Erik and Maggie McDaniel’s family of six children includes one they adopted as an infant, three siblings they adopted as kids, and another they adopted as a teenager. Erik compares his revitalization work at Grace Presbyterian Church in Jasper, TN to the different experiences of each of these children. While the McDaniels shaped almost every facet of the infant’s life, the sibling group came to them with some prior experiences, and the 15-year-old had experienced much more difficulty.
Erik says, “Church planting is like having a baby, and church revitalization is like adopting a teenager. With teenagers, you don’t have to potty train, teach them to walk, or teach them to read, but they have already been shaped, and not always in positive ways.” Revitalization churches typically come with difficult pasts, but they also have a foundation to build from and are valued parts of the body of Christ, not to be thrown away.
Recently earning his Doctor of Ministry through Birmingham Theological Seminary, Erik completed his dissertation on rural church revitalization and the importance of church fostering in revitalization. In his research, he learned that there isn’t a consensus on the definition of church revitalization, but pulling from common themes, he defines it as “bringing stability and restoring biblical vitality to a declining church.”
He also found that rural churches are neglected in conversation about revitalization. “The prevailing attitude seems to be, ‘Are rural churches worth our resources and investment? It seems God is slowly removing their lampstand.’ I disagree.”
Erik has learned that “rural is not so much a place on a map as much as it is a mindset.” He cites Robert Wuthnow’s research that describes “arrow life” and “circle life.” In rural towns, he explains, “Teachers have authority in the classroom, but in the Friday night bleachers, they become peers with the other fans. But if my dad is the preacher, he has authority over the teacher on Sunday, but when they see each other in the grocery store or they’re patients in the same waiting room, they’re peers. All of life is lived in this same town.”
Meanwhile, in the suburbs and some cities, life is an arrow: You go to school or work and back to home. You go to the doctor or store and back home. “It’s not all integrated. When you have suburbanites imposing that life on rural communities and saying, ‘Here’s what a successful church is,’ that’s not going to work.”
Erik also cites Ruby Payne’s research about how each socioeconomic class views everything from food to money uniquely. For a successful church fostering dynamic (i.e. churches partnering to support revitalization work), supporting churches must shift their mindset and learn from the community first.
Erik’s dissertation hypothesis is that not all revitalization work is the same; some churches need “body work” while others need “soul work.” He describes soul work as addressing things like leadership problems, sins, and apathy. “As Psalm 85 says, ‘revive us again.’ That’s the revitalization mindset. Lord, You gave us life; we lost it. You gave us life again; we lost it again, so revive us again.”
When talking about body work, Erik cites the Jerusalem church in Acts which grew exponentially. However, by Paul’s second and third missionary journeys, he was collecting support from other churches because the Jerusalem church’s numbers had dwindled. “Persecution rather than sin in the camp caused the body to shrink,” says Erik.
In our setting, these factors outside of the body of Christ could be factories shutting down and causing a decreased population or setbacks from COVID-19 shutdowns.
Currently, Erik sees Christians accepting stages in the life of a church: birth, incline, recline, decline, then death. “It’s almost assumed that all churches go through that. I don’t like that. This is not the cycle of the capital c Church. God does not give up on us, so why do we give up on churches?”
However, he thinks the Tennessee Valley Presbytery is ahead of the curve. “In my humbly outspoken opinion, I think our presbytery is leading in the area of revitalization. We have a long way to go, but we’ve come a long way. TVP has been doing this work for a while. Trinity Pres in Cleveland, TN went through revitalization about 15 years ago, but this was fairly isolated. Then, First Pres in Crossville and Wayside Pres on Signal Mountain also went through revitalization.”
Now, Christ Pres in Sweetwater, TN and Mountain Fellowship on Signal Mountain are currently in revitalization along with Grace Jasper, . Grace built an example of repeatable structures and pathways for revitalization. Erik calls this a “rough, flexible blueprint for rural church revitalization.”
Because the normal metrics of growth/success (such as number of people, conversions, or baptisms) don’t quite apply to rural areas, Erik lists four much more subjective metrics: character, content, competency, community. He asks the following questions that individuals and churches can use to discern their growth.
Character: “Do you look like the Fruit of the Spirit is more and more in you? Do you embody the Beatitudes more than you did five or ten years ago?”
Content: “Are you growing in your knowledge of the Bible and theology? Are you growing in your ability to discern sound doctrine from unsound doctrine?”
Competency: “Are you rightly applying the Word of God to life and helping others do the same? For elders, are you able to ‘elder’ better?”
Community: “Are you growing stronger bonds with people in the church outside of church-sponsored times? Are you connecting with the broader community?”
Using these metrics and hearing feedback from his congregation, Erik is thankful to say that Grace is growing. The church has also grown in numbers, from the original “faithful eleven” to an average of nearly 60 people at the church each Sunday.
Also, in 2015, the church had three elders and no deacons. Now, Grace has three elders, four deacons, one potential elder in officer training, and two potential deacons in officer training.
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