The Year of Jubilee for your association in 2026 presents an excellent opportunity to replace a decades old approach to revitalizing and replanting congregations.
We need something new. We now have better insights.
However, it is difficult to abandon the current movement and programmatic emphases. They have been around so long and have gone through multiple phases and stages.
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Revitalization and replanting currently generate a lot of excitement, ownership and resources within our denomination. Nevertheless, a new approach is mandatory.
During the past 70 years, we have shifted from just over half of Southern Baptist congregations plateaued or declining in the early to mid-1950s to more than 80% in that situation. We are going backward.
While we can highlight numerous case studies of great success and significance in revitalizing and replanting, the larger picture indicates we are underperforming.
This calls for replacement strategies, not just a modification of current strategies.
The background
After World War II, soldiers returned home, married or rekindled their marriages, had children and pursued careers. Their families helped numerous congregations flourish. Many new congregations were established.
The crescendo of local church growth waned in the mid-1950s. Research indicates there was a peak in congregational attendance, followed by patterns of decline.
One response was a new wave of church growth strategies and tactics. These focused on motivating congregations that had stopped growing and helping new congregations reach more people.
The period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s revealed a significant crisis among Baptists and other denominations in both urban and rural areas.
Confronting a crisis
In the mid-1960s, the former Home Mission Board (now NAMB) commissioned a study focused on the crisis affecting 20 metropolitan areas. In 1967, the report by study leader G. Willis Bennett was published in the book “Confronting a Crisis: A Depth Study of Southern Baptist Churches in Metropolitan Transitional Areas” (Atlanta: Home Mission Board, 1967).
The annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1968 approved a statement that formalized an understanding of this crisis. From this emerged several initiatives.
One created PACT, which stood for Project: Assistance to Churches in Transition. A national strategy developed, and several full-time consultants were hired to implement it. I was sent to Maryland, and my great friend, Jere Allen, to Alabama.
We had few models for our approach. We turned to other denominations already responding to this crisis. We identified methods we could adapt. We tailored them to our denomination and then embarked on our own research and pilot projects.
In the mid-1970s, I conducted research similar to Bennett’s on 10 metropolitan areas from his study. We confirmed that two-thirds or more of these congregations were either plateaued or declining.
Ultimately, we standardized our approach to assist congregations in reenvisioning, revitalizing, renewing, rethinking or replanting based on an assessment of their current situation.
We utilized a congregational life cycle model to initiate the conversation. This enabled congregations to take ownership of their journey. It allowed us to support them in developing strategies for their unique situation.
We published a manual in 1981 called “Shaping a Future for the Church in the Changing Community” (Atlanta: Home Mission Board, 1981). It was not prescriptive but a jumping-off place. We were always learning and customizing our approach for each congregation.
We gladly responded to the statement, “But our situation is different.” Indeed, it often was, and we wanted to assist congregations in ways unique to their situation.
Our efforts — although very helpful to many congregations — were insufficient. The number of plateaued and declining congregations continued to increase.
We continually worked on making our approach more effective based on what we were learning. We trained hundreds of associational leaders, pastors and church staff members in the process.
Revitalize and replant
Fast forward several decades and explore the current revitalization and replanting ministry of the North American Mission Board. You will discover a remarkable national emphasis that embodies a fresh approach to what we sought to achieve decades ago.
This significant movement was initiated at NAMB, with Mark Clifton providing exceptional national leadership. I have known Mark for 40 years, and he is a remarkable and inspirational leader.
This emphasis has led to the development of numerous resources, training and support for revitalization and replanting. State and regional conventions and associations are involved in significant ways.
It represents a genuine movement rather than merely a program.
At the same time, it is not yet what we need. It is not the answer for revitalization and replanting among the more than 80% of plateaued and declining congregations.
None of us have yet found the Holy Grail for the continual vitality and vibrancy of congregations.
We need a new paradigm, but it will take two decades to fully implement. Can Southern Baptists be this patient? It must include changing how we launch new congregations.
What I present here is an approach that may work. We will not know for sure until we try it. The challenge is that it calls for a radical shift in our approach.
Associations should play a significant role. It needs to begin as a movement of grassroots congregations working together.
Denominational partners can serve as the supporting resource base. Provide a strategic framework while specific strategies are developed one association at a time.
The transition
To facilitate the transition, we need to take the following actions:
First, new terminology: Avoid using any word that begins with “RE.” This prefix typically signifies “again” or “back.” We should encourage congregations to move forward toward the new thing God is doing in and through them.
Some of the most common terms currently used include “reenvision,” “revitalize,” “renew,” “rethink” and “replant.” All of these should be abandoned.
Consider words like “dream,” “envision,” “launch,” “create,” “imagine,” “ journey,” “venture” or “aspire.”
Second, new starting place: The proposed starting place has existed in print for 16 years but likely has been in the mind and heart of management guru Jim Collins for much longer. In his book, “How the Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In” (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2009), he employs an organizational life cycle approach to discuss the five stages of decline.
Rather than starting from the aging or declining phase of the congregational life cycle, he asserts that decline is evident from the onset of an organization’s life.
He teaches the second stage, which our life cycle model always saw as a strong growth stage in congregations, is in fact a predictor of future decline. Collins calls it an “undisciplined pursuit of more.”
Our starting point needs to be when new congregations are launched. If we wait until the end of the first generation of congregational life is complete, then two words will always characterize our strategy — “too” and “late.”
An overview of the model
My suggested model is simple. Here are key points for thinking anew in your associations about how you work with congregations.
Point one: The ideal beginning time is with new congregations. Hardwire into their culture and practice to see the life of their congregation as a series of seven-year spiritual and strategic adventures — six years of missional engagement then a seventh year as a sabbatical to discern the next adventure. Focus on the missions field God has given the congregation with an emphasis on Kingdom growth more than church growth.
Point two: Always follow this pattern. Do not wait until the congregation begins to plateau and decline. Congregations should make necessary adjustments annually and look anew at the big picture every seven years.
Help congregations stay congruent with their context, the people groups they are called of God to serve and the continual transitions and changers in the context and people groups.
Point three: Let the patterns of the context and the people groups determine the quality and style of the programs, ministries and activities in which the congregation engages. If the congregation ever allows who is inside the congregation to determine what it ought to do, then it creates distance between itself and the context and people groups God gave it.
It also means that continual transition and change must become hardwired into the culture of the congregation more than the development of “our way of doing church.” When congregational traditions become more important than the people in the context, revitalization or replanting will become necessary at some future date.
When congregations continually look for ways to make their context and its people groups more Christlike and loving, they will avoid developing traditions that stagnate the progress of their congregation.
What about the congregations who need revitalizing and replanting?
This is why this transformation to a new way of looking at the life of congregations will take 20 to 25 years. For that long there will still be congregations who need revitalizing and replanting.
Let’s be realistic. Not all of new congregations and newly launched existing congregations will follow this model with faithfulness, effectiveness and innovation. But if more than 50% do, it will transform our denominational movement and honor God’s Great Commission.
Could a new movement that is this radical start with your association?
EDITOR’S NOTE — George Bullard spent 45 years in denominational ministry. He served on the staff of three associations, was a key staff person working with associations in two state conventions and served on the association missions division staff of the former Home Mission Board of the SBC. He retired in June 2022 as director of Columbia Metro Baptist Association in South Carolina. He has led strategic planning processes in more than 100 associations and has written extensively in this area. Bullard now serves as a strategic thinking mentor for Christian leaders through his ForthTelling Innovation ministry and a correspondent for The Baptist Paper.
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