7 Characteristics of a Failing Church: Part 2

Dan Hurst:

Welcome to Revitalize and Replant with Mark Clifton and Mark Hallock, where we equip pastors to take their churches from declining to thriving by pointing them to a new future and a new hope. Join us weekly for encouragement and practical advice in your pastoring journey.

Welcome back to part II of Revitalize and Replant with Mark Clifton, Mark Hallock, I’m Dan Hurst. There is Matt MacNaughton sitting over there at the controls playing the part of Kyle Bueermann. Last time we were together, we were talking about the Seven Characteristics of a Failing Church. We didn’t quite get through that because we got to talking about Legos.

Mark Clifton:

We did. And it was an important discussion.

Dan Hurst:

And between part one and part two, that discussion continued because Hallock took off on some big theological doctrinal approach on Legos. What was that all about?

Mark Clifton:

It was good. It was good.

Dan Hurst:

You lost me. Like, “I like to watch a game, but I’ll record it.” What was that?

Mark Clifton:

We’ll get there. We’ll get there.

Mark Hallock:

I don’t know. I don’t know.

Mark Clifton:

Well, these are seven characteristics and this is not exhaustive. There are more than seven characteristics.

Dan Hurst:

Oh, yeah. Boy, are there.

Mark Clifton:

There are more than seven characteristics of a declining church. But these are at least seven characteristics of a declining church. And number one, a failure to teach people how to apply the word. Number two, the church culture replaces the church’s mission. Number three, families that are in control rather than Jesus being in control. Number four, no real strategy for new attenders, new members to become part of the church culture and really older members.

Dan Hurst:

That’s where we got into the doctrine of Legos.

Mark Clifton:

Yeah, because we were talking about that. You have to go back and listen to it because… Well, it won’t make any sense even if you go back and listen to it. But the issue was that I found this store in Kansas City where you could buy Legos already put together. I mean, who wouldn’t want to do that? So I went in and I bought this huge Saturn V rocket about five feet tall. I guess it would take a long time to put that together. I wouldn’t know. But I thought, I could just buy that because people put them together and bring them to the store and sell them. I realize now the idea is you’re supposed to take it home, take it apart and then put it back together. I go, “That’s crazy. I’m not taking it apart.”

Mark Hallock:

I’m not doing that. The work’s done.

Mark Clifton:

Work’s done. I don’t want to do the work. I just want the reward.

Dan Hurst:

I was like, “I want to pastor a church that’s already successful.”

Mark Clifton:

That’s true. So I bought this huge, huge Lego Saturn V. I also bought the LEM, the moon lander, pretty detailed.

Mark Hallock:

Oh, wow.

Mark Clifton:

And so I put it in my little den and my grandkids were like, “Grandad, that’s amazing.” Grandma goes, “He bought it like that.” “Why would you do that?” “Well, because it’s already done.” And Hallock reminded me that in my little conferences, I talk all the time about how Jill and I, we watch hockey or football. I don’t waste my time if they’re going to lose. So I record the games and if they win, then the next day I watch it. If they lose, I delete it. It’s like what’s the point?

Mark Hallock:

I joke because every time I’m in the room when Clifton tells that story, I look around and guys are coming out of their skin going, “Are you serious? That’s the whole stinking point, man. I want to watch the game. I want to watch the journey.” And then I was thinking about Legos and I’m like, “Listen, here’s the truth.”

Mark Clifton:

This makes no sense. You can’t put this in anything we’re talking about.

Mark Hallock:

I will say this though.

Mark Clifton:

Why?

Mark Hallock:

I think I can redeem this with the Lego thing. When it comes to a strategy, which we talked about last time of helping new folks become integrated into the church, become members of the church, growing members of church. Remember this, Legos-

Mark Clifton:

You can’t either.

Mark Hallock:

No, I get it. I get it.

Mark Clifton:

This is a stretch.

Mark Hallock:

It is a journey and it can be hard to put that thing together.

Mark Clifton:

Okay. There you go.

Dan Hurst:

Whoa.

Mark Hallock:

But you know what? It’s worth it.

Mark Clifton:

It’s worth it.

Mark Hallock:

It’s worth it.

Mark Clifton:

Or you could just go to a church already well.

Dan Hurst:

Yeah, that’s just the other option.

Mark Hallock:

That’s right. That what you’re looking for. It’s all put together. It looks like a rocket ship.

Mark Clifton:

Forget this flying stuff, just get me to a healthy church.

Dan Hurst:

Just start there.

Mark Hallock:

Clifton, you’re defeated the point of the podcast.

Mark Clifton:

Just buy your Legos already put together. Okay. So anyway, seven characteristics of a failing church. Number five, change is always perceived as something negative or that I’m going to lose something. So you’re pastoring a declining church right now. Not your fault. You just walked into it, but Dan’s been there for a few months of church in deep decline. So how do you see that even in your situation there at First Baptist?

Dan Hurst:

Well, change is feared. The amazing thing to me is they’ll say, “We need to change.” And then you would say, “Well, here’s something that we can do with change.” “Well, we don’t want that change,” because it’s feared. Change is always perceived as something negative. I don’t know why that is.

Mark Hallock:

Why is that, Clifton? Come on, tell us.

