By P.J. Tibayan
Christians not only want to please God in their service to the church but to know that they are pleasing God. The same is true in "church revitalization." Leaders need to clearly know if they have reached the goal of revitalization. So, what is the difference between a church growing healthier and a church being revitalized? Isn't that the same thing?
The term "church revitalization" was not used much 10 years ago. Thom Rainer, who has been blogging on this issue since May 2009, first used this term on June 2013. Today, many use this term while the definition remains unclear. If we're not sure what revitalization is, how will we know if we are still revitalizing? The fuzziness frustrates leaders who feel like their shooting arrows over a wall hoping to hit a moving target.
After almost 5 years at Bethany Baptist Church, I declared that our church revitalization was completed. How could I make such an audacious claim? Is there no more discipling work to do? While reflecting on and praying for revitalization I had a clear goal in mind that I trust faithfully expresses biblical teaching. To clarify when revitalization is completed we must answer these three questions: What is a church? What churches need revitalization? What is church revitalization?
What is a church?
A church is not a building. It's not a Sunday service. It's not a corporation. It's a people. But what distinguishes this group of people from other groups of Christians? It's not bible study or prayer or even a regular gathering. Campus ministries and denominations check those boxes. A church is not merely a group with the same leadership or the same name of the organization, or even a group sharing a singular budget.
So then, what is a church? A local church is an assembled group of public Christians exercising both collective and personal responsibility for one another's profession and practice of discipleship, in order to disciple their neighbors and the nations (Matthew 16:13-19, 18:15-20, 26:26-29, 28:18-20). The key distinctives are "public" Christians who are "collectively" responsible. Public means they have been baptized (Matt 28:19) and are publicly affirmed as Christians by the local church (Matt 16:15-19, 18:18). Secondly, "collective responsibility" includes church discipline to the degree of excommunication (Matt 18:15-19) and implicitly discerning whom "the body" is that receives the Lord's Supper (1 Cor 10:16-17, 11.29).
What churches need revitalization?
To define revitalization we need to know which churches actually need revitalization. Since no church is sinless, they will always need reform and sanctification. But what subset of all churches need revitalization? Brian Croft answers identifies them as “established and struggling churches in need of a change of direction.” Andy Davis defines it as "a church with a recent decline toward spiritual disease and death" (Revitalize: Biblical Keys to Helping your Church Come Alive Again, [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 2017], 30). Some use concrete statistical metrics, like Ed Stetzer or a recent Lifeway survey, defining a struggling, diseased, or dying church as declining numerically in the past few years. Thom Rainer uses a number of insightful sociological characteristics.
While these may be helpful descriptions or metrics for gaining insight into dying churches needing revitalization, I suggest we profile a dying church according to the definition of a local church and ways the Bible describes a church's dying. From the definition of the local church given above we may ask: Is the collective discipleship responsibility of the church dying? Is personal Christian discipleship dying? How is the spiritual health of those who make up the collective?
Both Paul and John help us profile a dying church. In using Revelation 2-3 we may characterize dying churches as abandoning their first love (2:4), tolerating theologically and morally compromising members or teachers (2:14-15, 20-23), resting on a good reputation while incomplete in their works (3:1-2), or being self-reliant and lukewarm (3:15-17).
The people, as a church, were spiritually dying. Paul tells Timothy that there are opponents in the church whom the devil "captivated" "to do his will" (2 Timothy 2:25-26). Those in the church captivated by the devil and opposing the Lord's servants are often unaware of their captivity. They damage the church unintentionally leading to devastating external and internal sin.
Let me attempt to define a dying church based on the local church's definition and some biblical description. A dying church is a church where the collective and personal discipleship (the church culture), often including the church structure, is functionally driven by people captivated by the devil to neutralize the church (2 Tim 2:26).
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P.J. Tibayan is a member and pastor-theologian of Bethany Baptist Church in Bellflower, CA, where he lives with his wife, Frances, and their five children. He blogs at gospelize.me and helps lead Shepherd LA and The Gospel Coalition Los Angeles Regional Chapter. He earned an MDiv from The Master's Seminary and is working on his DMin in Biblical Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Editors Note: This article is one of three in this Church Revitalization Series. In it, P.J. Tibayan, Pastor-Theologian of Bethany Baptist Church in Bellflower, California answers the questions what is a Church? What is Church Revitalization? And when is Revitalization “complete”?