The Two-Horned Dilemma Of Church Vitalization

by Mark Tidsworth, Founder and Team Leader

If you are a church leader, you will quickly recognize these inherent binds when it comes to renewing or revitalizing your church. Before going any further, this is a good place to acknowledge that any vitalization in God’s Church comes from God. Vitalizing churches is beyond our pay grade so to speak. There is already a Lord of the harvest (every kind of spiritual growth)… who is not us.

At the same time, in God’s wisdom, we are called to participate with God’s vitalization of God’s Church. For some reason, God has chosen to work through us (mortals) toward the reign of God coming on earth as it is in heaven. Evidently God believes in us far more than we do. God is trusting us to do our parts, joining God’s makeover of planet earth.

More specifically then, when church leaders recognize the need for vitalization in their churches, readying themselves for a deep dive into ministries that provide the opportunity for Holy Spirit movement, they typically come face to face with this dilemma. Here’s what it looks like.

Over time, churches tend to grow more inwardly focused, channeling more of their resources into themselves rather than into the community around them. No one intends for this to happen; it’s just the nature of organizations as they move through their life cycle. What this dynamic presents to church leaders is a strong call to focus their energies on internal activities and ministries: worship preparation, disciple care (formerly called pastoral care), and managing church assets and structure. Allow me to break these down further.

Worship is the most public ministry of most churches. Shouldn’t worship leaders give significant time each week to worship preparation? Most want to, but often these other two internally-focused church functions push worship preparation to the weekend. In addition, worship is so complex in some churches that worship leaders must spend much of their week in preparation.

Though different, disciple care and managing church assets require increasing time in churches who crest the pinnacle of their life cycle. Often these churches are populated by older persons with more care needs. Often times these churches have grown used to pastoral, staff, and lay leader attention, expecting much time from these leaders when they have care needs. Now add to this the need to run the structure of the church – to keep committees and ministry teams functioning, while addressing the needs of the physical plant and other polity requirements.

We’ve just described a full-time job, maintaining the church as an organization and caring for its current members. Therein is the dilemma. There are three other areas of church life which are more likely to open the door to vitalization. These are externally-focused or developmental ministries: community engagement, serving neighbors, and developing disciples. Allow me to break these down as well.

Often, the lack of vibrancy in churches results from their inward turn, creating closed systems. They believe they are welcoming to their communities, yet they don’t do anything to cultivate connections or relationships therein. When vitalization efforts are underway, church leaders are not in the church building as much. They are in the community, connecting and engaging, leading to relational connections and partnerships. Often few people in low-vitality churches are actively connecting with their community, so someone in the system has to jump start this kind of activity. Clearly this is necessary for vitalization, yet this clearly takes time and energy.

Serving neighbors is closely related to community engagement, though different. This is when churches look to their communities, observing where God is at work, and joining God’s missional activity. Vitalized churches regularly serve with their neighbors, while non-vitalized rarely do. Church leaders leading vitalization must mobilize their churches to get up and serve, or at least go ahead and serve as individuals, not waiting for others to become motivated. Developing disciples is what we call Christian formation. Leading vitalization includes engaging the disciples in a church individually and in groups for the purpose of inviting them to grow in their faith. Vitalized church leaders are engaged in faith development, recognizing that when the spiritual energy rises in individuals, it rises in the church.

So, perhaps you recognize the inherent dilemma here. Churches who need vitalization are often those who place high demands on their leaders for quality worship, intensive disciple care, and maintaining bloated church structures. The energy in these church systems goes to maintaining what is, not to what could be. When pastors, church staff, and lay leaders shift their focus to community engagement, serving neighbors, and disciple development, expectations among the membership are not met. You can see the conflicts around this dilemma coming from a mile away.

There you have it – the two-horned dilemma of church vitalization. Fortunately though, that’s not the end of the story. From watching churches over time, I can tell you they do resolve this dilemma. Shifting the tension, tilting the system toward vitalization, requires church leadership to make clear choices, aligning the roles of leadership with these choices. Church leaders must communicate these shifts well with the congregation, inviting them to join the vitalization effort. This is our hope – churches opening themselves to Holy Spirit movement while applying what they already know about leadership to their situation.

Clearly, resolving this tension in the direction of vitalization is no small thing. The entire system must shift with alignment for sustainability. This article gives a high level of view of this dilemma. Watch future articles for focused insights on each of these areas of ministry.

In the meantime, church leaders can go ahead and shift their focus. Warning - doing so will create vacuums in the church, blank spaces their energy used to fill. This brings a series of small crises which then raise questions about what it means to be church together. These are the kinds of crises we want, raising issues that result from being missional. These small crises raise the possibility of pursuing vitalization.

May we receive the courage God gives for pursuing the best version of vitalized church we can be as we travel along.