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Celebrating the wins in a revitalization is important as you gain momentum moving forward. Today we discuss why it’s important and how to improve on this in your church.
Today’s Listener Question:
FROM THOMAS
I’ve been at my current church for a little over four years. We’ve seen some small wins in revitalization over the past year or so. What should I do to keep the momentum going when the wins are small and not something everyone in the church sees?
Episode Highlights:
- Celebration leads to action in the church.
- Fewer and fewer churches are truly celebrating conversions by new believers.
- The more you celebrate something in your church, the more likely people are to gravitate to doing that.
- Celebrate a church’s past not as something to which we should return but as something that provides hope for the future.
- Other local churches are your ministry partners, not your ministry competitors.
The seven ways you can celebrate are:
- “What gets celebrated gets done”
- Celebrate small victories
- Celebrate community impact
- Celebrate each conversion
- Celebrate the history of the church as a path for the future
- Celebrate improvements in the church’s facilities
- Celebrate ministry partners
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
- ChurchReplanters.com
- ChurchAnswers.com
- Replanter Assessment
- Find more resources at the Revitalize & Replant page at ThomRainer.com
Revitalize & Replant is sponsored by the North American Mission Board and ChurchReplanters.com. More than 10% of churches in North America are at risk of closing and the North American Mission Board is committed to reversing this trend by decreasing the death rate of existing churches while simultaneously increasing the birth rate of new churches. To learn more about what it means to become a replanting pastor or to explore resources for replanting and revitalization in your own church, visit ChurchReplanters.com.
Submit Your Question:
Do you have a question about church revitalization or replanting for us to use on the podcast? Visit the podcast page to submit your question. If we use it on the show, you’ll get a copy of Autopsy of a Deceased Church and Reclaiming Glory.
Celebrating is revitalizing! I served as Pastor of Revitalization in two different churches in the Northeast (one Congregational and one Baptist), each looking for an intentional interim. Because of their immediate felt needs, my contracts were limited to two years each. Sad in that a longer tenure would have solidified the great work accomplished by people from every segment in these churches. Following on the heels of each accomplishment were scheduled opportunities to celebrate. It was exuberating! It drew some people, who initially held back and resisted the process, to express their transformed thinking, and prompted a desire to jump on board as we ventured into the next phase of revitalization. Your book, Thom, “Breakout Churches,” helped me in developing one of two tools for “The Journey,” small group workbooks for revitalizing the church from “the bottom-up.” Blessings on you, my brother!
That’s great! Thank you, Ron.
Thanks for this post! One question, other than talking about it in front of the whole church body, how can we tangibly celebrate these victories?
Facebook.
Hey Thom, Very good insights. Never had thought of it that way. Again, very good.
Thanks, John.
Thank you! We are less than a month into a merger from our plant church with an older community church. This will really help us along. Please pray for our merger as we are currently in the phase of writing a new constitution and by laws.
Absolutely.
RANDOM RELATED THOUGHTS ON THE TOPIC:
Elsewhere, the phrase is “What gets rewarded gets repeated.”
In either case, the motivation (opposite of latency) of persons is involved. (Personal latency leads to status quo. Culture DOES eat strategy for breakfast—but personal latency snacks on culture ALL day long! Human beings are hardwired by God to wind down daily in many ways—that is personal latency; solving this hardwiring matter so that it stays solved = becoming a zillionaire overnight! God also created the compensations for personal latency; when we avail ourselves of those compensations each day, then we are wound-up again—until tomorrow.)
Celebrating/Rewarding behavior only increases the PROBABILITY that the action will be repeated. Not celebrating/rewarding desired behavior even more probably extinguishes the desired (and undesired) behavior.
For maximum effect: What should be rewarded/celebrated are the biblical concepts and occurring related actions/results members were formally integrated to whenever they sought to become members of the organization (your congregation does this, right—when people want to join?): the core values of the organization (the non-negotiable “hills it will die on”), then its resulting vision (what it can see itself becoming/doing), then its related mission (what its becoming/doing actually are doing day-to-day in pursuit of specific goals).
Technically, churches are membership associations. Except for the activity of God in our lives leading us to join, people can join and unjoin congregations every year or oftener. Relatively few local churches are organized in such a way that their goals are accomplished directly and consistently; instead, the organizational structure and resulting actions aim to accomplish important biblical goals indirectly and almost accidentally—and they do, thus 72% of all SBC congregations are plateaued/declining in terms of their biblical growth again this year. Who wants to be a part of that—except for the fact that God Himself has placed us in our churches for the time-being? If elected leaders of congregations (paid and unpaid) will not solicit better (and biblical) operational ideas from the members who care about this (i.e., leaders fail to tap the collective IQ right in front of their eyes), then members may feel “What’s the point?” and take their time, talent, and treasures elsewhere where ministry is done more effectively and goals accomplished directly rather than so accidentally. Those folks could hardly be blamed; eternity is too near, with its Judgment Seat.
For each real or imagined problem in a church (almost all are imagined?), there are 100+ great things waiting to be celebrated/rewarded.
No church in a stable/growing zip code must close.
All congregations have so much to celebrate/reward about–especially evangelical churches in the US. Let’s do it!
Hi Thom, this thought is very true and I believe that there are many ways to celebrate the many abolishments within one local church community. For example, when new converts have been baptized, the church could publicly present the candidates with a gift or gifts to help them in with their spiritual development. Also, when new members have joined the church, some form of lunch could take place after the service to help celebrate those this. Another example could be celebrating, high school students, by recognizeing the fact that they are going off to college or university. This could simply be done through, doing something as simple as recognizing them in the service, praying for them or giving each of them gifts. Yet another example, could be, having a community BBQ to help celebrate the life of the church within the community. One last example could be the idea of having an appreciation service, as a way of celebrating those who help to facilitate the operation and activities that take place within the local church.
Great ideas, Troy.