After three months and others after two years, what impact the Church Revitalisation Journey ( CRJ) has had on their church?
Foxton Salvation Army – Finished the CRJ in February 2023
3 months after….
Major Steph Herring’s thoughts
We are a small Salvation Army Corp at Foxton, at present, where we are doing ok, but when our Leadership Team came together with Gradon to work on how we saw our Community, the make-up of this, and our church people. What talents and gifts we had amongst our people, it was a real eye-opener into what and who we actually had on our own doorstep. Gradon made it fun, and that helped with the team who had a great sense of humour anyway. It opened our eyes to what we could actually do in small but significant ways for our Church and also our Community. Looking back on 3 months since this time we have done so many little things which are turning out to be big steps. We are seeing our team looking out of the box. For example, we have put in place 4 Celebration Sundays where we do Sundays very differently to bring our fringe people closer and to build those relationships deeper. We have done the first, very significant results with all who attended. Looking at our goals, and making these work, we have already seen 5 of our tactics in place (to bring change) being used & done. It has set us a pathway that is easily navigated for the future.
As the Pastor of this Church, I highly recommend ‘Church Revitalisation ’ to all. It’s an amazing way to set our eyes with purpose on God’s agenda in a way that accomplishes significance in people’s and community’s lives.
Me being a woman with a sense of humour, we loved Gradon’s relaxed way of doing this. We will be forever grateful to God for sending him to us.
Waikanae Baptist Church
Two years later….. we have grown by a third ( that’s 60 new people!)
People have joined us for all kinds of reasons, but some have come been because they were attracted to our outward-looking community focus, which has been a validation for us of the journey we have been on.
Before – where was the church at?
Our vision and focus energy-wise previously had been getting our internal processes sorted. We had community-facing ministries but we didn’t see much fruit or engage in much outreach with them.
What changes happened?
The Church Revitalisation Journey helped us to reconsider the outreach side of the church, both locally and internationally.
After we developed a plan and a process we set up an implementation leadership team to encourage and monitor our interface with the community. Most of our community-facing ministries like Mainly Music, Vege Coop, and Opp Shop have refocused in some way to make sure the gospel where appropriate is being shared. For example, our Opp shop now has an invitation sign on a screen on the outside window offering prayer -just ask at the counter.
We did some discussions about overseas missions during this time and felt drawn as a leadership to Muslim communities, but not sure how we might implement this other than by increasing our support of missionaries already working in this field. Through a series of events, we now are sponsoring two Muslim refugees to resettle in Waikanae, which when you look back at what we talked about two years ago, is kind of happening before our eyes in a way we could not have scripted. We are really excited about welcoming them to our community.
What was helpful about the journey?
It gave us a process for exploring what was possible, gave us an action plan on how to implement change, and helped us to turn a new way forward into a reality.
Abundant Life Church, Wellington
Pastor Hamish Thomson
Two years later …..we have grown overall by 20%, started a new congregation, and diversified our other two morning congregations, each now with a unique focus to outreach to an identified unreached demographic around us. We are expecting to see more growth now we have defined our focus.
Why do you like the Church Revitalisation Journey process?
Many Kiwi churches looking for a way forward, often look to success models from overseas, even though we live in a different culture, context, and people to the programme that worked overseas and wonder why we don’t have the same success. The CRJ took us on a journey of change as to what would work according to our values, our unique local culture, and our local context with the mix of kinds of people we have that worship with us.
We developed a way forward unique to us that is ours – we are happy to use overseas programmes like Alpha but only as they serve our purposes as we outreach to our local community.
Where was your church before your Revitalisation Journey?
We had reached a place where we were comfortable. We were happy where we were, although saying that we were also discontent, we knew we were called to more, but yet we were comfortable in the place we found ourselves in.
It wasn’t until Gradon and North-South came and we went on a journey that we were able to break free from this comfortable place. We were able to encourage our emerging leaders to come alongside existing ones and start to dream dreams. It is the emerging leaders that have been at the forefront of the new changes happening in our midst.
Give us an example of some change.
One of the nine characteristics of a healthy mobilised church is abundant generosity. One of our churches in Thailand had a crisis in that a child sponsorship organisation was pulling out of the area, leaving lots of vulnerable children. So we asked our congregation to step up and sponsor a child at $5 a week with local church staff covering any administration costs. We got 50 sponsorships on the first Sunday and there’s more to come. I’m not sure we would have had the same generous response two years ago.
What else was helpful?
Through a series of workshops, we gained clarity and agreement around our five core values which then determined the future shape of our ministry. It helped us see that there were some things that we needed to let go of and things we needed to pick up if we were to be true to ourselves and the great commission of Jesus. Because of the kind of journey, we had been on it was a lot easier than I thought, to bring about change. People had already seen the positive changes that had begun to happen. This was not about rearranging the furniture but changing our priorities to become the church God was calling us to be.
So if you had anything to say to pastors who were considering going on the Church Revitalisation Journey what would it be?
“Trust me, your church is going to go from strength to strength. You are going to go on a journey of discovery to bring about things you didn’t know were there. It’s going to give you the confidence to deal with some things that you are already aware of that need to change. You will find yourself in the new place that God has already prepared for you and your church.”
James Coleman
“I see the work of North-South with its focus on church mobilisation and evangelisation training, as part of the preparation God is doing in His church in NZ, to prepare it for the longed-for revival here.”
– Rev James Coleman. St Philips Revive ( church planting) in Stokes Valley ,author of Spirit and Truth /Encountering God and handling visions
The Support Crew
Gradon Harvey
Gradon has led successful Churches in NZ ( and Overseas) for 30 years. They all grew under his leadership. “The secret for Church growth is to find that special calling God has planned for you – it’s not rocket science but it does require prayer and diligent planning. I wish North-South had been around when things plateaued or I couldn’t work out what was next in the seasons we went through. I see the call of North-South to help facilitate the process, to coach and encourage those who want their dreams of a successful revitalisation church to become a reality”.
Gradon Harvey leads North-South – a faith-based organisation he started with some friends in 2019. He has recently finished Church Revitalisation Journeys ( six sessions usually over six months) with leaders and emerging leaders of Abundant Life in Wellington, Hills Community Church in Mapua, Hope Vineyard in Palmerston North, Waikanae Baptist and Foxton Salvation Army.
He was a pastor for thirty years here ( Masterton, Hawera Shannon, and Waikanae) and in South America. He has also led four New Zealand mission organisations either as NZ chair or, national director. He is currently an interim leader at Raumati Beach Church – part of the Vineyard movement.
