Latest / Every Church Flourishing by the Great Commission Association / Episode 42: The Nitty Gritty: Is Your Church Declining or Dying? Here is an insider's View of How Church Renewal Happens.

Transcript

Episode 42: The Nitty Gritty: Is Your Church Declining or Dying? Here is an insider's View of How Church Renewal Happens. · Every Church Flourishing by the Great Commission Association

0:00
Speaker3: Somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% of the churches in America are plateaued or declining.
0:06
Speaker3: They're struggling.
0:08
Speaker3: And when a church is struggling, it's not always easy to admit that and to know what to do about it.
0:15
Speaker3: Though some churches just kind of die silently.
0:19
Speaker3: But Jerry Watson is a member of a church that is going through a renewal process,
0:25
Speaker3: and he's beginning to see signs of life there.
0:28
Speaker3: And his encouragement to you, if you're among those 80% of churches that are
0:34
Speaker3: plateauing and declining is
0:37
Speaker2: For people out there that feel like your church is declining,
0:40
Speaker2: don't wait, do something about it.
0:42
Speaker2: Now there's people out there waiting for you to ask them to come in.
0:46
Speaker2: They are out there. They just don't know it yet. So I want people to actually
0:49
Speaker2: believe and understand this process right here has been the best thing for us.
1:14
Speaker2: And resources that work together to build up your local fellowship and the broader kingdom of God.
1:19
Speaker2: Join hosts, Pastor Chris Cole and Dr. Chase Thompson from the Great Commission
1:24
Speaker2: Association, led by Dr. Mike Stewart, as they explore the frontiers of ministry
1:28
Speaker2: and aim for the goal of making every church flourish.
1:31
Speaker3: Hello, everybody, and welcome in to episode number 42 of the Every Church Flourishing podcast.
1:38
Speaker3: Today, we've got Lisanne and Jerry and Pastor Christopher Cole,
1:42
Speaker3: and we are talking about church revitalization again from the inside.
1:47
Speaker3: And we're going to look at the high highs and the low lows and the emotional
1:51
Speaker3: depths of when the church is dying and the hope that happens when the church
1:57
Speaker3: is coming alive. And we say goodbye to a special friend today.
2:02
Speaker3: Well, let's pick up the interview. It's already midway there.
2:06
Speaker3: Jerry, to you, sometimes when we go through this church renewal process,
2:12
Speaker3: it produces a tension between what happened in the past, like our good memories
2:17
Speaker3: of the church we remember, and the church we're looking forward to become,
2:23
Speaker3: the church in the future.
2:25
Speaker3: And that could be hard, thinking about all the great things of the past and
2:29
Speaker3: then looking about looking to what we might become in the future.
2:33
Speaker3: The book of Nehemiah and Ezra kind of addresses that tension when they're rebuilding
2:38
Speaker3: the temple and thinking about the temple from the past. So how has your congregation,
2:43
Speaker3: Jerry, wrestled with that tension?
2:47
Speaker2: Well, you know, as mentioned, we talked about earlier about what this church
2:51
Speaker2: at one time probably looked like, what, as far as membership.
2:55
Speaker2: And we had some really heavy, pretty heavy discussions before we ever went down
3:00
Speaker2: this road when we learned about what we needed to do.
3:04
Speaker2: And we had to be realistic and real with each other to know what it's going
3:08
Speaker2: to take to get back to anything like what it looked like at one time.
3:12
Speaker2: And when you do things like this, you have to understand that.
3:15
Speaker2: And as you had said at the beginning of the podcast, that basically the numbers
3:19
Speaker2: of church attendance are down quite a bit, and they have been since my childhood, and it's
3:24
Speaker2: There wasn't anything negative about it. It was a beautifully renovated church.
3:28
Speaker2: It was just, we went down a lot of roads before we ever went through Renew to
3:33
Speaker2: try to do what Renew's doing for us.
3:35
Speaker2: And we simply didn't have either resources or the knowledge of what to do to how to handle it.
3:41
Speaker2: And we definitely want to honor this church and those that built this church
3:46
Speaker2: by filling the pews with congregation, with people, with believers,
3:49
Speaker2: that people understand who God is and his son.
3:52
Speaker2: And, you know, it's been a difficult time at times, but I know that we have each other.
3:59
Speaker2: It could be three or four people I could sit in a room with and we could discuss
4:02
Speaker2: this. And there's many times that Chris has been sitting there with us to discuss this.
4:07
Speaker2: But I just want to reflect on what I've seen in churches before,
4:11
Speaker2: what I know our church was, what I know it will become at one time. I've gone to Shoreline.
4:17
Speaker2: That's more than encouraging when i'm gone up and set with those people that
4:21
Speaker2: are giving what they're giving to us it's just unbelievable to see how unselfish
4:25
Speaker2: people are and and and and their faith and their belief and and you know i'm so i so much
4:31
Speaker2: i don't know how to express or either does our church just how much we love
4:34
Speaker2: them for doing what they're giving us the hope we have along with chris smith along with chris cole
4:40
Speaker2: it's been a thing to go through but man we're We'll keep praying on it and it's going to move forward.
