The Need For Church Revival: Remember

Thom S. Rainer is the president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources. He writes on his website, thomrainer.com, “There are certain metrics and issues physicians check when we go to the doctor. They want to check our blood pressure and temperature. They do blood tests to see if there are any warning signs. They are looking for symptoms that might indicate real problems exist.

After working with churches for thirty years, I too look for symptoms that might point to greater concerns. The symptoms are not necessarily the problem; they simply provide warnings or cautions of potential issues.

While there are many potential symptoms of a sick church, I have found ten to be consistently common. These ten are not listed in any particular order:

Declining worship attendance. Surprisingly, the majority of church leaders do not monitor worship attendance. I advise leaders to compare each month’s average worship attendance to the same month of previous years.

Decline in frequency of attendance of church members. This symptom is the number one explanation for attendance decline in most churches. Members are not as committed as they once were. Their waning love for their church is reflected in their declining frequency in worship attendance.

Lack of joy and vibrancy in the worship service. Obviously, this symptom is subjective. It is still, however, very important. Most people can sense when a worship service is vibrant, lukewarm, or dead.

Little evangelistic fruit. As a general rule, a healthy church will reach at least one non-Christian for every 20 in worship attendance. A church with a worship attendance of 200, for example, should see at least ten new Christians a year.

Low community impact. In my consultations, I attempt to find clear indicators that a church is making a difference in its respective community. I ask both church leaders and community members for clear examples and indicators.

More meetings than ministry. A sick church will meet about what they should do rather than do it. Some churches have more committees than conversions.

Acrimonious business meetings. Christians can and do disagree. Sick churches have meetings where the disagreements reflect obvious bitterness and anger.

Very few guests in worship services. A vibrant church will attract guests. A sick church will not.

Worship wars. Yes, they still exist in many churches. Those wars are indicators of an inward focus by the members.

Unrealistic expectations of pastoral care. Sick churches view pastors and other staff as hired hands to do all of the work of ministry. Healthy churches view pastors as equippers for the members to do most of the ministry.

In his book, From Embers to a Flame: How God Can Revitalize Your Church by Harry L. Reeder shares some similar symptoms of a sick church:

* A focus on programs – Churches that are dying tend to be focused on programs and pin their hopes for success on the latest ministry church growth fad or prepackaged church success plan.

* Nostalgia and tradition – Dying churches often live in the past. Everything that is happening now is judged by what had happened back in the “glory days”.

* Personality dependence – Dying churches tend to rely on certain personality types whether or not they have these kinds of people in the church. If they have a strong leader, they may look to him to do all the work or make all the decisions.

* A maintenance mentality – Many dying churches try just to “hold on”. They are on a life-support system, rather than being on a life-saving mission. Someone has said that “they are merely polishing a monument, rather than building a movement of God’s grace”.

* A “victim” and “excuse” mind-set – Members of dying churches already have a well-rehearsed list of reasons why a new ministry idea will not be effective.

* A bad reputation in the community – A symptom of a dying church is its perception by others in the community around it. The longer a church follows a pattern of decline, the worse its public image and reputation become.

* Distraction from the Gospel - This final symptom of sickness in a church is the worst one of all. Churches that are dying have lost sight of the centrality of God’s grace. Something else has become more important than living according to the Word of God and sharing it with people who need to be saved.

The remedy for a dying church is not to give up and close their doors. Over the next few weeks we will be looking at what the Bible says about what a church can do to reverse its path to the grave.

The healing of sick believers and sick churches is biblical

Jesus went after the one sheep (church) and so preventing the death of just one sheep, even one congregation is important to Him (Matthew 18:12-14).