church takes appropriate action to interrupt the tendency to move into decline and eventually death. It is what we often call Church “Revitalisation”.
Helpie FAQ
Most churches understand that taking action, by re-evaluating ministries and programs is essential for continued growth and vigour. Often churches do not consider the appropriate action for where they presently find themselves on the “Congregational Life Cycle”. This leads to the expenditure of large amounts of energy and resources to follow a road that will not lead them to greater health. Like taking aspirin for pneumonia.
The reason a church should assesses itself using this model is to help ensure that they are using the right methodology for their specific situation. In doing so they are more likely to get the desired result.
The good news is that because of the nature of our God, nothing is impossible. No matter where a church finds itself on the Congregational Life Cycle it can find a new phase of life and health.
The bad news is that the further along the “decline” side of the graph a church is, the more dramatic and drastic the appropriate methods required are. They require greater effort, increased degrees of change, and corresponding levels disruption to the existing ways of operating as a church to get the result required.
Imagine that churches were like limbs, maybe an arm or a leg, that had sustained an injury.
A scratch would require a Band Aid. A cut might require stitching, but a limb with severe muscle and tissue damage or a broken bone might need reconstructive surgery? Where there is gangrene or total loss of tissue, amputation may be required. Seems logical enough right?
Now image if you used the wrong treatment! Scratches could result in amputation, or you could place a Band Aid on a severed limb
One of the common problems that churches can face is that they misdiagnose themselves and therefore end up putting a lot of energy and resources into a “course of treatment” that is never going to provide the restoration of health and vigour they desire.
In order to help remedy this situation a number things are needed.
- A way to gain a somewhat accurate diagnosis or assessment.
- Clear information as to the appropriate restorative action.
- An understanding of what the treatment will involve.
- Where to go to for such help or medicine.
- A commitment to engage in the treatment.
Life Stage and Responses
The Right Response
Being able to determine where on the congregational lifecycle a church is located is very important, but for a good outcome to be grasped it is just as important for a local church to embrace the appropriate responses (Improvement, refocusing, restructuring, or rebirth). In order for this to happen the right type of leadership and people resources will need to be, or become, available for the journey ahead.
However, there are a number of stories of how churches in each of these categories have been able to see their churches revitalised when they have trusted in God and committed to the arduous journey of change.
Revitalisation Support
Prayer
Seems cliché but nothing of significance happens in the absence of consistent, God-dependent prayer! Ministry without prayer is arrogance! Revitalisation is after all a work of God. Jesus called us to make disciples – it is His job to build the church.
Baptist Church Consultancy Process
We have trained consultants available to assist churches in various ways, one of which is Church Revitalisation. Each consultancy is developed around the specific needs of each individual church so it is suited to being “tailor made” to your church’s specific situation. It is fairly cost effective as consultants do all their work in a voluntary capacity. There is a small administrative fee and travel costs to cover.
Ministry Support & Development (MSD) Staff
Maybe an obvious resource are the very experienced MSD Staff working out of the Baptist Ministry Centre in Epping. They are available to advise and work with churches as they come to grips with the challenge of Church Revitalisation.
National Church Life Survey (NCLS)
We are so privileged in Australia to be the home country for one of the worlds’ largest and most definitive church health surveys. Definitely plan to be part of this incredible resource when it comes around again in 2016.
Apart from giving a snapshot of your own church’s health it can show where your unique differences, or challenges, lay in comparison to other Baptist Churches.
It often takes a while to get the results after the major surveys but when they are completed any church can retake the survey for just over $100 and get results back in about 3 weeks. This makes this resource one of the best ongoing ways to check a churches health, noting areas of growth and decline.
They have some great resources developed specifically around identifying areas needing attention.
Natural Church Development (NCD)
This comes in a similar category as NCLS on the next page, except is it done over a world wide perspective. Many churches have used this as an ongoing way to monitor growth in specific identified areas. It gives a numerical score for each of its 8 areas. It is slightly more expensive than NCLS and uses a representative group of about 30 responders from each church. This can be quite effective if not done as a simple “one off”. There are people who are accredited as NCD Coaches to help churches work through their results.
Other Churches
It might seem simplistic but other churches that have travelled, or are travelling, the challenging journey of Church Revitalisation in its various arenas (improvement, refocusing, restructuring, rebirth) are incredible resources to our wider family of churches and should not be overlooked.
Regional Ministers
A number of regions outside of Sydney (and a few in Sydney) have Regional Ministers. These people have experience wider than a single church and are being kept up to date through their ongoing training in Church Health Matters.