4:46
Speaker3: Yeah. Amen. I love to hear the enthusiasm in your voice. So Lizanne, same question to you.
4:53
Speaker3: Looking back to the glories of the past and the church God is calling you to
4:58
Speaker3: become in the future, how is your church navigating the tension between those two things?
5:05
Speaker1: Yeah. So I will admit, you know, there definitely has been a genuine grief in
5:11
Speaker1: accepting that we simply cannot just
5:16
Speaker1: reproduced an earlier era.
5:20
Speaker1: You know, Foothill has had a history of planting churches, sharing the campus
5:27
Speaker1: with other congregations.
5:28
Speaker1: We actually do share our facilities with the Chinese congregation and also a
5:33
Speaker1: Korean congregation, and just an overall congregation that genuinely cared for each other.
5:40
Speaker1: And those are things that definitely have remained at Foothill,
5:45
Speaker1: but it's been a, it was a tough reminder that just keeping the doors open and
5:52
Speaker1: protecting some of our familiar routines didn't actually equate to us actually
5:57
Speaker1: being a healthy church at the same time.
6:01
Speaker1: So, and Pastor Chris Cole knows that, you know, I've always been just this strong
6:06
Speaker1: advocate of like, you know, we have to respect the legacy, you know,
6:10
Speaker1: of the people of the church that came before us.
6:12
Speaker1: And it's been challenging trying to find that common ground where we are honoring
6:19
Speaker1: the past, but moving forward, realizing, because like Chase had mentioned, you know, we,
6:27
Speaker1: Ourselves also, we were just surviving and we had enough going on to keep the
6:34
Speaker1: church going every Sunday.
6:36
Speaker1: But were we actually a healthy church?
6:40
Speaker1: No. So we, you know, we, and that was part of our struggle, right?
6:44
Speaker1: We had families, young people that would come to the church on a Sunday and
6:49
Speaker1: they would probably look around and see that we didn't have children or other young people.
6:55
Speaker1: And so they wouldn't stay, but we could not grow because no one ever stayed.
6:59
Speaker1: You know, and so it was this vicious circle. So, you know, that was the decline
7:06
Speaker1: of something that, you know, we saw Sunday after Sunday.
7:10
Speaker1: Week after week, month after month, year after year, you know,
7:13
Speaker1: was that we were not growing.
7:14
Speaker1: So, you know, although Pastor Jim's time with us, you know, he ministered to,
7:20
Speaker1: I think, like Jerry mentioned, we also had a very, a much older congregation as well.
7:26
Speaker1: And so at that time, he ministered to the people that I think needed it at that time.
7:31
Speaker1: But were we healthy? Probably not. We didn't have enough to grow.
7:37
Speaker1: We didn't have the means to grow, the systems in place to do that.
7:41
Speaker1: We were just merely surviving.
7:43
Speaker0: So both of you guys have heard me say this spiel before. So my apologies to both of you.
7:50
Speaker0: But I'm about to say something that I say to a lot of churches that want to
7:55
Speaker0: talk to us about church renewal.
7:58
Speaker0: And that is this, that the Holy Spirit of the living God will never lead you away from reality.
8:06
Speaker0: He's always going to lead you into facing your reality.
8:12
Speaker0: And some people get this picture like, you know, if I have the Holy Spirit,
8:16
Speaker0: the Spirit's at work in my life, I sort of can ignore reality.
8:22
Speaker0: And yet, like in Ezekiel 37, when we see the Holy Spirit giving Ezekiel a tour,
8:28
Speaker0: he's giving a tour of a graveyard.
8:31
Speaker0: And he says, this graveyard are the children of Israel.
8:35
Speaker0: He says, you know, you guys are like a bunch of corpses. And that's hard, right?
8:40
Speaker0: And then in the New Testament, we see the letters that Jesus has written to
8:46
Speaker0: the churches, conveyed by the Spirit in the divine encounter that John is having.
8:52
Speaker0: And we hear this phrase, let those who have ears hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.
9:01
Speaker0: And Jesus is doing that coaching thing or that medical checkup thing that Chase was talking about.
9:08
Speaker0: So one of the hardest things that any person or church can do is to examine
9:16
Speaker0: ourselves honestly, right?
9:19
Speaker0: That's tough. And we do have the help of the indwelling Holy Spirit and the
9:24
Speaker0: Word of God to be faithful guides.
9:27
Speaker0: And that's a lot of what we do in the early stages of Renew.
9:32
Speaker0: And along the way, we try to get churches to have really honest conversations about where they are at.
9:39
Speaker0: And Lisanne just gave an amazing example of that, of being able to say,
9:44
Speaker0: hey, there are these beautiful things happening, but...
9:48
Speaker0: Maybe there's some unhealthy things happening too.
