Some pastors and church leaders tend to shudder, or perhaps even bristle, when they hear the word “revitalization.”
Phil Young, Larry Murphy and Phil Taylor — along with others on the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board’s Revitalization Team — are working hard to change that.
“We want people to understand that church revitalization is not about declining or dying churches,” said Young. “It’s about moving toward a sustainable, healthy lifestyle for the future.”
With hopes of helping churches learn more effective ways to do that, the TBMB recently hosted a Revitalization Conference at Victory Baptist Church in Mount Juliet.
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The two-day event, held Feb. 22-23, featured Bill Elliff, renowned author and founding pastor of the Summit Church in North Little Rock, Arkansas, and Jeff Iorg, president of Gateway Seminary in Ontario, California, as the keynote speakers. The conference also included music led by Austin Clark, worship leader at First Baptist Church, Seymour.
The event drew 155 attendees — including pastors, church leaders and directors of missions — from churches of all sizes in Tennessee.
“It’s so great to see a group of pastors, DOMs and staff leaders who are really desiring to see the Lord work in their church and to move forward with what God wants them to do,” Murphy said.
Relaunch
This year’s conference marked the relaunch of the event.
“For those of us who work for the Church Revitalization team, this is the first conference like this in several years because of COVID and some other factors,” Murphy said. “So, to come back and have the conference start up again, and to see this kind of attendance, it was awesome. And beyond just the attendance, it was so encouraging to see these guys be engaged and involved in everything that was going on.”
The first day of the conference included a four-part seminar led by Elliff, who spoke on the topic of “developing a culture of prayer.” He encouraged pastors and leaders to always be sensitive to what God is doing at their church, and to make sure not to quench the Holy Spirit when potential revival is taking place. He cited several examples in which he has seen that happen — including some experiences from his own ministry — and he spoke about how those missed opportunities have grieved him.
Elliff’s focal points during the seminar included examining the concept of “entering His presence in prayer” and discussing “what a presence-centered church” looks like. He also answered the question “why should we pray?” and talked about the “enemy we face” in regard to church leaders.
The second-day featured a three-part session led by Iorg. The seminary president spoke on developing evangelism strategies. He talked about the priority of evangelism — examining the innovated means in which the church at Antioch was able to advance the gospel — and also looked at different ways to develop disciple-making strategies as well as how to develop mission strategies.
Surviving the ‘daily grind’
In an interview with the Baptist and Reflector immediately following the conclusion of the conference, Iorg said he hoped the event was a morale booster for attendees.
“I hope pastors are encouraged by what they learned from the Word of God and by the example of other leaders to stay with the difficult challenge of revitalizing churches,” Iorg said. “It can be so discouraging — the daily grind of it all — and conferences like this can bring a new wave of encouragement as the Word of God and the Holy Spirit motivates (the church leaders) to go forward.”
Iorg said the conference energized him personally.
“It’s exciting to be around pastors who have devoted their lives to something so important,” he said. “Pastors are the most important leaders because they are leading the church — and the church is the conclusion of all God is doing in the universe.”
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by David Dawson and originally published by Baptist and Reflector.
