Revitalize and Replant

Mark Clifton and Dan Hurst discuss some of the dangers of focusing on church growth as the only metric you look at.Love the church you have.Love your community ministry footprint.Change the scorecard.

Mark Clifton and Mark Hallock discuss how to handle church facilities that are too large for the current congregation.Reconfigure your worship center to be an appropriate size for your congregation.Use your building as an incubator for church plants.Share your building with the community.Share your building with appropriate non-profits.Find ways to use your building to bless the community.

Mark Clifton and Mark Hallock discuss some mistakes that Mark C. made when he was leading Wornall Road Baptist Church.I didn’t know the context.I brought the wrong toolkit.I wasn’t spiritually prepared.I loved the church I wanted, not the church I had.Initially, I saw the community as a prospect to grow my church, rather than loving the community.

Mark Clifton and Mark Hallock talk about how you can protect your family from the uglier sides of church revitalization and replanting.Do not undersell the pain of revitalization to your family.Make sure your wife has some friendships outside the church that can strengthen her spiritually.Find places for your kids to grow spiritually, even if it means they’re involved in another church’s children’s or youth ministries.As a family, find another local church that has weeknight home/life groups.

Mark Clifton and Mark Hallock discuss some important aspects of effective church business meetings.Stick with Robert’s Rules of Order.Be optimistic about the tone of the meeting.Find ways to build consensus, particularly on contention issues, beforehand.Have tactical patience when it comes to divisive issues.Begin the meeting with worship and prayer.Spend some time with the matriarchs and patriarchs of your church to get the history of business meetings in your church.

Mark Clifton and Mark Hallock discuss some ways that your church can come alongside other churches.Form a prayer partnership between your congregation and another congregation.Proactively find a church plant or ethnic congregation and invite them to use your building.Do a special event of some kind (worship night, community outreach, retreat, etc.) with one or more churches in your community.Send 3 or 4 families from your church to intentionally serve and help strengthen a declining congregation in your community for 6-12 months.Take the lead as a congregation in coming alongside a dying church and replanting it as a new congregation with fresh hope and vision.Resources Related to this Episode:Save the Date for the 2025 Replant Summit! – August 25-26 in Alpharetta, GA

Mark Clifton and Mark Hallock discuss some things they would tell their younger selves about what it means to be a dad.Be intentional about discipling your children.Live out your love for Jesus in a genuine way in front of your kids.Be cautious about how you talk about the church in front of your kids.Laugh a lot with your kids.If your kids see you quarrel with your spouse, make sure they see you make up too.

Mark Clifton and Mark Hallock discuss some things they would tell their younger selves about what it means to be a husband.You must learn to be a better listener.Don’t try to fix everything but just be a soft place to land.Learn to love what your wife loves.Be present.Find ways to love her family.

Mark Clifton and Mark Hallock discuss some things they would tell their younger selves about what it means to be a pastor.Quit trying to worry about numerical resultsFocus on the gospel and realize that my worth is found in Jesus Christ and what He has accomplished on the cross.Listen more and talk less.Cherish the small things and the small victories.Only eternity will reveal the results of your labor.

Leaders discuss why church attendance is declining, particularly in smaller congregations, post-pandemic. They emphasize the need to shift from casual attendees to committed disciples. Engaging families and nurturing a strong spiritual foundation is crucial for youth commitment, drawing parallels to the passion for youth sports. The conversation highlights the importance of revitalizing public scripture reading in worship, urging churches to prioritize biblical engagement over emotional expressions.