9:52
Speaker0: So I'm curious, and you guys can answer this however you want,
9:57
Speaker0: what did Renew or just the Renew process help your congregation see about itself,
10:07
Speaker0: that maybe had been difficult to see before?
10:12
Speaker0: So, what did Renew help you guys understand about yourselves or see through
10:18
Speaker0: the work of the Spirit and the Word that had been difficult to see before?
10:22
Speaker0: Jerry, we'll start with you.
10:24
Speaker2: Well, first of all, you know, you had mentioned this earlier.
10:26
Speaker2: We had to recognize that the neighborhood that we kept reaching out to might
10:31
Speaker2: not necessarily been where we were going to build our congregations.
10:35
Speaker2: And in our situations, it is unique. But we had tried many times.
10:40
Speaker2: And I think in the back of my mind, I knew it would probably,
10:43
Speaker2: We needed to go outside of that. We needed help doing that. So that was one
10:47
Speaker2: of the things that we had to have our eyes open to that. Did we have some stubbornness
10:51
Speaker2: in our church? Oh, we bet we did.
10:53
Speaker2: Did we ask for discussions over it? You know we did, you know,
10:57
Speaker2: and that was sometimes me. That was sometimes my reluctance.
11:00
Speaker2: It was somebody, another church member where we're not trying to talk somebody into something.
11:05
Speaker2: We just need to understand the direction we needed to go.
11:08
Speaker2: And I think for us, I learned a lot of history about our church.
11:12
Speaker2: When you go through this process, we were well informed of what we have already
11:16
Speaker2: tried. We thought we had all the answers when we met with you,
11:19
Speaker2: Chris, and we've already done this and we got this. You already knew that.
11:23
Speaker2: You'd already seen this before. So I think for us, it was, for me personally,
11:27
Speaker2: I was kind of laughing inside.
11:29
Speaker2: And it's funny, Lisanne, when you mentioned earlier about having a member coming
11:33
Speaker2: to church or a kid coming to church. And for me, it was a question of me looking
11:37
Speaker2: at our congregation sometimes and think we might be a little overwhelming for this person.
11:41
Speaker2: We might be, there's a kid showing up and we're beyond, we're all huddling around
11:46
Speaker2: this kid like we've never seen one before.
11:48
Speaker2: And in fact, because we wanted so desperately to have children and noise and
11:52
Speaker2: kids running around and disruption and service and all these things that.
11:56
Speaker2: As a young person, you're told not to do, but we wanted it.
12:00
Speaker2: But I think we were educated. We had to sit there and we had to sit down and
12:04
Speaker2: learn and accept some of these things that we necessarily didn't see or didn't believe.
12:11
Speaker2: And it was the best thing for me to see myself, to know that some of these things
12:16
Speaker2: I felt were in fact probably true and were a reality.
12:20
Speaker2: And it's funny when you talk about church and all this and how things have changed
12:24
Speaker2: in our lifetime, we needed to change.
12:26
Speaker2: It's a different time. I wear shorts in church sometimes. It's different.
12:31
Speaker2: For our church, it's always, you know, come as you are, and we accept whoever you are.
12:35
Speaker2: And that's how it has to be. That's what we're taught. But going through this,
12:39
Speaker2: I learned a lot of history in our church, where it had gone and where it's been,
12:43
Speaker2: and praise team, and all these things are different. We continue to pray and be patient.
12:48
Speaker2: But as a group of people, we sit down and many times would have had some arguments
12:52
Speaker2: over this and eventually didn't want to talk each other into this.
12:56
Speaker2: We felt like when your heart was in the right place and your heart was with
12:59
Speaker2: God, we would go down this road together. And that's kind of where we've been going now.
13:04
Speaker0: Yeah, that's so great. It's so true. By the way, Lisanne recently saw me in
13:09
Speaker0: a suit because we did Pastor Jeff's installation service.
13:13
Speaker0: And I was telling somebody, I said, you know, I used to wear a suit every Sunday
13:18
Speaker0: morning and Sunday night or jacket.
13:22
Speaker0: Times have changed. Lisa Ann, how about for you?
13:27
Speaker0: Was there anything for you or for the Foothill congregation that you guys realized
13:32
Speaker0: you heard during the renew process that you were like, we don't want to hear
13:37
Speaker0: that? You didn't agree with it.
13:39
Speaker0: But you later on realized, yeah, that's probably true.
13:44
Speaker1: Well, I can't speak for anybody else in the congregation.
13:49
Speaker1: You know, as you had said, I don't think that there was anybody that's ever,
13:55
Speaker1: hopefully, ever visited our church and said, that's not a loving congregation.
14:00
Speaker1: And, you know, I think that's always been our strong point is,
14:04
Speaker1: you know, especially when we got to the point of where we were when we needed
14:09
Speaker1: to go through this process,
14:11
Speaker1: we were probably about 10, 12 people, maybe in our congregation on a good Sunday.
14:20
Speaker1: And so we've all, the core people of Foothill that have been around and stuck
14:25
Speaker1: it out the longest, we've always been very close.
