Video Transcript: Lesson 4 The Vitality Paradigm

Hello, and welcome to this series of lectures from Christian leaders Institute as  we are just diving into this wonderful subject of revitalization, church  revitalization ministry revitalization. And so in this series of three lectures, we've  got some, I think, some really good things to talk about in really just starting  some initial steps. Where do you even begin with this really challenging, yet  incredibly rewarding journey of revitalization. But I want to start off with this idea  of taking a visit to a doctor. So imagine, this shouldn't be too hard to imagine  you're, you're not feeling well, you you've got a headache, you have fevers,  muscle hurt, you don't have energy, and you just haven't been feeling well for a  week or two weeks, and you go to the doctor's office, and they invite you to sit  down in his office, and you're sitting there and, and then the door opens up, the  doctor walks in, and he tells you your diagnosis, he tells you what you have.  Now, he didn't ask you what was wrong. He didn't take any vital signs. He didn't  ask anything about your medical history. He didn't even ask how you were  feeling. He didn't even ask what brought you in today. But yet he told you just  what was wrong and what you needed to do. My question for you is how? How  would you feel about that? How, how confident would you be in their diagnosis?  I don't know about you, I wouldn't feel like how do you know you don't even  know what? You don't even know what brought me here. You just walked in and  just started telling me right away what was wrong? And how much would you  trust their prescription for recovery? I, I don't think I'd be really inclined to do  what they told me I had to do because they haven't even you know, they didn't  even they don't even know what I have. How can they tell me what to do? Like,  I'm not going to take the medicine they they're prescribing because I think  there's a really good chance that they're going to be wrong. Now, as as as  ridiculous as this sounds of the scenario of going into a doctor's office and  having him or her pronounce a diagnosis for you sight unseen, as ridiculous as  that sounds. I think that's exactly the kind of thing we do when it comes to  church revitalization. And, and I would say I was that doctor, this. This is my  story. The church that I pastor, when I got there, it was 156 years old, really long history. I had never lived in that town. I had never lived in that state. I didn't know anybody at all from the church. I'd only met them a couple of times. When I  interviewed. And I had a couple page report about the church. Before I came to  the church, I knew a little bit of the history and some of the struggles. And so for  the couple months I had when I knew I was coming to the church, but before I  moved there, I spent time planning all the things I wanted to do with the church  and, and messages that I was going to deliver. And I came in on day one, as if I  had all the answers like I knew what the church needed, I was ready to take  them to the Promised Land, we're going to be revitalized, we're going to grow,  we're going to do all this great stuff. I was that foolish doctor, who didn't even  know what was going on. Now, in my defense, as the new pastor of a church  coming in, that was struggling and in decline. That's exactly what they were 

expecting me to do, that I would come in with the answers and lead them and  everything would go great kind of this idea of like, well, now that you're here, you can fix it. And that really, that really is setting me up and the church up for  failure. So I think we need to just take a step back to the most basic level here of saying if we're going to have any chance, any chance to succeed in  revitalization. We need to understand what is going on in In the local a body of  Christ, just like that doctor who walks into a room, or who walks into a room, you have to spend some time getting to know what's going on with that patient,  before you can really help them. Okay. And so we talk about understanding  what's going on in the local body of Christ. I don't mean just general, generally,  we as we take on this great task of revitalization, we need to become experts,  subject matter experts in the revitalization, and in what's going on in our ministry. Now, throughout these many lectures, we're going to go to together, we are  going to discuss a number of universal principles, things that apply to, to  whoever you are, wherever you are, kind of whenever you are a lot of universal  principles we'll share. But we're always going to be looking at kind of what is the  unique expression in your ministry, what does it look like for you and your  location and in your generation? So we'll just come up with a scenario. Very  common one, people might say, like, we need to, we need to evangelize more.  That's our problem we need. We don't do enough evangelism. And that's true.  And it was true when I got to my church, and it's likely true of where you're at.  But what we don't realize is that there could be 200 different reasons why we're  not doing evangelism. And the reasons why we're not doing it at my church  might be different than why we're not you're not doing it at your church, your  people aren't doing it there. And so what works for me may not necessarily work  for you. Now, there's this universal principle, we are to go out and share the  gospel. But we're not doing it. But why we're not doing it? Well, it's very different. And so what I experienced at one church, I just can't say, Well, this is going to  definitely work here. So we're always going to be pushing into like, more the  unique expressions of, of these universal principles, okay? And to understand  what makes us different, right? So somebody comes in, in the doctor's office,  and they have a cough and a fever. You know, the guy who's in the office, a half  hour later, he might have a cough and a fever, but he might have a different  reason why he has that. So we're gonna really try to become a, you know, kind  of a church doctors and an experts in understanding and diagnosing what's  going on in our churches. So that is a task beyond your ability. And it's certainly  a test on my abilities, beyond all our ability, we need the Holy Spirit to lead us  and guide us in this. Proverbs 2:6 is from the Lord comes wisdom, and from his  mouth comes knowledge and understanding. And so we just need to pray for  this. We're going to start and end every lecture with the time of prayer. I'm  praying for you praying for your success in this and I'm praying for the  effectiveness of these lectures and the wisdom for you to apply it. So let's pray 

