THE FIRST OF SEVEN
This is the first of a seven part blog series focused on church renewal. I believe I have some wisdom on this subject. I've served on staff of one church and been a pastor of three other churches for 22 years. In the pastorate, two of the churches were new and grew rapidly and prospered. The other church was a legacy church that had been losing a 100 people in attendance a year for seven years in a row (yes, -700 in seven years). Reminds me of the lean years in Joseph’s vision concerning Egypt from Genesis. Anyway, we were able to stop the decline but could not bring about the renewal that was needed. Honestly, when I left that church after six hard years, I was in severe burnout.
In between pastoring these churches I served in several denominational capacities. This allowed me to also minister in churches as a transitional pastor. I've completed 13 transitional pastorates in my ministry so far. Each of these has been a bit different, but also fruitful and successful. None of them were the same; some were actually fun but some were also challenging; as you may imagine.
You may ask, “Why write about this subject of church renewal now?” Well, glad you asked. It's because in the Baptist association I serve, most of my churches need it. Some of our growing churches may not see the need, yet they're mainly growing from transfer growth. In other words, they are not growing by conversion of the pagan population. I’m not saying all our churches need renewal, but most do. What is sad, is that most will not see the need themselves.
Of course, this is a problem. To paraphrase Mark Clifton, “How is a dying church a testimony to the power of the Gospel?” Well, it’s not. People see a disconnect when we preach that the Gospel has power to defeat death, the devil and rescue souls from hell but can’t keep a local church from closing. Something has gone wrong, terribly wrong.
We shouldn’t blame society, because the Gospel has progressed in worse places and is thriving now in worse places. We shouldn’t blame the Gospel itself, because if we are faithful to it, we should see transformation on both a personal and corporate level. This should be widespread, but it's not.
Casting blame isn’t going to solve this problem anyway. But looking into what the Scriptures say about it may, if we will look honestly and then when changes need to be made, we turn decisively.
So if you are still in on reading this, I want to first engage your creativity.
Now we get to the heart of this blog.
I want you to imagine something with me. Imagine you’ve inherited an old family home. It’s been in your family for generations, but for the last 50 years, it’s been neglected, maybe rented out to careless tenants, and has fallen into disrepair. The paint is peeling, the garden is overgrown with weeds, and the inside… the inside is cluttered with generations of forgotten junk, dust, and decay. It’s your history, but it’s a mess.
So you decide to begin the long, arduous task of cleaning it out. You start downstairs, room by room, filling trash bags, sorting through what’s valuable and what’s not. Finally, you make your way to the attic. It’s dark and musty, and under a pile of old, dusty blankets and broken furniture, you find a small, locked chest. You pry it open, and what you find inside makes your heart stop. It’s the original deed to the property. But more than that, tucked inside is a letter from your great-great-grandfather, the man who built the house. In his own hand, he details his vision for the home—a place of hospitality, a beacon of warmth in the community, a refuge for the weary.
Suddenly, your work is no longer just cleaning. It’s restoration. You’re not just getting rid of junk anymore; you are reclaiming a vision. You now have the blueprint. You know what this house was always meant to be.
That is precisely what happened in the nation of Judah in the 18th year of a young king named Josiah. The nation was a spiritual ruin. It was cluttered with the junk of idolatry, inherited from Josiah’s grandfather Manasseh—arguably the most wicked king in Judah’s history—and his father Amon, who was just as bad. The house of God, the temple in Jerusalem, was so neglected that it needed a complete renovation.
And in the middle of this simple "house cleaning," the high priest Hilkiah found something that had been lost for generations. Underneath the rubble of neglect, he found the Book of the Law—God’s blueprint for His people. And when that book was opened, a light was flipped on in the dusty attic of the nation’s soul. For the first time in decades, they saw the dust, the decay, the rubble of their own hearts.
Some messes, you see, can only be seen when the light is on. And for the people of God, the light is always the Word of God. The question for them, and the question for us is this: When God’s Word exposes what really is, will we look honestly and turn decisively?
When God’s Word exposes the truth of our condition, God’s people must look honestly and turn decisively—personally and corporately. If we don’t, we will suffer the consequences. We learn this from the story of King Josiah in 2 Kings 22-23. We will explore this more in future blogs.
The theme for this series is a verse from the prophet Jeremiah, who was ministering during this very time. It says, “Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD!” (Lamentations 3:40, ESV)
To do that, we are going to walk a five-step pathway of renewal that King Josiah modeled for us. It’s a cycle of renewal that we can apply to our own lives, our families, and our church today.
The five steps are: Remind, Review, Refocus, Refine, and Reform. There will be a separate blog on each of these five steps using the story of Josiah as the backdrop, with perhaps a final seventh blog wrapping it all up.
I hope you’ll follow along. But I pray more than anything that there will be something here or something in the Scriptures that will inspire you to test and examine your ways and the courage to look honestly and turn decisively.