14:29
Speaker1: And sure, we were sustaining having a service and doing our usual routines,
14:36
Speaker1: if you will, from Sunday to the next. But
14:41
Speaker1: It was not sustainable. I mean, we always said, you know, this is not a matter
14:46
Speaker1: of if this happens, it's a matter of when.
14:48
Speaker1: Because sadly people were dying off in our congregation and it was just a matter of time.
14:57
Speaker1: And so I think we knew that we were at that place where something was going to have to change.
15:04
Speaker1: And one of the things that Renew, I also want to stress too,
15:09
Speaker1: is that has helped us is getting our processes in check.
15:16
Speaker1: And I thank you, Pastor Chris Cole, for helping,
15:19
Speaker1: you know, make sure we have all of our legal ducks in a row,
15:23
Speaker1: so to speak, and all the documents that, you know, things that we just might've
15:27
Speaker1: been like, oh, well, you know, maybe we'll deal with that later at some point down the road.
15:32
Speaker1: And Chris Cole doesn't operate that way. And so, you know, having our,
15:38
Speaker1: and that's not a bad thing.
15:40
Speaker1: It's definitely a good thing. You know, I mean, our church obviously needed
15:43
Speaker1: that because we'd never had anybody to really do that for us and say,
15:48
Speaker1: this is the way things have to go.
15:50
Speaker1: And, you know, so in terms of processes, that has been really helpful for us
15:56
Speaker1: to be working alongside the Renew and especially this pastor search process.
16:02
Speaker1: I mean, I've told people, yes, this is the most complex pastor search process
16:07
Speaker1: I've ever sat in on it and been a part of. But then again,
16:13
Speaker1: If we had those processes in place, we might not have made some of the decisions
16:20
Speaker1: of pastoral leadership in the past that we had that didn't work out, right?
16:25
Speaker1: So I'm truly grateful for what, and, you know, Pastor Chris Cole has also been
16:31
Speaker1: there to make sure that we get updates, you know, for the church,
16:35
Speaker1: you know, face and facade and electrical things that need to be done.
16:39
Speaker1: And that has already been just monumental for the church and the ascetics of it as well.
16:46
Speaker1: And so I'm truly grateful for that as well.
16:49
Speaker0: Well, before Chase picks this up, and I know he's going to, I just got to say this.
16:54
Speaker0: God gifts the church with so many gifts and different people that he sends to his body.
17:02
Speaker0: And one of the things, if you're listening to this episode and you are a replanter,
17:09
Speaker0: you're considering being a replanter, you're leading replanters,
17:13
Speaker0: you know, we're always looking at what church replants don't have.
17:17
Speaker0: And we need to be looking very often at what they do have.
17:21
Speaker0: And one of the things that I looked around at a very rundown building in Los
17:26
Speaker0: Altos, and it did not look good. It did not fit with the neighborhood.
17:32
Speaker0: And I looked around and I, guys, I can't tell the difference between two shades of green.
17:37
Speaker0: I don't know anything about paint color, but God had placed inside this church,
17:45
Speaker0: an interior designer with training and gift.
17:48
Speaker0: And she's on our show, Lisanne, and she did a phenomenal job.
17:54
Speaker0: And no, if you're listening to the show, Lisanne is not available for free for all of your churches.
18:00
Speaker0: But she did a phenomenal job helping us re-engage the community well through
18:06
Speaker0: the physical plant and its presentation.
18:09
Speaker0: And it's a beautiful facility and with beautiful colors and everything else
18:14
Speaker0: that God's let us do. And I know...
18:17
Speaker0: But similarly, at Red Oaks Church, that is one of the most beautiful rebuilds
18:23
Speaker0: on the interior of an auditorium.
18:25
Speaker0: And it was done largely by Chuck Williams and Jerry Watson and a few other brothers.
18:33
Speaker0: Bob Goff just dove in there. It's a beautiful rebuild. So there are gifts within the body.
18:39
Speaker0: I just want to bring that out as well.
18:43
Speaker3: Yeah. Yeah, well, look, I hate to follow up such a positive,
18:46
Speaker3: encouraging segment with a sad question, but there's a reason for this sad question.
18:52
Speaker3: I think it's one of our most important questions of today.
18:55
Speaker3: The purpose of this question is to stimulate people who are listening,
19:02
Speaker3: who are in churches that are in decline, to recognize it
19:10
Speaker3: and do something.
19:11
Speaker3: And sometimes we wait too long or even we wait too late before we start one
19:17
Speaker3: of these renew processes or revitalization processes.
19:21
Speaker3: And I think that's a great danger. So with that in mind, Jerry,
19:25
Speaker3: my question to you is, what does church decline feel like from the pew?
19:31
Speaker3: What does it feel like when you're in a church that is dying?
19:37
Speaker3: I don't want to be overly dramatic, but is dying.
