How Can a Church on the Brink Turn Around?

How do churches on the brink of closing manage to turn around? The book Anatomy of a Revived Church shows what they do differently, and why there is hope for your church. Here are Christian Holfeld’s aha moments.

I read a fascinating but also provocative book: Thom S. Rainer studied churches that were about to close and yet experienced renewal. He asks: What did they do differently from the ones that actually had to close? He sums up his findings in Anatomy of a Revived Church. These results encouraged me not to give up hope: even if a church is down to just a few people, we must not lose heart. Below you’ll find my most important aha moments, along with prompts and coaching questions for you.

Introduction

Many churches, whatever their denomination, are struggling with declining membership, aging congregations and stagnation. But there is hope for struggling churches, Thom S. Rainer stresses in his book Anatomy of a Revived Church. Rainer, an experienced church consultant and author, makes it clear right from the start: sooner or later, every church comes to a crossroads, change or closure. He makes a provocative observation:

“If given a choice between life and death, most church members and church leaders choose death if they have to make substantive changes in their churches.”

With this statement, Rainer draws on Alan Deutschman’s article “Change or Die” (Fast Company, 2005) and related medical findings (for example the observation from Johns Hopkins that two years after coronary bypass surgery, about 90 percent of heart patients have not changed their unhealthy lifestyle, even though their lives are at stake) to show that people often avoid change even when facing life-or-death decisions. Applying this insight to churches, Rainer concludes that many leaders and members would rather hold on to what they know, even if it puts the church’s survival at risk. In a sense, they choose “death” because their fear of substantive change wins out.

In other words: churches die because they avoid necessary change. In his short, practical book, Rainer describes seven principles he discovered in churches that made their way back from dying to life. For each principle, coaching questions invite you to honestly question how your own church does things. Be encouraged: change may be hard work, but it is possible, and it’s worth it!

The seven principles of revitalized churches

1. Take responsibility instead of making excuses

According to Rainer, the first step toward renewal is that churches stop blaming outside circumstances for their decline. In dying churches you hear things like:

“People out there just aren’t interested in church.” Or: “The megachurch down the road is draining our members.”

Churches like this push the responsibility outward, and stay passive. Revitalized churches, by contrast, recognize: the problem isn’t (only) “out there.” We ourselves have to change something! Rainer’s point, put sharply:

Dying churches blame others. Revived churches take responsibility.

This means that leaders and members accept their God-given responsibility to reach and care for people inside and outside the church walls, instead of looking for reasons why that supposedly can’t be done.

Coaching questions

• Do you tend to look for reasons outside your church (secularization, competition from other churches, a lack of resources) to explain why nothing is moving forward? A practical test: pay attention to the conversations on your leadership team. Are they more about complaining about circumstances or about concrete steps you can take yourselves?
• What role do you play in your church’s web of relationships, and how would things change if you consistently took responsibility for one area in that role?
• What if you announced tomorrow that, on one specific problem, you would stop complaining about outside circumstances and get a concrete solution started instead? How would the team react?

2. Question traditions: what about the sacred cows?

Another mark of revived churches: they don’t get tangled up in the snares of unexamined traditions. Traditions aren’t bad in themselves, but they can become an invisible trap. Rainer warns: when certain habits or forms become a fixation or an obsession, they turn into idols. In other words: wherever “we’ve always done it this way” becomes more important than the actual mission, tradition stands in the way of the mission. These “sacred cows” can be all sorts of things, from particular music and worship styles and rigid routines to the committee structure or even how the church building is used. Revitalized churches had the courage to examine these things honestly. They asked themselves: Does this tradition still help us reach people and follow Jesus? If not, they were willing to let go or to try something new, even if it was uncomfortable at first.