over this. Okay. Lord, we just ask that you give us wisdom and understanding  God, we ask that you might reveal truth to us to help see things as you do, to  penetrate beyond the surface and know what's really going on. beneath the skin  of our ministry in your churches, Lord, to have the mind and the eyes of just a  doctor or to diagnose and to see, and to be able to ward them bring hope and  healing and renewal. God, I pray this in Your name. Amen. Well, before a doctor  can see patients, you know, your first day in medical school, they don't let you  just walk in and you know, start seeing patients and diagnosing and prescribing  medicine, you've got to go through quite a bit of training to understand how does the human body work? How does it all function together? You've been to  medical school for years to learn that. And so what what I want to do for us in a  much more abbreviated timeline, is to help us understand how does this church  work? A doctor understands how the body works. pastors and ministry leaders,  we ought to understand how does the church work? And to do that? I'm gonna  share, share a picture up here with you. That's a very simple way of expressing  this. Now we have to realize, though, that churches are very complex systems  with lots of history. And there's culture and stories and unique ministry context.  There's different gifting and abilities in your church, different hurts and wounds  from the past. So it's very complex, it's very complex. So I'm gonna just try to  like kind of, I guess, simplify it down to say, how does a church really work?  Okay, so we're gonna talk about this on a number of lectures, called the vitality  paradigm. And it's from my friend and mentor in ministry, Harry Reeder, who is  the pastor of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama. And  Harry is authored book, embers to a flame, a book on revitalization, which I  highly recommend. Harry has a revitalization ministry called embers to a flame.  And as I went through my doctorate, Harry was also a faculty advisor. So I know Harry's thoughts quite well. And he's a man who just honors scripture and tries  to be faithful to the Lord. So anytime Harry says something, I always take notice  of what he has to say. And, and one of the things Harry also does is he has  conferences, embers to a flame conferences, where he teaches revitalization  kind of the core core concepts of revitalization. And this picture of this this  model, this vitality pirate paradigm is from one of Harry's embers to a flame  conferences, one of the sessions he teaches, and this is basically how he, he  understands how churches function and churches work. It's like a tree, where  there's a root, and then then a trunk. And then there's, there's fruit. And the way  that Harry teaches it is that the root is the gospel, it's our relationship with Jesus  Christ. It's like, it's what fills us, it's how we intake kind of spiritual, nurturing, and food. So just as a tree sucks up, you know, water and nutrients. We suck we  take that in our intake is is prayer, its word it is worship, those sorts of things,  any kind of spiritual discipline, where we're building our relationship with the  Lord, that it's, it's our communion with Christ. And then there is a functional  effectiveness, how is it structured, how are things organized, how the things 

