As many of you know, I've moved from Kingston in Tasmania to Blacktown in Sydney. That move was the result of the call of God from a church that needed gospel renewal. God is in the business of church planting, but also revitalisation. That's obvious from Revelation chapters 2 and 3. We need existing churches to be healthy and so continue playing their role in building God's Kingdom including planting new churches.

It's been a challenge to think through a thoroughly biblical approach to church renewal. Together with the elders we have been leading the congregation through the following:

1.  A time of repentance

     As a church we seek to 'remember from where we have fallen' (Rev 2:5). This includes confession of sin and repentance from all that has been and is wrong in the church, and must start with the leaders (2 Chron. 7:14). We pray for the convicting power of the Holy Spirit to bring about repentance and faith, so that instead of fear and negativity in the church, there is joy and love towards each other. Repentance is of course a disposition for life (see the first of Martin Luther's 95 Theses)

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2.  A new determination to put Jesus and the gospel at the very heart of the life of the church

    We seek to recover the priority of the gospel as the ‘beating heart’ of the church (Rom 1:16-17), through preaching, small group studies and discipleship. This will take time, as the gospel needs to be ‘caught’ as the Spirit presses the truth of the Word home to people over an extended time of such teaching, preaching and study. 

3.  A new commitment to regular corporate prayer for the church

     Establishing a regular time of corporate prayer for the church and its work (Acts 4:23-31; 1 Thess. 5:17, Col 4:2-4). Prayer is the work, because God acts when we pray. So any successes in ministry, any breakthroughs at work, any growth in faith or new conversions, any act of service is really an answer to prayer. In reality it is Christ alone who builds the church. Without his power at work we can do nothing. As Spurgeon once said, Without prayer what are the church’s agencies, but the stretching out of a dead man’s arm, or the lifting up of the lid of a blind man’s eye?  Only when the Holy Spirit comes is there any life and force and power. 

4.  A new direction for the church

   Setting a new biblical direction/mission for the church and inviting people to subscribe
   to this.

5.  Make a new start (symbolically, or actually if necessary), closing the existing church & opening the new church with a new vision and direction.

For those working at church renewal can I suggest some books well worth reading:
Outgrowing the Ingrown Church by C. John Miller
From Embers to a Flame by Harry L. Reeder III
Church Planting is for Wimps by Mike McKinley
Comeback Churches by Ed Stetzer