19:40
Speaker3: And we've heard from pastors and denominational leaders who talk about that,
19:44
Speaker3: but from somebody who's invested in there pretty much every Sunday as a member,
19:50
Speaker3: what does that process feel like?
19:53
Speaker2: Oh, it's difficult to see a decline in numbers, to see members that,
19:58
Speaker2: like I mentioned earlier, you definitely notice when somebody's not there,
20:02
Speaker2: that tells you how many few members you do have coming from a time where you
20:08
Speaker2: were, you didn't feel like you had a lot of room sitting in a pew because there
20:11
Speaker2: was somebody next to you on both sides of you.
20:14
Speaker2: It's hard. It's been hard to see that. It's a decline of what's happening at
20:17
Speaker2: the church before we had moved, not to the extent that we're dealing with now.
20:22
Speaker2: I think we had to look at each other sometimes and accept that change had to happen.
20:27
Speaker2: Sometimes pastors might not recognize that. Sometimes they do.
20:31
Speaker2: We didn't have a consistent pastor to say that we had a problem,
20:34
Speaker2: but we knew for sure that we did.
20:37
Speaker2: The average age of our church is it's in all their congregations so
20:42
Speaker2: along with some of the members when we went through this process like I had
20:45
Speaker2: mentioned earlier we had to look at each other many times and say this is what
20:49
Speaker2: we needed to do we had some wonderful pastors coming in but we want a pastor
20:54
Speaker2: to help us with some of the things Lisanne did
20:57
Speaker2: I've learned more from Chris Colen than I would have ever known
21:00
Speaker2: operating a church in the state of California is not an easy thing.
21:04
Speaker2: I'm learning all the time things that need to be done. I had to open a biz file.
21:08
Speaker2: I'm like, what is a biz file? Chris is like, well, this is how you do it.
21:10
Speaker2: He sent me every detailed instruction in the world to do this.
21:13
Speaker2: But the reality is I looked around every Sunday and there were people I didn't
21:19
Speaker2: see that were once there. And I wouldn't necessarily, these are people that are deceased.
21:24
Speaker2: Sometimes when a person moved, it was devastating. And we've had people move in our congregation.
21:30
Speaker2: And a lot of congregations that are healthy and strong, that doesn't matter
21:33
Speaker2: to them, but it certainly mattered to us.
21:35
Speaker2: So, you know, you walk a fine line in between wanting to see what you want to
21:40
Speaker2: see, God being there with you, but not being overwhelming when somebody walks
21:45
Speaker2: into your church and think you have one more member for that moment.
21:47
Speaker2: And that you want them to come back next week.
21:50
Speaker2: And there's times where they have, there's many times where they haven't.
21:53
Speaker2: So for me, it's just a member of my church to see the decline in any church,
21:58
Speaker2: for that matter, has been extremely hard.
22:01
Speaker2: And we went, we're doing this for the reason that we don't want it.
22:04
Speaker2: We want to see more in and not less walking out or less people, really.
22:09
Speaker3: Yeah. And I think that's one thing that maybe pastors don't always realize.
22:15
Speaker3: I'm super sensitive to, I don't,
22:18
Speaker3: we don't take numerical, at least I don't take numerical attendance.
22:21
Speaker3: That's one of our deacons does. But I know when people are missing.
22:26
Speaker3: I know when families are gone. We're not a super huge church where you can't tell.
22:31
Speaker3: And I'm really sensitive to that. And I think pastors don't always realize that
22:36
Speaker3: they're not the only ones sensitive to that. The members know it,
22:40
Speaker3: they see it, and it would be really demoralizing to see that process happen.
22:47
Speaker3: So, Lisanne, for you guys at Foothill, what does it feel like?
22:51
Speaker3: You've probably seen a lot of ups and downs over your years with the church.
22:55
Speaker3: What does it feel like when you're on a hard decline and hope seems to be fading?
23:02
Speaker1: You know, every seat there represents somebody that's not there,
23:09
Speaker1: either who was there previously or just somebody that is not attending church
23:14
Speaker1: and getting to know God, right?
23:17
Speaker1: And for me personally, I don't look at that decline as...
23:24
Speaker1: Statistic. It's more like this repeated loss Sunday after Sunday.
23:29
Speaker1: You know, I certainly relate to what Jerry was saying about when someone new
23:33
Speaker1: shows up with a child and, you know, everybody descends on them,
23:36
Speaker1: especially when you're such a small church and there's a visitor.
23:40
Speaker1: And yes, our church naturally always tries to go approach that person after
23:45
Speaker1: the service is over to introduce ourselves.
23:47
Speaker1: But, you know, maybe we were overwhelming because, you know,
23:51
Speaker1: we wanted so desperately to build our church
23:56
Speaker1: and then to experience that person, that family, those young people not coming
24:01
Speaker1: back the following Sunday and clearly Sunday after Sunday, they're probably never coming back.
24:06
Speaker1: It was a repeated loss week after week.
24:09
Speaker0: I think for so many churches that go through this process, you guys have identified
24:15
Speaker0: some of the the common experiences, right? That you're feeling and you're struggling.
