Five Steps to Restore Your Church’s Vitality

Most people eventually come to a health crossroads where they face a needed change to retain or regain their health. Quit smoking. Cut out sugar. Start exercising. The ability to make crucial changes can affect the length and vitality of one’s life.

These changes are often easy to prescribe. They rarely require medical expertise to diagnose. Implementing them, however, is far easier said than done.

Churches are a lot like living organisms. They have a life cycle. They show signs of vitality and disease. As with human bodies, churches require maintenance. Sometimes, a health crisis hits a church squarely in the face. If the church possesses enough self-awareness, it then faces the choice to either make dramatic changes or else permanently lose health and vitality.

Most U.S. churches are facing a similar health crisis right now. The signs of impending peril are too numerous to list, yet they are evident. Many skilled ministers are leaving vocational ministry. Many leadership boards or elderships contain unfilled vacancies because too few people want the burden of leadership. Cynicism and skepticism abound inside and outside the church. Division runs along multiple fault lines across nearly all churches.

I have good news. The steps needed to get on the path toward vitality are easy to map out. The particularities of each church affect the exact details, but the basic changes are universal.

I also have bad news. Just like needing to shed 30 pounds or quit a deadly habit, these changes are easier to suggest than to accomplish. Nevertheless, I have confidence in the spirit of God. If a group of people genuinely seeks to be led by God’s spirit, then this need not be a hopeless undertaking. I pray you can take the cure and get back to healthy congregational living.

Step #1: Give Up

For years, people have been quoting the slogan, “Let go and let God.” It’s a cute thing to say. I don’t think we really mean it, though.

Odds are high that your church still hasn’t given up on its dream of restoring its past glory or of competing with the church down the street. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with wishing for something, most dreams of “success” within the church have calcified into idolatry.

What’s the answer? Stop it. Let go. Give up. It’s time to see your church as it is, to give thanks for it, and to stop trying to control what it should be. The church ought to belong to God, and the first step toward restoring a church’s vitality is to give up and turn the church over to God.

Step #2: Listen

Even though Scripture warns us to be slow to speak and quick to listen, most churches think that talking is their main job. We obviously need to speak, but speaking should follow deep listening. For too long, too many churches have spoken without listening. This leaves them incapacitated for God’s mission.

Churches that want to be on God’s mission must think and act like missionaries. That means learning the language and culture of the world you live in. It means constantly asking questions. It means listening. Learning to listen is a crucial step toward vitality.

Step #3: Give the Work of the Church Back to the Church

Our performance-driven society has become dependent on professionals. The relative wealth of our society allows us to hire experts based on the quality of their performance. Unlike 50 years ago, we no longer depend on friends and relatives for help with life’s basic projects.

Churches have fallen into this same mindset, and it has become a trap for the average church. Members have learned to treat church like a product, rating the music or the sermon based on the quality of the performance. Even worse, the church is no longer about 10% of the people doing 90% of the work. It’s become about hiring everything out. Paid professionals do the work.

A crucial step toward vitality is to offer the work of the church back to the church. This will be just as shocking as hitting the gym for the first time in years. But vitality depends on it.

Step #4: Disavow Expert Status

In the landscape of our contemporary church, no one is an expert in getting where we need to go. Only the spirit of God can lead us forth into health and mission.

Many churches are not poised to embrace this reality. Elders view themselves as decision-makers who isolate and discuss with each other until they “get things right.” Seminary-trained ministers (guilty!) love being the biblical or theological experts who have the answers people need, if only they would ask.

This mentality does not cut it in today’s world. Your church must embrace the reality that everyone is an expert. Even your non-Christian neighbors are experts. And I don’t mean this in any tongue-in-cheek fashion – they truly are. We’ll make no progress toward health as long as we see ourselves as the only spiritual experts who can fix the world.

Step #5: Learn to Lament

We need celebration and joy. I don’t want to give that up. But today’s world is deeply anxious, and change is happening rapidly. Most people feel an enormous sense of loss. This is true both inside and outside the church. We need space to allow lament to come forth.

Even Jesus wept over the state of his world. We too should make space for lament as a means for authenticity about the brokenness in which we live and about our loss of control. This creates the space for righting the ship and returning to dependence on God.

Conclusion

Just as lifestyle changes are sometimes necessary to restore physical health, the crisis facing countless U.S. churches requires more than a few minor adjustments. There is no magic bullet that will fix things. A church can’t hire or fire its way out of this crisis.

Far too many American churches have come to depend only on themselves, not on God. Perhaps no slogan better captures this than the once-popular bumper sticker, “God is my co-pilot.” Yes, they know about God. They no doubt love the Lord. They certainly think they are doing what God wants.

But they do not understand what it really means to be led by God’s spirit. Radical steps must therefore be taken to remove humans from the pilot’s seat and to return the controls to God. Only then will the church be on the road toward restored vitality.