Should we plant new churches or revitalize existing ones? The answer is both.
We need church revitalization. I can think of dozens of churches that were once strong but have declined over the years. They’re at different points in their life cycle. Some now find it hard to afford a pastor, and some are even close to the end.
They need revitalization. Ideally, they need a pastor who can lead them back to health, along with a group of people who can help. I’ve seen this happen many times, and it’s encouraging to see. Churches that once looked like they were on their way to death are now vibrant and healthy.
The best examples I’ve seen are led by pastors who are patient, focus on the right things, ground the church in the word of God, lead it back to prayer, and know what issues to ignore. They patiently love the church back to health without resorting to gimmicks or quick fixes. They stay for a long time and pay the price to lead that church back to health. Ideally, they’re joined by a group committed to revitalizing that church so the pastor doesn’t have to labor alone.
We need church revitalization because it is a great use of resources that have already been paid for. It’s easy to dismiss the importance of church buildings until you don’t have one. Church buildings are a large, one-time investment that can pay off for centuries. In many cases, we couldn’t afford to buy the properties where these buildings exist. Once we lose them, and they become condos or theatres, they’re gone forever. Cities are not open to zoning new properties for church use.
One reason why revitalization is necessary is because we need to do everything we can to stop losing these buildings as resources for God’s kingdom. We need revitalization. We need pastors and people who are willing to pay the price and love the church back to life. I’m praying that God raises up a generation of pastors and people with this burden, and also that God will give churches the humility to recognize they need this kind of help.
But we also need church planting wherever there’s a shortage of gospel-preaching churches, particularly in two places: urban cores and rural communities.
A few years ago, I realized that Toronto has many churches, but one area in particular lacked good gospel-preaching churches: downtown Toronto. We ended up planting a church in a community formerly used for industry and prisons, but now used for condos. There were no church buildings or schools nearby, no gospel-preaching churches—in fact, no churches of any kind. We planted a church there because there were no churches to revitalize.
As I look around cities, I see many urban neighbourhoods with no churches anywhere close that could be revitalized. We need church planting there.
We also need church planting in our rural communities. Many small towns once had solid churches, but now have none. Church buildings have closed and been turned into community centres. We need people willing to go into these small towns and plant churches for them—small communities where there are no good churches, sometimes within an hour’s drive.
Should we plant or revitalize? Wherever possible, we should do everything we can to revitalize existing churches but then look at areas with no existing churches and plant there. Even where we find existing churches, we can do both: revitalize those churches and plant new ones to reach the hundreds of thousands who otherwise would not hear the gospel.
Church planting or revitalization? Both. Let’s pray that God raises up people with a burden for both kinds of work.