24:23
Speaker0: And those are things that are circumstantial. They're circumstantial grief, right?
24:28
Speaker0: The people leave, people move, people die, people don't come back.
24:33
Speaker0: Those are things that happen sort of in the circumstances that you find yourself.
24:40
Speaker0: But change almost always also involves some grief, right?
24:48
Speaker0: So there's the grief, you know, the grief you've been living in.
24:52
Speaker0: And then there's the idea of, hey, if we're going to survive,
24:55
Speaker0: if we're going to go beyond survival, we're going to go into flourishing.
25:00
Speaker0: There's some things we're probably going to have to give up.
25:04
Speaker0: And that involves a different kind of grief, a different kind of loss.
25:11
Speaker0: So with sort of that in mind, I'm curious what you guys might identify as something
25:19
Speaker0: that you've had to grieve or possibility that you've had to surrender.
25:26
Speaker0: Maybe it was an old dream if your church was actually going to become what God has called it to be.
25:33
Speaker0: And I'll start off while you guys are thinking about this question of what is
25:38
Speaker0: it that you guys have had to give up in order to get a different picture for the future.
25:44
Speaker0: In the very first church that I replanted in Orange County, there were no less
25:51
Speaker0: than five different sets of building plans and models for the church.
25:59
Speaker0: The church had accelerated out of their birth into this booming growth in the
26:06
Speaker0: early 1960s. They just exploded.
26:09
Speaker0: And by the early 1970s, they were one of the largest churches in the California
26:13
Speaker0: Southern Baptist Convention.
26:15
Speaker0: And they had all these dreams. They had these hopes.
26:19
Speaker0: And along the years, they kept expressing that hope for the future in different
26:24
Speaker0: building programs and different plans.
26:27
Speaker0: And so as the pastor who was showing up in what was technically a megachurch
26:32
Speaker0: of over 1,100 members, but had less than 60 in attendance,
26:37
Speaker0: I was going through rooms where there were detailed models and buildings for
26:43
Speaker0: what the church had once upon a time dreamed.
26:48
Speaker0: And it was really hard as the present pastor to say to people,
26:53
Speaker0: we're going to have to give up those dreams. Oops.
26:58
Speaker0: In order to get a new dream from God. So I'm curious, as you guys have been
27:03
Speaker0: on this church renewal journey so far, what is it that you feel like maybe God's
27:08
Speaker0: been calling you as an individual or your church,
27:11
Speaker0: to surrender, to give up in order for your church to have a future and a hope?
27:17
Speaker2: For, as I mentioned, one was that just the people that live around our church, that
27:24
Speaker2: I see, that I drive by, that someone that I've met, that that probably wouldn't
27:28
Speaker2: be the congregation that comes in to our church. That's extremely hard to accept that.
27:34
Speaker2: To see the church that you see, Chris, that's been, we met in one room with
27:39
Speaker2: Michael Cook there at one time. We met in one room in there. It was a back room.
27:43
Speaker2: It was the first time we were able to get together after our church had divided
27:46
Speaker2: and we'd gone through what we'd gone through.
27:49
Speaker2: The dream is not done. It's not over. but boy, to think that we're going to
27:54
Speaker2: be in this sanctuary and it's going to be full.
27:58
Speaker2: And it's not.
28:00
Speaker2: That's been really hard to deal with. And I could see it full of people.
28:04
Speaker2: I could see it full of kids. A nursery we worked on.
28:07
Speaker2: And like I said, it's not a dream that's over. It's not a dream that's not going
28:13
Speaker2: to become a reality. I know it is. It's just, it's been really hard dealing with this.
28:18
Speaker2: And it's just been through faith and through prayer to keep going on this thing.
28:23
Speaker2: And when you go through this process, you have to look at your organizational things that you do.
28:29
Speaker2: Things have to be changed along with that, too, you know, and we were apprehensive
28:34
Speaker2: to do a lot of these things, you know, and it had to happen.
28:37
Speaker2: I do know for me, my heart's not completely broken. But boy,
28:41
Speaker2: when I saw that one room we met in to where we're at now, but it's not full
28:46
Speaker2: of people. It's extremely hard to see sometimes.
28:50
Speaker0: That is such a great example of that. Lisanne, what about you guys?
28:56
Speaker0: What is it that you think, hey, maybe there's some former dreams that we're
29:01
Speaker0: going to have to surrender in order to get what God has for us in the future?
29:09
Speaker1: Well, we had two kinds of griefs to contend with. We had the grief of multiple
29:18
Speaker1: people in our congregation that we had lost, which included my father.
29:23
Speaker1: And my father was a deacon of the church for decades. He was our musician.
29:29
Speaker1: We played music together during every Sunday. And he was also the church secretary
29:34
Speaker1: and our treasurer. And so he was a big part of Foothill also.
29:39
Speaker1: And so him, in addition to Pastor Jim and Wayne and Dan and the other losses,
29:45
Speaker1: that was one type of loss that we were already struggling with.
