If a local church is growing numerically and financially the (false) assumption is that God's hand of blessing must be on that ministry/business/church/pastor. A cursory reading of Scripture (think about the 'unsuccessful' public ministries of Jeremiah or of Messiah Jesus) informs us how dangerous this line of reasoning is. Yet every American pastor, where bigger is always better, is tempted to to think this way. Pastor R. Kent Hughes addresses this very important issue in his classic book, Liberating Ministry For the Success Syndrome. Not everything that glitters is gold. Robert Schuller's, "Crystal Cathedral" and Joel Osteen's, "Faith Center" are obvious illustrations of this. Many of the largest churches in America, and likely many churches in your own neighborhood, are often a mile wide and an inch deep.
Suffice it to say, many churches in America (large and small) are in need of serious spiritual revitalization and biblical reformation. Both the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals and the leaders of Together for the Gospel have come to this same conclusion. This is one of the reasons why I have devoted so many articles to this theme.
A few months ago I came across an insightful interview and I wanted to share it with you. http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/dying-church-grow-again
The article that introduces this interview begins with these words, We can debate the reasons, but we cannot debate the reality: churches across the United States are aging, and many of them in the coming decade will face the agonizing prospect of closing.
Church planting addresses the need for new evangelistic outposts, especially in areas where Christians of previous generations feared to tread. But what about the 150-year-old rural churches that have succumbed to population loss? What about the historic urban churches that could not transition with their neighborhoods? What about the suburban churches, vibrant just one generation earlier but now surpassed by newer, flashier options? Must these churches die?
Mark DeVine and Darrin Patrick tell the encouraging story of one venerable Kansas City church that defied the trends and has thrived under new leadership. Yet the transition seemed anything but certain in the middle of conflict and clashes. This tale plays out in the pages of a new book, Replant: How a Dying Church Can Grow Again. DeVine, then a professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, teamed up with his former student, church planter Darrin Patrick of The Journey across Missouri in St. Louis, to write this account of how God faithfully equipped an old church for a new mission.
DeVine, now associate professor of divinity, teaching history and doctrine, at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama, joined me to share some of the story and counsel other churches struggling to survive let alone thrive. During this 30-minute interview I was especially interested to learn how he contended with lay leaders. As DeVine writes in the book, "A pattern had emerged, a valuable lesson for church leadership: give the right person the right amount of rope at just the right time, and they might, in undoing their own misguided aims, achieve good things for the people of God.
You can read the full article and listen to the audio interview here.
