Why Church Revitalization Isn’t Working
The word “revitalization” has been a buzz word in church health circles for over a decade. Local churches who find their attendance dwindling, their congregation aging, or labeled as “dying” for a multitude of reasons have been told they are in need of revitalization. A quick google search of “Church Revitalization” will yield pages upon pages of blog articles, book titles, podcast episodes, and other resources seeking to help dying churches thrive once again. However, even with such a vast amount of material around the theme of revitalization, churches, particularly in America, continue to close. Why is this? Perhaps the issue being faced within the church today is not one due to a lack of solutions but of misdiagnosis.
Where “Revitalization” Falls Short
The discrepancy between how many congregations are closing their doors and the vast number of resources and tools designed to help churches "revitalize” begs the question: “why is revitalization not working?” The truth is, it does work, sometimes. Some churches have found revitalization techniques and strategies to be helpful. Others have tried every trick in the book and still find themselves struggling. For those of us who care deeply about the health of the church, we must dare to seek out why attempts at revitalization do not always work, and we must resist the temptation to immediately place the blame on members of the congregation or church leadership. Instead we must look deeper and see if perhaps it is our diagnosis and therefore our treatment plan that is to blame for the lack of health we are seeing in the church today. There are several aspects of the “revitalization” approach that fall short.
It is a Diagnosis Built On Numerical Health: Large churches are not diagnosed as “in need of revitalization.” Yet, media and news outlets are often full of stories of congregations with hundreds to thousands of members suffering from a lack of health tied to toxic cultures and leadership. Truly, the church health epidemic is not limited to small churches, and many small churches that may easily be labeled as “in need of revitalization” are actually quite healthy when relational metrics are applied over numerical ones. For this reason, the diagnosis of “in need of revitalization” could easily misdiagnose some small congregations as unhealthy while missing the lack of health in larger congregations.
It is a Diagnosis Built on Behavior Modification: Approaches to church revitalization often include lists of typical behaviors or values demonstrated by “dying” congregations. While these lists can be helpful, they often place the emphasis on the behaviors of the congregation asking the question, “What are you doing?” This question can quickly become accusatory and create a sense of division between the one asking (often the pastor or leadership team) and the congregation. This division can never lead to healing. The goal of revitalization then becomes to change the behavior of the congregation. Rarely does behavior modification bring true healing. Rather it can bring the illusion of restoration until a moment of suffering or trial comes and past held behaviors reemerge.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Recognizing the shortcomings of church revitalization is only the beginning. It is not enough to say, “this is not working.” We need to discover what might work instead. As we continue our series on reframing church health we will move towards a new diagnosis that seeks to bring deep restoration and healing.
