Is your church’s best chapter still ahead of it? I believe it is — and I’ve watched it happen.

Two years ago I took on a small, ageing congregation in Otaki (20-25 people, mostly elderly) in a town where one church had just lost its minister and another was about to close its doors for good. Using the principles behind the Church Revitalisation Journey (CRJ), here’s where we are today:

• Sunday attendance has grown to 40-50
• A closed church in Te Horo is now a thriving community church, drawing 30+ each week
• A weekly Food Share feeds 30-50 people — and has opened real doors for pastoral care and prayer, it’s as if the mission field has come to us.
• Local churches have joined together for round-the-clock prayer over our community, one day a week.
• We are still a small church, but we are moving in the right direction!

This isn’t a US import stretched to fit. The CRJ has been reshaped specifically for what small and medium NZ churches are facing right now — many of them fighting to survive, not just to grow.

Here’s what it offers you:

• A pastor-led process — you lead; we coach, encourage, and support
• A ready-made set of discussion sessions and slides, so you’re not starting from a blank page
• We handle the groundwork — congregation survey, attendance trends, and a review of your vision and values
• Typically, 4-6 sessions to a clear, practical, congregation-owned plan

I’d love to talk with you about what this could look like for your church — no obligation, just a conversation.

Give me a call or drop me an email at 021 720777 or gradon@northsouth.nz— or find out more about North South Ministries at http:/northsouth.nz — and let’s talk about your church’s next chapter.

How the Church Revitalisation Journey Works.

It’s now pastor-led – you lead, we coach, encourage and support.

You’re being asked to commit around six weeks to this process, so here’s an honest look at what that involves.

Before you begin

• A questionnaire goes out to every member on the church database — a snapshot of how people see the church right now
• We put together a graph of average attendance in May over the last three years, where the data is available
• We take stock of your current community-facing ministries
• We gather any vision, mission, and values statements the church has adopted in the past
• You choose a mix of emerging and current leaders to take part
• A recorder is appointed to keep discussions focused and to help shape the slides for each session, taking that load off you

Session One: Laying the Foundation

There’s no fixed checklist for session one — what comes up here shapes everything that follows. Expect to cover:

• Questionnaire review — what stood out as encouraging, and what concerns came through
• The life cycle of a church — using Charles Handy’s model, an honest conversation about where you sit on that continuum
• The Snapshot exercise — naming your church’s Struggles, Notables, Alarms, and Possibilities
• A look at existing vision, mission, and values statements (or, if you don’t have one, drawing out the values your church already lives by)
• The God Dream exercise — in pairs, imagining what your church could look like with unlimited people, money, and resources, then voting as a group on what matters most
• Naming any hindering values in your church’s DNA that need to go — things like fear of taking risks, or an inward-looking mindset

Sessions Two Onward: Shaped Around Your Church

Deliberately, we don’t lock this in ahead of time — what your church needs to work through next depends entirely on what surfaces in session one. Broadly, the remaining sessions (usually four to five, sometimes fewer) work through:

• The gifts, talents, and expertise already in your congregation, along with any existing partnerships and “divine serendipities” worth paying attention to
• A new, shared vision for where your church is heading
• What’s worth starting, what needs improving, and what may need to be let go of
• A first draft of a way forward — written by you, refined with input from the group, with people identified to help carry it
• How the changes will be communicated to the wider congregation

Most churches complete the Journey in four to six sessions in total. It’s a process of turning your church to face outward — into your community and beyond — at a pace that fits where you actually are.

Next…

What Others Are Saying and The Support Crew