Hey Friend -

I’m a practical guy. I like systems, processes, and data. I can’t imagine how one would work in ministry, lead a church, or do the job I do right now as a congregational developer without these practices.

On a more personal side, I am obsessed with the classic devotional life. Those Spiritual biographies. Spending time in scripture and prayer (using the daily office), and other well-trod practices.

I have the privilege of working with awesome folks here in Louisiana. One of the roles I fulfill is being the planning and data guy. I sometimes both get pushback AND feel a bit out of sorts when I don’t dig enough into the spiritual side of church revitalization.

To be honest, I’m at the point where, as much as I can run and understand numbers, I’m curious about the spiritual dynamics of what it means to be the church.

So let me give you a bit of an appetizer from the next book I am working on. This is a beginning point.

The Seven Spiritual Qualities for Revitalization

I love a good chart as much as the next person. I love a system. Data helps us understand the big questions we are asking.

But before we start hitting the numbers hard, there is something I need you to know about what it means for your normal-sized church to experience revitalization.

This thing can’t be systematized. We can't force or plan to increase spiritual power.

There are spiritual realities, both in individuals and in the church, for the revitalization of your local church to occur. I’m not going to call these exhaustive, but I’ve got seven of them for you.

Prayer is the primary action.

Nothing in this space happens without prayer. Prayer is a change agent not because it is asking for God to change things, but opening ourselves up to change FROM God.

The Great Commission

​ I did a whole, way too long, email on this. Understanding the Great Commission as the missional mandate of the church keeps us focused on what our larger purpose is.

“Lose yourself to find yourself.”

This is the only deliberate teaching of Jesus found in all four gospels. It is too big a spiritual shift for Jesus to offer to not realize how it plays out in the internal dynamics of a church, especially one in need of revitalization. There is no moving forward without leaving things behind.

The Missional Strategy of Paul.

You might think strategy isn’t in scripture. I’d argue differently. The ministry of Paul (as seen in the book of Acts) shows a few different strategies. Some get repeated a lot. In others, we see how Paul worked quickly in an adaptive challenge.

The Compassion of Jesus.

This is another one of those repeated things we see all over the gospels. In certain situations (the feeding of the multitude stories, for example), we always see Jesus acting out in compassion.

A Burning Desire for those who don’t know Jesus.

I’ve got a podcast episode coming out on Rainer on Leadership where I talk about how we have confused all sorts of specific ministries under the term “outreach.” In the mainline tradition, we struggle to actually understand what evangelism means. We’ve got to reckon with this.

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” | Romans 3:23

This can get lumped in with the previous quality, but it is also something the church needs to deal with itself. Personal sin and its primary personal identification matter. John Wesley lists this as the purpose of a local church in sermon 52. When churches lose this internally, we lose it in the external mission of the church.

I’m not going deep into these spiritual qualities here (you’ll have to wait for that). But each of these is essential when a church realizes it is in an unstable season. Churches must work through them to not just be healthy, but also to survive.

As always, feel free to hit reply, and thank you for reading.

Chad

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