2021 Church Revitalisation Network
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For the last few decades, there has been a growing realisation that existing churches, even those that were recently planted, are not faring well. Many church leaders currently lack the training necessary to build sustained growth, health, and spiritual vitality.
The Church Revitalisation Network seeks to respond to the decline of existing churches by training church leaders in the spiritual leadership and skills they need to revitalise their churches for long-term sustainability. Its vision is to equip spiritually mature and intellectually well-grounded evangelical church leaders to:
- Improve the spiritual health of the church through worship, building trust in God as obedient disciples
- Improve relationships within the church and with unbelievers through face-to-face relationships and better integration of new members
- Improve the quality of leadership within the church through team building
- Improve the effectiveness of the church by identifying the mission, vision, and strategic plan
- Improve the contextualisation of the church through historical, geographical, and cultural study of the church’s community
Participants in the Church Revitalisation Network will receive specialised training at the Annual Meeting and throughout the year, as well as helpful resources and opportunities to be mentored.
Applicants should be church leaders interested in receiving the spiritual leadership and skills they need to revitalise declining churches and build sustained growth, health, and spiritual vitality.
Network Leadership
Network Speakers
David Brown planted three churches before revitalising a church in central Paris. For many years he was involved with GBU (Groupes Bibliques Universitaires), the French student movement affiliated with IFES. More recently he has been promoting church revitalisation through his chairmanship of… Read more
Daniel Fodorean is the Dean of the School of Theology and Associate Professor of Applied Theology at the Baptist Theological Institute of Bucharest, Director of Leader Formation Institute and Antioch Church Network, Teacher Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church, Bucharest. He is also the Coordinator… Read more
Neil Hudson is the Senior Leader of Salford Elim Church and a Senior Associate of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. He is passionate about equipping churches to become communities of people whose whole lives are transformed by the love of Jesus, who in turn transform the world… Read more
Marián Kanuch is a Lutheran pastor in Žilina, Slovakia. He also serves as a regional leader for twenty-two local congregations. In 2018, he defended his dissertation: “Planting New Churches as a Challenge for Lutheran Missiology”. He is also very interested in the topic of revitalization of… Read more
Jay Mosser has served in pastoral roles for 43 years – about 20 years in various assistant pastor capacities and the rest as senior pastor. Through those years he has served in three churches ranging from smaller (less than 50) to larger (about 1,000). Along the way he has worked with children,… Read more
Scott Poling serves as Senior Pastor of Harvest New Beginnings Church located in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. He has served in ministry for 28 years at Harvest, seeing first-hand God’s work in the renewal of a dying church. He’s gained a unique perspective, understanding the pressures and… Read more
John Stevens is the National Director of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, a family of over 500 Bible-centred churches in the UK, a position that he has held since 2010. Prior to this he was one of the founding pastors of City Evangelical Church Birmingham, which was planted in… Read more
Florent Varak is the director of the Church Equipping Network at Encompass World Partners. As such, he leads a team of equippers and frequently teaches in French-speaking Africa. For 25 years he served as a pastor of a Charis Fellowship Church in Lyon, France. He teaches at the Geneva Bible… Read more
Network Programme
Sunday, 16 May
Why is church revitalization necessary? Why is it difficult? What are the barriers to revitalization? This overview shows the need for a locally built vision followed by an intentional process to develop the church into a place where Christians learn to love God and to love others in their cultural context.
Can my church be revitalized? Yes! But not without learning four important laws the apostle Paul teaches on how to do effective ministry in our contemporary culture. Let's learn how to think outside the box but inside the Bible; being creative, but always Biblical.
Monday, 17 May
Every organisation has DNA or core values, sometimes carefully chosen and sometimes imprinted on us by the culture around us. An important part of revitalising a church is connecting with people, and every culture around the world has unwritten rules about how people interact with other members of the community. In this session we will work to identify the "rules" on connecting with people in your country, and we will consider some practical ways to harness those cultural values for the gospel.
The world needs whole-life disciples of Jesus. As disciples, we are envisioned, shaped, and affirmed in the callings that God has for us in our gathered church lives. But too often the church can seem like an organisation that takes our time, energy, and focus, but doesn’t equip us well for these lives. How can we be leaders of churches that set people free for the mission that God calls them into?
Tuesday, 18 May
How can we avoid just feeding the mind in expository preaching? Aiming for the whole person definitely involves a proper formulation of the truth, but the preacher could connect with his audience better by observing and using the emotions often imbedded in God’s Word. We will look at the benefits of such an approach as well as clues on how to do it.
21st century Europe is very diverse. In no area of life does one size fit all. Cinemas are multi-screen, there are dozens of television channels, and there is a wide range of eating-places to choose from. However, churches often only offer one type of worship experience. What other types would be possible in our context? How does this contribute to revitalisation? And how do we ensure unity in a church when the church members don’t regularly meet all together on a Sunday?
Wednesday, 19 May
Revitalising a local church will almost certainly mean leading the congregation through extensive and potentially painful change. You may meet with stiff resistance, and it will require great wisdom to determine what changes to make, how quickly to make them, and how to carry as many people with you as possible through the journey of change. Drawing on relevant Biblical teaching, insights from change management, and local church experience, we will consider the leadership skills needed to bring about successful change.
Different case studies will be offered in order to bring together what we have learnt in the week. Participants come from various parts of Europe, each sub region having its own background, and from various ecclesiastical traditions (historic denominations, older free churches, more recent church plants looking for a new impetus). We obviously cannot cater for every permutation, but we shall attempt to provide meaningful case studies for each participant.