Coaching questions

• Which “sacred cows” are there in your church? Are there programs, habits or cherished forms that no one dares to question, even though they bear little fruit?
• What would happen if you stopped doing it or did it differently? Would it hurt your mission, or might it even open up new possibilities?
• Suppose you could get rid of one tradition with no risk at all: which one would you cut first, and what does that say about why you hold on to it?
• If an outsider watched your worship services, which tradition would jump out at them first, and what would happen if you radically rethought it?

3. Define new measures: rethink success

How can you actually tell whether a church is healthy and moving forward? Many churches have defined their “success index” too narrowly, usually in terms of attendance or finances. Rainer found that revitalized churches expanded their scorecard. They no longer looked only at outward numbers (such as membership), but above all at spiritual growth and missional fruit.

Revived churches don’t fixate on numbers; they make God great by making disciples. That is how Rainer describes the new focus (paraphrased).

So instead of just counting how many come on Sunday, these churches ask: Are people being formed into disciples? Are faith and devotion growing? Are there conversions and baptisms? In fact, renewed churches began to change how they kept score and to put conversions on the scoreboard too, paying closer attention to whether people were coming to a living faith, not just whether programs were running.

Coaching questions

• How do you measure whether your church is on a good path? Do you stick to easily measurable figures (attendance, offering, building use), or do you have indicators for spiritual growth?
• Which small indicators could you start tracking right away to see whether discipleship is growing (for example, the number of personal testimonies), and how will you get started immediately?
• What would change in how your leadership team acts if, alongside attendance figures, you also wrote down one example of community lived out every week?

4. Make prayer a priority: on your knees first

True renewal is ultimately not human work but God’s work, which is why passionate prayer plays a key role in every revived church. Rainer found that in most dying churches, prayer had become a side issue: often only a few faithful people prayed in the background while most had little part in it. In the revitalized churches, however, prayer became a priority (again). Rainer’s point, paraphrased:

Prayer is a prerequisite for revitalization and, at the same time, a fruit of it.

In other words: without intense prayer, no real renewal happens, and where renewal happens, prayer keeps growing. Some churches started new prayer meetings, launched prayer groups or called the whole church to regular intercession. What stood out most: these churches prayed not just for themselves, but also for other churches in their area. Instead of thinking in terms of competition, they asked God to do something new everywhere.

Coaching questions

• How central is prayer in your church, really? Does prayer hardly happen beyond a few short intercessions on Sunday? Then this is a wake-up call.
• How does your personal prayer life shape the prayer culture of your team, and what would happen if you visibly started more times of prayer?
• If God ignored your plans for the next few months until you launched a serious prayer initiative, how would you notice?

5. Deal with toxic behavior: recognize the poison and remove it

In churches in crisis you often find a poisoned atmosphere: simmering conflicts, power struggles, chronic complainers or cliques. Rainer calls these destructive influences “toxins” in the church. If they stay, they can spread and kill the church from the inside over the years. The revitalized churches, on the other hand, faced their toxins. That means they identified unhealthy behavior and tackled it with courage. It’s important to understand what exactly “toxic” means. A toxic person isn’t simply someone who criticizes now and then, but someone who consistently divides and poisons, for example through constant gossip, stirring up trouble or sabotaging shared decisions. Healthy churches have an open and constructive feedback culture, but they don’t ignore toxic behavior. Rainer reports that revived churches learned to confront harmful behavior: in pastoral conversations and, if necessary, through steps taken by church leadership. They built a culture where encouragement rather than bitterness prevails. That transforms the community:

Unspiritual churches have members who are angry and blame others; revived churches have members who serve and encourage one another. (Paraphrased from Rainer)

Coaching questions

• Are there “toxic” patterns in your church that everyone knows about but no one addresses? Maybe one person poisoning the atmosphere with constant complaining? Or hidden cliques that shut others out?
• If you listened as an outsider to how people talk about conflicts, what signs of toxic dynamics would you notice, and how would you point them out to the team?
• What first small step could you take right away as leaders to interrupt toxic patterns, and how will you put it into practice soon?