29:52
Speaker1: And so with the renew process, I think it was that need to accept that we were
29:58
Speaker1: going to have to surrender control, right?
30:02
Speaker1: Accept outside leadership and admit that if, and we didn't have enough to go
30:10
Speaker1: by to know that this, the renew process was a sure thing.
30:14
Speaker1: You know so that like in the back of our mind closure is still very real very
30:20
Speaker1: possible if this doesn't work out
30:24
Speaker1: You know and so i think we just because of us trying to protect ourselves we're
30:30
Speaker1: kind of always waiting for the other shoe to drop
30:33
Speaker1: in any situation and and that that that was a real viable option if the renew
30:38
Speaker1: process didn't work out for whatever reason
30:42
Speaker1: so yeah we had to deal with a lot of different types of grief and
30:47
Speaker1: Absolutely.
30:49
Speaker3: So this will be my last question. And I will ask you, Jerry,
30:54
Speaker3: to imagine somebody is listening that is part of a church that's declining,
30:59
Speaker3: church leader, church member,
31:01
Speaker3: deacon, pastor, whatever. And
31:06
Speaker3: they realize the church is declining, but it hasn't been addressed yet.
31:11
Speaker3: And maybe even reaching out and asking for help feels like you're saying, hey, we're a failure.
31:17
Speaker3: What would you say to a church member or a church leader or even a pastor who's
31:23
Speaker3: listening, who's part of a declining church, but is not yet willing to undergo a
31:30
Speaker3: renew, a revitalization kind of process?
31:34
Speaker3: How would you encourage them, Jerry?
31:36
Speaker2: Well, if you're seeing some of the things that Lisanne and I have seen, don't hesitate.
31:43
Speaker2: If you're not saying it out loud, somebody needs to in your congregation.
31:46
Speaker2: You need to be realistic with each other. It's not a pride thing at all.
31:50
Speaker2: It's simply recognizing your belief and love for the Lord and His Son,
31:54
Speaker2: Jesus. And you want to share that message. And whether others reach out in your
31:59
Speaker2: community, no matter how far that community is.
32:02
Speaker2: For those that are listening, as I mentioned before, we were not sure about this process.
32:08
Speaker2: We thought we knew the direction we were going. We thought we knew what we were
32:12
Speaker2: doing. We thought we knew all the above. And we didn't.
32:15
Speaker2: And as we went through this, we understood we didn't. So for people out there
32:20
Speaker2: that feel like your church is declining, don't wait.
32:23
Speaker2: Do something about it now. There's people out there waiting for you to ask them
32:28
Speaker2: to come in. They are out there. They just don't know it yet.
32:30
Speaker2: So I want people to actually believe and understand this process right here
32:35
Speaker2: has been the best thing for us.
32:37
Speaker2: As mentioned earlier, I don't know if the doors will shut, but I'm going to
32:40
Speaker2: tell you right now, we're going forward with it.
32:44
Speaker2: Be open to open-minded as a church. When you do this, understand that things will have to change.
32:49
Speaker2: That's the biggest thing. Stubbornness will get in the way of a lot of things.
32:52
Speaker2: You have to understand things need to change.
32:55
Speaker2: What we've done to this point as a church wasn't working.
32:59
Speaker2: And were there members in our church that certainly thought they were? Yeah, for sure.
33:03
Speaker2: We had to have a long, hard discussion about this to understand that they weren't
33:07
Speaker2: working, that we needed something like this, like the renewed process to get
33:11
Speaker2: us through this and help us and find this pastor and to build our congregation.
33:16
Speaker3: Yeah, great answer. Great answer. Same question to you, Lisanne.
33:19
Speaker3: Somebody's listening and the church is declining. They're seeing all the signs,
33:23
Speaker3: but it hasn't been addressed yet. How would you encourage them to proceed?
33:28
Speaker1: Very similar to what Jerry had said.
33:32
Speaker1: I would say that to those people, asking for help is not an admission that what
33:39
Speaker1: you have done so far is a failure or that the church's history was a failure.
33:47
Speaker1: It's honestly, I believe it's an honest act of stewardship to ask for help.
33:56
Speaker1: And it is hard because it requires wisdom and capacity that we, they don't have alone.
34:05
Speaker1: And there's difficult truths that come out of that, changes in control,
34:10
Speaker1: protecting traditions and processes that have been in place for a really long time and I get that.
34:17
Speaker1: But silence doesn't prevent the church from decline either.
34:22
Speaker1: And I guess lastly, I would say from my experience is that God's help can come
34:28
Speaker1: through a lot of different places and a lot of people that you don't know.
34:33
Speaker1: We had no idea what the relationship with Santa Cruz was going to be like.
34:37
Speaker1: But to have strangers that learned our names, prayed for us, helped us financially.
34:43
Speaker1: And I don't want to be remiss in pointing out the other multiple churches out
34:48
Speaker1: there that have supported us, especially financially, which we're truly grateful.
