A story of church revitalisation
Mark Herbert is one of the pastors at Long Crendon Baptist Church.
The church belongs to the FIEC (Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches). Mark explains how churches working together has led to the revitalisation of a church in nearby Buckingham.
FIEC has always been active in supporting the work and mission of churches. But to reach Britain with the gospel, churches that belong to the Fellowship are increasingly fostering closer working relationships. One of the reasons that our church enjoys being part of the FIEC network is the focus on working together with others to reach Britain for Christ.
There is a great gospel need and all too often we can become inward looking (often without realising it), rather than being kingdom focused.
Planting and revitalisation
Over recent years we have witnessed a big focus in the UK on planting new churches and training gospel workers for ministry in a variety of contexts, but more recently there is a growing emphasis on seeking to see churches revitalised.
Church revitalisation involves a partnership between a struggling church and a stronger church. The struggling church might be in danger of closure due to low numbers or no leadership, or may be facing some other barrier that is preventing effective mission. By working together, the established church can share resources and help support the struggling church on a journey to becoming a vibrant independent gospel witness again. Reaching Britain for Christ is not as simple as starting more churches; churches need to be vibrant good news churches if together we are to reach our nation.
It’s not easy
Our experience, like that of many other churches, is that revitalisation is hard. It requires compromise and flexibility on all sides.
It requires a willingness to change (where change is required) on the part of the struggling church. Church revitalisation is not about ‘doing things as we’ve always done them’ but with a few new members donated from a larger church. It’s about taking an honest look at the ministry of the church and assessing things in the mirror of God’s Word.
It also requires flexibility on the part of a larger church seeking to work with a struggling church. The larger church must do more than just provide preachers. It needs to consider church revitalisation as a real alternative or addition to church planting, investing in the community and ministry of the struggling church in order to offer genuine help.
So how could this ministry of church revitalisation feature in your church?
There’s not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. Sometimes it is as simple as a new man coming in as pastor (where a church can afford it). At other times it requires a larger church helping the leadership of a struggling church to move forward, perhaps offering both finances and people to support the revitalisation.
A worked example
In recent years at Long Crendon Baptist Church (LCBC), we have worked alongside Buckingham Evangelical Church to help it to turn a corner and, in God’s goodness, appoint a new pastor.
LCBC meets in the commuter village of Long Crendon, 20 miles east of Oxford. Today, the Sunday gathering is 240 people and we employ three full-time pastors, a part-time children’s and youth worker and three part-time administrators. We also have a women’s worker who serves on a voluntary basis. People often comment that this is a bit indulgent, particularly given that some churches don’t even have one paid worker.
But we are consciously overstaffed in order to influence gospel work beyond our own context. We may be a ‘village church’, but we have an ambitious vision, recognising that we cannot only rely on large city-centre churches to resource gospel ministry elsewhere. Overstaffing is indulgent if resources are all channelled internally, but it is vital if churches are to have an impact further afield.
Mission focused
As our church has grown, the three pastors have focused on different areas of ministry, meaning we work on fewer things but add greater value to the areas we specialise in. This model means we work side-by-side as co-pastors.
My responsibilities concentrate on the more outward ministries. By focusing on these, I’ve been able to think more intentionally about how we develop this aspect of our church’s vision. It has been encouraging to see the benefits.
Church revitalisation
Historically, part of this ministry has been to regularly send preachers to support local churches.
One of them is Buckingham Evangelical Church, where we committed a preacher every month since they had no pastor. I soon recognised that we were helping maintain the church, but not helping them move forwards in a meaningful way.
If you support another church in a similar way, perhaps you can recognise this? Growth requires consistent energy and leadership time, not just pulpit-filling. We therefore had two choices:
• Maintain the status quo – helpful but short-sighted in impact
• Increase our support for a season
We decided to opt for the latter. With a bit of internal juggling, I was released to give a day a week to this church for nine months. This time was used primarily in three ways:
1. Providing some more consistent preaching – initially I preached every Sunday for eight weeks and then our other preachers filled two out of every four Sundays. Buckingham then had to find the others each month.
2. On the weeks I was preaching, we had lunch together as a whole church and a training session to think through missional questions more deliberately.
3. I also started some mid-week evening training to help grow the leaders across the church and develop ministry teams in the knowledge that when a pastor was eventually found, this would help him to hit the ground running. We thank God that a pastor (James Pope) is now in place.
Looking back
As I reflect on this journey, I have become convinced that it could be an effective model for other churches to consider.
Revitalisation doesn’t always have to involve someone leaving their home church and becoming a pastor in another. This model also means that we could potentially repeat this journey with another church. I also found that coming in from the outside had many benefits.
Firstly, I knew the church and had a strong relationship with them through regularly preaching there. Because they trusted me, I could be quite provocative and challenging. Of course this needed wisdom, but proved fruitful. Some members of the church needed to believe in themselves and be ‘given permission’ to take some risks.
Secondly, outside eyes meant I could see (often simple) things that can get missed by insiders.
Thirdly, by offering a day a week but not becoming the pastor, it helped the church to avoid becoming reliant on me – people had to step up and lead. It also protected me from having a ‘saviour-complex’ – my role wasn’t to fix the church, but to support them.
However, we are not abandoning them now that James is their pastor. He will be joining the Long Crendon pastors on our study days and we will be joining together as churches on a few Sunday evenings through the year.
What next?
As you reflect on our journey, I’d challenge you to consider if you could do something similar. As you do this, here are a few questions to consider:
1. What relationships do you have with other local churches? (N.B. none = unhealthy!)
2. Could you find ways to deliberately ‘overstaff’ in order to expand your vision?
3. What can you put in place to ensure overstaffing doesn’t become indulgent but serves a gospel end?
4. If you are a struggling church, why not reach out to a larger church for some help? Start by inspiring them with a vision.
After all, we are not building our own kingdoms but the Lord’s Kingdom.