6. Don’t expect miracle cures: patience instead of instant solutions

In desperation, dying churches often search for the one miracle recipe: “If we just buy X or hire Y, everything will be fine!” Whether it’s a new program, a young, dynamic pastor, a modern stage or the trendy event, people hope that one change will solve all the problems at a stroke. But revitalized churches have recognized: there are no such silver bullets. Instead of waiting for one big breakthrough, they relied on many small steps of faithful change. Rainer describes how the revived churches stopped looking for quick fixes. Instead, they focused on what the Bible has long made clear: proclaiming the truth, practicing love, discipleship and prayer, and they did it persistently.

True change in our churches must be rooted in the truths of Scripture, saturated in prayer and empowered by God alone.

This statement (paraphrased from Rainer) sums up what matters. No marketing trick and no single event can replace God’s transforming power. Of course revitalized churches tried new things too, but they knew that in the end it is God himself who gives the growth, and that deep change takes time, prayer and perseverance.

Coaching questions

• Are you secretly expecting a “miracle cure” for your church?
• What would happen if you expected renewal to take ten years? How would you plan, allocate resources and stay motivated differently today?
• If a supposed miracle cure suddenly disappeared (for example a program, a source of funding or outside experts), what would you rely on then, and how would you strengthen it?

7. Live membership with clear expectations: moving forward together, fully committed

Last but not least: revived churches redefine membership as a committed community with expectations. In many churches, being a “member” is little more than a formal status. You’re in on paper, without much coming of it. Revitalized churches broke with that. They made it clear: being a member of the church means being part of the active body of Christ! That includes expectations like regular participation in church life, sharing responsibilities, spiritual growth and contributing your own gifts. Some churches prepared new members for this responsibility with required membership classes. Existing members were reminded, lovingly but clearly, what they had said “yes” to. Church isn’t a spectator event, it’s a life you take part in. Rainer stresses that a pastor can’t lead a successful renewal alone:

When a pastor leads a healthy revitalization, he doesn’t do it alone. The church has pitched in too.

In other words: everyone pulls together. Christians who go it alone don’t fit this picture. Lone-wolf Christianity is a contradiction in terms, as Rainer aptly puts it. Instead, these churches developed a culture where every member knows: I am needed, and I share the responsibility.

Coaching questions

• How is membership lived out in your church? Are there clear expectations and real involvement, or lots of people who are members only on paper?
• What effect would it have on your church as a whole if every member openly shared their expectations and contributions for one week, and how would you design that format?
• Imagine a potential member asks: “What concrete contributions and commitments do you expect from me?” How would you answer, and what does that reveal about how clear your membership culture is?

Conclusion: the courage to change, hope for your church

Thom S. Rainer ends his book with an urgent message: it is up to us whether a church lives or dies. No church is condemned to die, but every church can choose to stay stuck in old patterns and so choose death. The examples of the revived churches show powerfully that new life can grow even where everything already feels like a funeral, when leaders and members are willing to take the painful road of renewal. Rainer writes:

“In essence, the revived churches chose to live. That choice was arduous. That choice was challenging. That choice was painstakingly slow at times. That choice was almost always painful. That choice required church members and leaders to put God and others before themselves. That choice was sacrificial. But in the final analysis, that choice was a choice of life.”

That is encouraging: yes, change costs something. Yes, it will cost sacrifice, time and nerves. But it’s worth it, because nothing less than the survival and the future of your church is at stake.

No change happens overnight, but every small step counts. Take responsibility, question boldly, pray passionately, love your brothers and sisters through conflict and rely on God’s power instead of quick fixes. With that in mind: have the courage to take the first step today. God isn’t finished with your church. On the contrary, maybe you are on the verge of a new chapter. It’s up to you to say “yes” to life now. Go for it, and trust that the God of the resurrection himself will lead you and breathe new life into you!

English version: October 2026

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