34:53
Speaker1: You know, every Sunday that Pastor Chris Cole would, or Pastor Chris Sansano
34:58
Speaker1: would come up to the pulpit and tell us about another church that has donated
35:02
Speaker1: thousands of dollars to our church, I would be there sitting there crying.
35:08
Speaker1: Because I would say, why do these people who don't even know us do this for us?
35:15
Speaker1: Just so incredibly grateful that they have left our church and saw something
35:20
Speaker1: in us worth saving has been just, it's meant so much to us.
35:26
Speaker0: That would probably be a great segue to lead into my last question of the day,
35:31
Speaker0: which is just going to be this.
35:33
Speaker0: So we've talked a lot about grief. We've talked about the challenges.
35:37
Speaker0: We've talked about what we see from the pews, and your churches are at different
35:42
Speaker0: stages in this Renew process.
35:44
Speaker0: But here's the question. So far, what has been some of or the most encouraging
35:52
Speaker0: aspects of the Renew process to you?
35:54
Speaker0: What has given you hope that, hey, genuine renewal is beginning, it's happening now?
36:02
Speaker0: What is it that you've seen that has led you to just be encouraged and go,
36:07
Speaker0: yes, God is at work here amongst us?
36:10
Speaker0: And Lisanne, how about you guys at Piddle? What's been the most encouraging
36:14
Speaker0: to you through the renew process or what signs of genuine renewal or hope have you guys already seen?
36:21
Speaker1: Chris, I don't know if I could say that there's just one thing.
36:25
Speaker1: Like I said, I think I've touched a lot about what Santa Cruz has done for us
36:31
Speaker1: and what they've meant to us and what the GCA team and I do.
36:35
Speaker1: I want to call out everybody that is on our Renew Board that also included Harrison
36:40
Speaker1: Chang, who was part of our Renew Board at that time as well.
36:45
Speaker1: So everybody with the GCA team and our board and the numerous churches that
36:50
Speaker1: have donated to us financially and now having Pastor Jeff in place.
36:58
Speaker1: You know, we have seen visitors come and many have actually stayed.
37:03
Speaker1: We have had a family with three young children along the same ages of the pastor's
37:09
Speaker1: children that have been coming for quite some time now.
37:12
Speaker1: And so we have been seeing visitors that are coming and actually staying and
37:17
Speaker1: that has been really encouraging.
37:20
Speaker3: Okay. Well, hey, I would like to say thank you so much to both of you for your
37:25
Speaker3: time and for not just your time for this podcast, but
37:30
Speaker3: Your faithfulness as church members to stay in the boat and not abandon ship
37:38
Speaker3: when things look rocky, when things look dangerous.
37:42
Speaker3: In the body of Christ right now, we are lacking that kind of steadfastness and
37:49
Speaker3: courage that the Word of God calls us to.
37:53
Speaker3: And I think it's greatly needed.
37:56
Speaker3: It is greatly needed. We're too quick, I think, in this day and age to abandon ship.
38:03
Speaker3: And you guys have given us some real in the trenches insights to what this process
38:11
Speaker3: of renewal looks like, but also what the process and the pain of decline is like.
38:17
Speaker3: And I think this would be very instructive for pastors, leaders,
38:20
Speaker3: even denominational leaders to
38:22
Speaker3: listen to what you have to say and get a flesh and blood experience of what
38:30
Speaker3: most of the time they see in accounting numbers and black and white and that sort of thing.
38:35
Speaker3: So thank you for your time. Thank you for your faithfulness.
38:38
Speaker3: Thank you for your words and your encouragements.
38:40
Speaker3: And just keep persevering. And may the Lord bless your churches and give you
38:48
Speaker3: fruitfulness and prosperity, growth and strength and leadership and numbers and
38:55
Speaker3: a greater and greater capacity to glorify Christ in the coming seasons.
39:00
Speaker1: Chase, may I say one last thing?
39:03
Speaker3: Please do, yes.
39:05
Speaker1: I saw this quote at one point, and it said, renewal is built through ordinary
39:10
Speaker1: acts of faithfulness repeated over time.
39:13
Speaker1: And I really feel like that kind of speaks to what you were just saying.
39:17
Speaker1: And yes, it involves a level of faith to go through this process.
39:24
Speaker1: But it's so, so worth it.
39:27
Speaker3: Amen to that. Amen to that. All right. Well, thank you guys.
39:31
Speaker3: And thank you all for listening.
39:34
Speaker3: Well, no soda review today. More important than that, we bid farewell to the
39:39
Speaker3: founding host of this show, Pastor Christopher Cole.
39:44
Speaker3: Thank you for all you have meant to us, brother. We will miss you.
39:47
Speaker3: May the Lord bless you and keep you. And friends, I do want to point you to
39:52
Speaker3: our website, GCASBC.org.
39:56
Speaker3: You can find out everything about the Great Commission Association there. Please check it out.
40:02
Speaker3: Good day to you and Godspeed.