We are currently holding a series of meetings entitled, “Revival
& Revitalization: Whatever You Ask.”
Our focus is to seek the Lord for revival in our lives individually and
revitalization as a church collectively, to be willing to do whatever the Lord
asks of us related to both of these areas.
What is “Church Revitalization?”
Church revitalization is simply being used of the Lord to take a dying,
struggling or plateaued church and see it infused with new life and new
effectiveness in reaching its community and world with the Gospel of Jesus
Christ.
In thinking recently about Church Revitalization and what it
takes to turn a church around and see new life breathed into it, I was reminded
of a very personal story that I think sheds light on two specific essential components
to any attempt at Church Revitalization.
I want to share that personal story and then point out these two
necessary components from that story that relate to Church Revitalization.
I have Crohn’s Disease.
If you don’t have any idea what that is, then you can find out here. I
was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease when I was in middle school. I’m approaching
40 so I can’t remember the exact age. I fought off and on battles with the
disease throughout middle school with many different medication treatments
etc., with not so nice side effects. In High School I was fairly fortunate
because the disease went into remission and I was able to enjoy most of my High
School years free from any major flare ups.
However, that all ended shortly after I graduated from High
School. The disease began slowly coming out of remission and before long I was
in a full blown flare up and things began to escalate rather quickly and
severely. To make a very long story short I began living in very intense pain
most days. I got to the point where eating was no longer just not fun, but in
some cases just not worth it. I began losing weight at a quick rate, to the
tune of between 60-70 pounds over a six to eight month period. I was malnourished and in pain most of the
time.
Things were not good and getting worse. And my mother knew
it better than anyone. She’s the one who took care of me. And you can imagine what that would be like
as a mother to be watching your only son wasting away from a disease that was
attempting to take his life. The doctor that I had at that time was not a very aggressive
doctor when it came to treating Crohn’s Disease. He was fairly adamant about sticking to a
philosophy of treatment that centered around medication. The only problem was
that I had tried about every medication there was and nothing was working. As a matter of fact my health got to the
point that unbeknownst to me my mother went out and purchased a burial plot for
me in the event she lost the battle of fighting for my life.
But even though things were horrible and getting worse,
thankfully I had a mother who would not give up on her son. She took me back to the doctor who had
originally diagnosed me with Crohn’s Disease some six or seven years
prior. He examined me. My mom explained
to him how things had progressed and the frustration we had with our current
doctor. And she explained to him that
she couldn’t just watch her son die. There had to be something else that could be
done.
Thankfully there was.
The doctor explained to her that it was possible that we could go in and
remove all of my large intestine along with anything else that was contaminated
with the disease (and there were other things). My way of living would be altered
for the rest of my life due to having to remove multiple digestive organs. But,
he felt like if we did this then I could start anew and have a real chance to
survive and live. And so that’s what we
did. In October of 1996, seventeen years ago (Praise the Lord!) I went into a
8+ hour surgery that did in fact alter my life permanently but spared my life.
Now, I’ve had surgeries since then and probably will have surgeries at some
point in the future. But the point is that I’ve lived for seventeen years. And
in that seventeen years, God has saved me through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I’ve
gotten married to the most amazing woman in the world. God has given me three
beautiful children. God has allowed me to be a pastor for the past twelve years
and make such amazing friends in so many places and see lives changed. And my mom has been able to watch and enjoy
all of it and never used that burial plot she purchased for me seventeen years
ago.
There’s one point of the story I left out, which I’ll share
now and then I’ll point out the two necessary components of Church
Revitalization that are connected with this personal story. What I left out was that when we had that
conversation with the doctor who originally diagnosed me with Crohns and he
told us of the one option that was available to us, my mom asked him this
question, “Why didn’t you tell us about this before?” And I don’t remember the exact words of his
answer (remember, I’m close to 40), but it went something along these lines, “Because
Philip and you had to be ready for something so drastic. The more dire the
circumstance, the more open Philip would be to do what was needed to live and that
would make the entire process easier and successful.” You see in my story in order for me to live
there were two things that were needed. First, I had to have a mom who would
not give up on me and who refused to sit around and watch me die. And thank the
Lord, I did. Secondly, I had to come to
the point where the pain of change was actually less than the pain associated
with staying the same, which in my case was dying.
What does this have to do with Church Revitalization? Statistics tell us that as many as 80% of churches
in North America are plateaued or declining, which is just a nice word for
dying. What will it take for those
churches to live and not die? It will
not happen unless, by God’s grace, there are those two same needed
components. First, there must be
leadership that refuses to sit around and watch the church die. And that leadership starts, I believe, with
your pastors and staff. They must resist
the temptation to just throw up their hands and say, “There’s no hope” and
watch the church shut its doors.
Secondly, the church must come to the realization that the pain of
change and what it will cost to see revitalization take place is actually much
less painful than the pain associated with watching and experiencing the slow
death of the church body. Ed Stetzer,
local church pastor and President of LifeWay Research says it this way, “People
never change until the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain
of change.” And it’s the same with
churches. Churches never change until the pain of staying the same becomes
greater than the pain of change.
And so if you are a pastor of a church that needs
revitalization, don’t quit. Keep fighting for the life of Christ’s church
because He is. And if you are a member of a church that needs revitalization,
which pain is better? The pain of staying the same or the pain of change?
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