4 church revitalization trends for 2019

Bud Brown Jan. 19, 2019

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Meir, a medieval Jewish priest, prophesied that the king’s favorite horse was about to die. Two days later the horse died.

The enraged king was sure that the priest’s prophecy resulted in the horse’s death. He summoned Meir and commanded, “Tell me when you will die, priest!”

Meir knew the king would kill him immediately, regardless of his answer.

“I do not know when I will die. I know only that when I die, the king dies two days later.”

I do not know what 2019 holds in store for the Church in the U.S. No one does. However, there are four church revitalization trends I’d like to see this year.

Revitalizing a single church is a long and challenging task. Revitalizing all American churches currently on a plateau or in decline is a monumental task. Many things must happen for the church revitalization effort to turn back the tide of decline that is sweeping many churches off the map.

These would go a long way toward halting the Church’s reversal and getting us off plateau.

1. Training mid-level denominational officers

The most challenging call today is to lead the revitalization of a plateaued church. The mid-level denominational officer’s task is a close second. They are responsible for the well-being of all the churches within their district. Rural districts consist of several dozens of churches. Larger urban areas will encompass hundreds of churches.

Their task is enormous. These folks are charged with:

• The health and the churches
• Encouraging, motivating and resourcing pastors
• Settling disputes when church conflict arises
• Stretching their shrinking resources to meet the growing needs of pastors and churches that struggle to stay afloat on a hostile cultural frontier.
• Motivating and training discouraged pastors to step into revitalization leadership

In 2019, I’d like to see trends and training specifically designed to help mid-level denominational officers to be more effective in their positions.

1. Those in rural districts team up to pool ideas, share resources and encourage one another to higher levels of performance.
2. National offices provide practical programs to help their officers deal more effectively with church conflict.
3. Remedial training in best ministry practices (how churches grow through conversions) and best leadership practices (how pastors lead churches off plateau) so they are better able to provide meaningful help to pastors and churches that are stuck.

2. Contextualized parachurch ministries

Many ministries and service providers help churches overcome difficult challenges. Conflict resolution, pastor search, assessment, worship renewal, organizational restructuring and mission realignment ministries all help churches overcome significant obstacles.

There is, however, one refrain we hear frequently. Clients who have engaged these organizations tell us these ministries are helpful for the church as an organization, but very few of them do anything useful for pastors. Pastors who are stuck on a plateau with their churches need more than theory and principle. They need revitalization leadership training that includes step-by-step instruction.

For 2019, I invite like-minded ministries put the cookies on the bottom shelf.

• Move your training from concept and principle to personal, local and contextual.
• Tailor your work to fit the pastor’s personality.
• Contextualize your instruction to meet the specific church in question.
• Move from the “one size fits all” paradigm to the Burger King “have it your way” motto.

3. Leadership centric pastoral training

The gap between what seminary education provides and what today’s pastors need is growing at an accelerating rate.

This may account for the fact that this culture holds the theologically trained in low regard. It may account for a trend that bodes ill for graduate education: many churches consider and hire candidates without seminary or Bible college. Cultural competence, relationship skills, and business acumen are considered more important than the traditional M.Div. or Th.M.

For 2019 I would like to see seminaries revise their master’s level degrees to incorporate training typically reserved for D.Min. students.

1. Extend the M.Div. to a four year, non-residence program. Students “preparing” for ministry should be in ministry during their training. This will temper their “learning readiness” and facilitate acquiring the skills needed to lead a church in post-Christian, postmodern America.
2. Tailor the M.Div. program to fit each student’s particular strengths and weaknesses. For example, students who lack significant leadership instincts or who have weak relationship management skills would follow a different (required) track than those who have those skills.
3. Revise M. Div. focus from language, research, writing, and presentation skills to skill development in leadership, administration, and relationship management.

4. Churches face “the question.”

Plateaued and declining churches kick the can down the road when they fail to answer the question: “Change or die?”

This may be the most likely of the four trends to emerge in 2019. The growing split in Evangelicalism— “progressives” versus “traditionalists”—rising cultural hostility toward Christianity, damage inflicted on the churches by the self-realization movement and other trends will accelerate the rate at which plateaued churches fall into the death spiral and hasten the demise of churches already in decline.

More than ever 2019 will be the year in which American churches face “the question.”

Pray that their answer is to rejoin Jesus in the mission once again.

Editor’s note: Check out the Society for Church Consulting’s training and certification program.

Photo source: istock 

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Bud Brown is an experienced ministry leader, writer and educator. He is co-founder of Turnaround Pastors and co-author of the ground-breaking Pastor Unique: Becoming A Turnaround Leader. He brings special expertise to change leadership in the local church, mentoring pastors to become revitalization leaders, training churches how to find and recruit the best talent, and training leadership teams how to achieve their shared goals. Learn More »

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