relate within the church, to, to provide some support and some structures  because it's not just everybody kind of running around doing their own things,  but we're, we're trying to do something kind of together in common and, you  know, for example, we, we meet weekly at the same time for worship in the  same place, we, we have committees we have, you know, goals, we have a  budget, all that type of stuff. So there's a thing that kind of a church together,  that holds us together, that helps us operate together. And then out of that, out  of like, our ministries and out of our own relationship with Christ, then there is a  statistical growth or, or fruit. Now it can be statistical growth, it could also be life  transformation. It could be, you know, you know, transformation, personally, it  could be out in the community, it could be renewed marriages, or it could be a  bunch of things, you know, but it's, it's like, the full expression of like, the Holy  Spirit being made manifest through our ministry, okay, that's really kind of the  fruit. And so what Harry teaches and what I agree with, totally is that everybody  is wants to see like, more fruit like deal with like, we want more people, we want  more, whatever, we want to see the fruit. But the fruit is really just a byproduct of the roots and the structure or the trunk, right? So our focus is going to be is if we can understand where the roots are at and how the structure is. And we can  work on those and develop that we should naturally see more fruit, right?  Because if you have an orange tree, and it's not producing oranges, or the  oranges are small, or they're just not very good, but the problem isn't with the  oranges, right? This problem is either with something in the tree or the roots or  it's not getting enough water or it's not getting enough or nutrition, or the the,  you know, there might be a disease or insects or something that's prohibiting the fruit from appearing, right? So the problem isn't the fruit The problem is the rest  of the tree that's not producing the fruit. Okay, so we think of that with churches.  So there's a reason why, if you're in a place where you're struggling or declining, there's a reason why that is. It's so we don't want to just say, kind of address a  surface thing, like we need more fruit. Well, we need to talk about our own  relationship with the Lord, we need to talk about areas where where we need to  repent, we need to talk about the place of the gospel in our life, we need to talk  about being organized and having a clear mission and a clear vision and all  these kinds of things. That that will set us up well to experience the fruit that we  want to see. Right. I mean, that's why you're interested in this class right  revitalization because you want to see more fruit. And so what I want to do in  this whole class, is really what we're going to be doing. lecture after lecture after  lecture is, is really trying to what are the underlying issues? There's a lack of the fruit is, is the symptom? It's not the cause? So do you like going to a doctor, and  again, you have aches and pains, and you've got a fever, and you just feel  miserable, and you haven't, you've been feeling that way for a couple of weeks.  And the doctor gives you Tylenol. And well, it might help you feel better, it might,  you know, make the aches and pains go away a little bit, it'll reduce your fever, 

but But it hasn't solved anything, like what was causing you to have that whether you have some kind of virus or infection or whatever, like the Tylenol didn't treat  that like, and what we want to do in this whole series of lectures, is treat that like we'll deal we want to deal with the underlying thing. We don't want just to like,  

put a band-aid on it and give you Tylenol, we want to deal with a much deeper  thing. So we see this, I think in the revitalization world a lot because the church  is struggling. And people say, well, we need a new worship service. You know,  

