Life after Death: A Strategy to Bring New Life to a Dead Church

It is no secret that the local New Testament church today is in a pickle! Memberships are souring and the ability to reclaim former members has become a thing of the past. The hard reality in North America is that most churches and most, if not all, denominations are in a state of decline. The membership within these churches and denominations has plateaued and what used to pass for involvement and activity within churches is deteriorating. While all of this is happening, the rank and file of the church appears powerless to assemble the strength that is needed to get the churches growing again. There are more churches that die annually than are planted. Many more are declining than are growing. A small church can be defined as one in which the number of active adult members and the total annual undesignated budget are inadequate relative to the church’s current organizational needs and expenses. It is a church struggling to pay its minister, heat or cool its buildings, and find enough people to assume leadership responsibilities to take the church into the future. In this new work Tom Cheyney and Steve Sells both seasoned Church Revitalization leaders offer help for the church that I in threat of closing its doors. Tom leads The Renovate Group and is best known, besides his books on church revitalization and renewal, as the Founder and Directional Leader of the Renovate National Church Revitalization Conferences all across the nation. Steve is the founder of Operation Transformation that helps revitalize churches in the region around Charlotte.Life After Death: A Strategy to Bring New Life to a Dead Church, is a journey of hope for the local struggling church that is facing hard decisions in light of its future and what it will do to ensure a Gospel lighthouse remains in the community where it was placed for many more years until Jesus comes to take all of us to Glory. Take the journey with those in your area who are working to revitalize churches for the sake of Christ. Become willing to embrace the opportunity for your church to survive rather than close down in failure. Allow the Lord God to bring forth a miracle for your church as He transforms the work of ministry within your midst. As church memberships become entrenched in a senior citizen-based population and few options remain to keep the church going, often they are left with few choices as to what they can do.It is important to realize that if you wait too long to make necessary changes and the membership continues to decline to less than 50 adult active members, which is known as “Critical Mass,” then you should allow a revitalization to come along side of the church and utilize the church for future ministries while assuming your bills and upkeep. This allows future restarts to win and keeps a missional presence in the geographical location of the former church. Giving up the facilities to a group that will restart the church honors those who have sacrificed so greatly in the past for the cause of Christ. You can grow the Kingdom of God by your willingness to give up trying to hold on until that last one passes on into eternity. The restart-based church revitalization model is being used all across North America. Any group working in the area of church revitalization should have a restart strategy if it is going to be a wise steward. Dying churches can be restarted when the congregation is willing to take the hard steps and make the necessary commitments. The idea of a church that is dying taking the necessary steps to provide it the best chance for survival is not an easy idea to consider. For those who have been part of the setback, admitting that they have hurt the church is hard indeed. Those who will take over also have a challenge in that it will be under their watch as they seek to change those traits, now embedded within the local church, for the betterment and opportunity to turn around a church that is in rapid decline.