ChurchSmart Resources on Congregational Spiritual Revival
Referenced in: Congregational Renewal through Spiritual Revival
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
In the broader work of congregational renewal, spiritual revival certainly has its place. As indicated in the Resource Guide on this subject, not all those interested in church renewal will wish or need to see their situation through the eyes of revival. Revivals are unique and unusual occurrences, and it is impossible to deny the importance of revival in scripture and Christian history. The important task in appropriating God’s work in revival, however, is to distinguish between true and counterfeit phenomena. The first step toward this is to understand how God brought revival in biblical history, and then to let these episodes serve as benchmarks for the current day. These works by the scholar-practitioners associated with ChurchSmart Resources help toward that end.
- Kenneth Quick, Stuart Hoffman, and Julie Becker, Healing the Heart of Your Church: How Church Leaders Can Break the Pattern of Historic Church Dysfunction. Churchsmart Resources, 2003.
- Kenneth Quick, Body Aches: Experiencing and Responding to God’s Discipline of Your Church. Churchsmart Resources, 2009.
- Mark Barnard, The Path of Revival: Restoring Our Nation, One Church at a Time. Churchsmart Resources, 2009.
These are thoughtful contemporary resources on congregational revival. Not all will appreciate these volumes, but it is probably beneficial to position one’s heart more receptively to their message and allow God to reveal the redeeming value for one’s life and ministry. Two of the volumes come from Dr. Kenneth Quick, whose writings are informed by a background in ministry practice, marriage and family therapy, and biblical scholarship. The other volume is from Mark Barnard, a close associate to Dr. Quick. Each is published by Churchsmart Resources, the same organization behind Natural Church Development.
Be forewarned. These authors’ prescriptions for church renewal call for deep biblical, spiritual, and emotional work that goes to the very core of personal and corporate existence. Also, those who may be prone to caricature works with words like “revival” and “discipline” in their titles as shallow, proof-texting, fundamentalist pablum would be dreadfully off target in this case. These volumes are substantive. Their importance may escape an armchair theologian with little direct experience in congregational life. Experienced ministry practitioners, however, will appreciate the biblical and theoretical soundness. In fact, these features were the first attraction leading to their inclusion on LifeandLeadership.com
In the opening chapter of Healing the Heart of Your Church, Quick lays out his essential message:
We enter these churches where bad things have happened with previous pastors, boards, influencers in the congregation over the course of one, two, three decades or more. It becomes like a sick inheritance whose repercussions the new pastor slowly begins to experience. Any number of traumatic things could have happened – splits, moral failures, power plays by board members, spiritual abuse – to wound the corporate heart of this church, and little has been done to heal its wounds or right its wrongs. The premise of this book is that the Lord of the Church does not let much else happened corporately – dynamic spiritual growth, God’s kind of love demonstrated in relationships, revival or renewal, to name a few – until these wrongs are righted and the wounds receive attention. The crucial work of assessing and healing the corporate heart of a church, when bypassed, can derail the chance to achieve any other purposes and goals in ministry that church leaders might have. Moreover, if we miss this step in the process, we may have to kiss our health or our joy in ministry goodbye. (12)
Doing this difficult work strikes against the church’s natural tendency to look for quick fixes. Over against these tendencies, Quick suggests going to roots of problems and unearthing the deeper issues we may be afraid to look at. He says, “Like setting a broken bone, facing the problems of the past will be initially painful, yet brings the possibility of increased health for the future.” (9) He uses a combination of scriptural teaching (e.g. the letters to the seven churches of Asia in Revelation 2-3) and family systems theory to help churches acknowledge and heal congregational histories that involve church splits, abusive leadership and followership, miscarriages of justice, gross immorality, sinful reactivity, lack of needed church discipline, or patterns of ignoring serious problems.
In Body Aches, Quick takes this a step further by addressing how congregational difficulties may be demonstrations of God’s loving discipline. He discusses common, yet inappropriate reactions to this discipline, and suggests healthier, more redemptive responses.
In The Path of Revival, Quick’s associate, Mark Barnard, launches from 2 Chronicles 7:14 to suggest that American churches should seek genuine revival as a turning point to overcome their missional ineffectiveness. Quick and Barnard work together in Blessing Point Ministries, a training and consulting service with a “vision to restore the radiance of Christ’s Bride – one church at a time and in so doing spark a movement that transforms the Church and culture at large.”
From the Publisher
For Healing the Heart of Your Church:The statistics documenting pastoral unhappiness and frustration are everywhere. Most surveys indicate that eight out of ten pastors consider themselves discouraged in ministry. What s more, most pastors have heard the super ministry success stories and have tried to implement many of the same principles in their church only to see the same failed results they always have. Why? The difference between success and us. Many of the success stories we have heard of come from church plants where the founding pastors have been a part of the vision and growth from the beginning. However, in many small, medium and large churches, there were problems rooted in the church s history and pattern of behaving before we even got there. This history and these behaviors derail any leadership attempt to lead the church to significant church growth. The frustrated pastor usually has no clue where that brick wall came from or how it got there, and certainly no idea how to remove it. The premise of this book is that the Lord of the Church does not let much else happen corporately until these wrongs are righted and the wounds receive attention. The author shares his story of how the Lord helped him lead his church through the corporate healing process. He gives biblical guidelines on why this is necessary and how you can do it too. Healing topics include:
- Past Shame
- Sinful reactivity
- Splits Pastors who abuse
- Churches that abuse pastors
While the road to healing may not be easy, it is possible and necessary.
For Body Aches: Why does our church seem to experience pain? No believer walks too far along the narrowing path of discipleship without discovering experientially why “disciple” and “discipline” come from the same root. While there have been many books written on Spiritual Disciplines (primarily focusing on personal spiritual habits), there is very little written about God’s discipline of an entire church body. You may wonder why your church struggles with the same problems over and over? Or, you ask, why should you experience pain leading the one community on the planet which should be marked with love, peace and unity? This book gives the proper diagnosis to churches that are in pain and can’t understand why they struggle. Many pastors will recognize their congregations and themselves in the characteristics the author defines. Leaders will see that it isn’t a program or a particular person standing between them and healthy ministry. Instead, churches, pastors and leaders may understand for the first time that Jesus has something to say to them as a church. Indeed, He has been speaking to your church for some time.
For The Path of Revival:
Has America lost God’s blessing? As we survey the Church in America, we see a nation full of local churches in dire need of corporate revival. Many are unaware of their need. Our nation’s decaying culture spirals down in concert with weak churches, leaving them isolated and irrelevant as true change agents. Unless these churches gain new spiritual vibrancy, nothing will stop the secularization that suffocates Christ’s bride … if we long to see this nation blessed and influence the world for Christ, we must avoid the fate suffered by the churches in Europe. They could never regain their spiritual footing. Now they are irrelevant in their cultures. We still have time, but probably not long.
About the Authors
Dr. Kenneth Quick is the Director of the Ministry Leadership Program and Chair of the Practical Theology Department at Capital Biblical Seminary in Lanham, Maryland. Previously, he was pastor for 13 years in Toronto, Canada and for 10 years in Michigan. Ken has earned his Doctor of Ministry degrees in both Communication and in Marriage and Family Therapy.
Mark Barnard is director of Blessing Point Ministries. Blessing Point is a nonprofit ministry working to heal and revive the hearts of local churches. Mark grew up in Morristown, NJ and is a graduate of Nyack College. Ordained by the Christian and Missionary Alliance, he has served in a variety of pastoral and teaching roles. Mark is also coauthor of the “Healing the Heart of Your Church” workbooks.
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