that'll turn everything around. Or if we do this outreach event, you know, more  people would come in? I don't know, maybe. And maybe you do need a new  worship service, or to rethink that or, or maybe it'd be good if he did some kind  of outreach. But like, that's not like the real problem, right? I mean, like, there's  more going on, than, we just don't have the best singers in the world. Or if we  just didn't do this kind of song, or if we just did, whatever, I don't care if our  messages were just 10 minutes shorter or 10 minutes longer. You know, we're  always looking for some kind of a superficial thing. Like if, if we dress maybe  more casually, then everybody would come? No, they won't. It's like, there's,  again, there's complex structures. Churches are very complex. And there's a  million things and, and there's a reason why your church is the way it is, like  your reasoning and your, your values and, and how you understand the purpose of the church and, and what's most important and why you exist. These are all  things that are contributing to why your church is the way it is, right now. So just  by putting a band-aid of like, Oh, if we just put, you know, new paint in the youth  room, that'll change everything? Well, no, I mean, the youths might be like,  incredibly undervalued. And people aren't taking the time to know them or  understand them or communicate with them to get, you know, $8 a year for the  budget. Nobody's investing relationally in them. They don't have a place in  worship, they're having a hard time being discipled they don't fit into the  community. Okay, so we'll look at something like that and say, you know, you  could put 800 coats of paint on a wall. It's not, you know, the fact that you just do that it's a very surface kind of a thing. So as we talked about your, your church  and my church, broadly, we really want to talk about the overall things that  contribute to health. Now, that is a huge statement. We're going to talk about  this a ton, that our objective, when we're talking about revitalization is a healthy  church, church health, not necessarily growth, because fruit doesn't always  mean bigger numbers. You may Be in a rural area, you could be in a farm in the  middle of Kansas, a farm town in the middle of Kansas. And there's only 100  People who live within 50 miles of you. Well, it doesn't matter what you do,  you're not going to have 200 people coming to your your ministry, right, you're  not gonna be coming in your service. The idea is becoming a healthy church, a  church that is faithful to what Jesus Christ has called the church to be, and  faithful to what he's called the church to do. So the idea is we are healthy, we  have good roots, we have strong system, and we are a faithful expression of the

Body of Christ in our location in our generation, in our time, and in our place.  And so that if we're doing all the things that we're supposed to be doing, and  we're faithful to Jesus, we're going to be healthy. Another natural byproduct of a  healthy organism, organism or organization as it grows. It's, there's fruit, like a  healthy trees gonna have fruit and not healthy trees, not so much fruits. And  we'll talk at different times about what this fruit can be. But again, it could be, it  could be anything, it could be family staying together, it could be people just  maturing in their faith being more generous in stewardship, it could be people,  more people going to small groups and being discipled. It could be starting of  new ministries, it can be an outreach that impacts your community, it could be  evangelism and numerical growth, it could be a number of things. But our idea  here is not just going to be saying, our goal is more numbers, and we're going to talk about that in down the road, that our goal isn't just big numbers, more  numbers, bigger is better. It's really better is better. Okay. And so that's kind of  our mindset going into this. A healthy tree produces fruit, okay. And so, what  we're going to do in our next lecture is we're going to begin to diagnose what  some of the kinds of things that are going on in your ministry context, that would  be contributing to the trip to the doctor, right? This kind of this lecture series is,  this is your trip to the doctor. And we're going to start getting into that we're  going to start, I'm going to, hopefully equip you to be the doctor for your  congregation so that you can begin to see what is going on? And what are some steps that you can take to help them become more healthy. Okay. And just the  question I have for you, and I want you to keep this in mind as we go through  this process. It's just who was praying for you during this process, you're really  going to need that prayer. You're really You really do. This is more than you can  handle on your own. I don't care how smart you are, I don't care how gifted you  are, how committed you are, how talented you are, how hard you're willing to  work. This is a ministry of the Lord, and apart from the Lord, we know from the  Gospel of John, I am the vine, you are the branches apart from me, you can do  nothing. So just in your own personal relationship with the Lord and having other people pray for you. This is a work of resurrection wouldn't so who was praying  for you get those people on board, tell them what you're trying to do. And get  them praying for you. And in with you. Okay. With that, let me close out by  praying for you. Lord, thank you so much for the gift to your church. Thank you  for brothers and sisters who are who care so much about it, they they, they they  can't stand to see it unhealthy Lord. It bothers them and they are moved to do  something about a God I thank you because that prompting is from your spirit.  It's your heart. It's your love at work in them. And God I pray that as they begin  this very challenging task, we would remember the words that you spoke to the  church in Philadelphia that the door that you open Lord cannot be shut and God  I pray that you would open doors for everyone. Listening to these lectures, God  opened the doors for new life for vitality, renewal, revitalization. That Lord Your 

Holy Spirit would blow in and through them their lives, their ministries, their  families, and God, great things would be done in and through them. Lord, we  love you and we praise You for your gifts and your trust in us to lead your  church. We pray this in Your name, amen.