Mark Clifton:

Well, because again, as we said last week, very few dying churches are full of brand new Christians, this is their first church experience. Most dying, declining churches are full of older believers, most of us boomers, older boomers. And we’ve had just about enough change in our life, thank you very much. I don’t want to come up with another password in my life right now. I mean, I don’t want to come up with figuring out how I’m going to make a phone call on my smartphone. I could go on and on about that. How I’m going to watch my smart TV. If I want to watch a particular sporting event, I got to have a certain app to get that. Is it ESPN1 or 2? I used to just be able to flip the channels and I could find what I wanted.

And so change has come so rapidly in our technology, so rapidly in our culture, so rapidly in so many ways. And really we’ve had about all the change that we want to have. And so there’s this wonderful place, guys, we go every week and everything’s the same. There are two places where everything’s the same, maybe three, maybe even the third place, even the restaurant or thing on my hair place or my barbershop, that changes. But my home, I can keep it the same. You walk into an old person’s house, it looks same, right? And then my church and I can walk into that and everything looks the same. I know it’s predictable. And we find that predictability, we confuse that for security. I think because we live in such a dramatic time of change, people just are so resistant to it, older people particularly.

Dan Hurst:

And the irony of it is, and I’ve taken this church through this process of, “Tell me about the best times about this church and everything,” relive those good times and everything. And how do we get back to that? Well, that’s going to require change.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah, that’s right.

Dan Hurst:

And that’s the irony of it all. They want to go back to the way it was, but they don’t want to change to go back to the way it was.

Mark Hallock:

Exactly.

Dan Hurst:

And because it means giving up something that has developed that is comfortable. And it’s a comfortable faith, which is dangerous.

Mark Hallock:

Justin MacNaughton just sent me this text that they did this recent survey of just people in general. Nearly 70% of people find change irrational or stressful. 70%.

Mark Clifton:

How many times now when you call… I was getting a package delivered, a watch, and I wasn’t going to be home. And so I was going to call FedEx or UPS or whatever to tell them. You just call them and just tell them, “Hey, I’m not going to be home. Can we change it?” “Oh, no.”

Dan Hurst:

No.

Mark Clifton:

No, no. No, no, that’s not going to happen. You get only an AI thing. You do not get a person. I just pray. They say we may record this. Oh my word, if they recorded it and it ever got out, I’d probably lose my job because I’m yelling at the AI thing.

Mark Hallock:

Oh, no.

Mark Clifton:

“I just want to talk to somebody.” I’m like an old crazy man. This is like the third call. I go, “I know, I want to talk to somebody.”

Mark Hallock:

Oh, I know.

Mark Clifton:

It’s a circle thing. It’s like, “Why can’t I just talk to somebody? Can’t you put somebody on?” No, they can’t. You just can’t.

Dan Hurst:

Don’t you love it when they repeat your question?

Mark Clifton:

They repeat your question.

Dan Hurst:

It’s like, all right, if you know my question, why…

Mark Hallock:

Oh my word. Yeah.

Mark Clifton:

30 years ago that didn’t happen. I’m being kind of silly about that, but I think that’s what older people we get, that’s how we view change. So when you say we’re going to make some changes, it’s not really ever going to be good. It’s going to be complicated. It’s going to be difficult. I’m not going to understand it. I’m going to be left out. So I don’t want that kind of change. And so I think that we have to-

Mark Hallock:

It’s not a positive for most part.

Mark Clifton:

It’s not a positive thing at all, for sure.

Dan Hurst:

One of the things that I’m learning to do about change is to break it up into steps. So the end result, we tend to look at the end result and say, that’s where we’re going to be as opposed to what’s the next step. And so the change is actually the process. And I’ll look at it and say, “How many steps is it going to take to get to the end where we achieve that?” And then so the change is actually just that one step.

Mark Hallock:

It’s manageable.

Dan Hurst:

Yeah. Can we do this guys? Is this possible? So it’s not the end result. And I don’t want them to look at the end result. I want them to look at the next step.

Mark Hallock:

The next step.

Dan Hurst:

And go from there.

Mark Hallock:

That’s really good. All right guys, let’s look at number six.

Mark Clifton:

Well, one thing about change though before we go to six, I think one thing I have learned in my 15 years of working in dying churches is you really have to give them a greater joy than the one they get from not changing.

Mark Hallock:

Come on, man. Preach this.

Mark Clifton:

You can’t just guilt them into change. They may be guilted into it for a season.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah. “Got to do what pastor told us. I guess we’ll do it.”

Mark Clifton:

But if you can help point them to this is going to be a greater joy.

Mark Hallock:

Amen.

Mark Clifton:

Piper always said, “The way to defeat sin is to provide a superior pleasure.” If you can look at them, “This is going to be a greater joy. And for you to believe that, I want you to have a greater joy than this sort of phony joy you have by thinking if I keep things just like they are, I’m going to be happy because you can never keep things just like they are.”

Mark Hallock:

That’s right.

Mark Clifton:

And so by helping them pursue a greater joy and greater happiness, and that’s to point them to Jesus.

Mark Hallock:

Amen.

Mark Clifton:

And all your sermons and everything, just keep pointing them to him, pointing them to that.

Dan Hurst:

Yeah, because if change doesn’t have eternal value, then why do it?

Mark Clifton:

Exactly.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah, right.

Dan Hurst:

So coming in and saying, “Well, we’re going to change the color of this or we’re going to move the piano to that side of the auditorium,” or that sort of thing, that has no eternal value.

Mark Hallock:

Totally.

Dan Hurst:

Why do it?

Mark Hallock:

Well, that’s the mistake a lot of guys make is they make changes for the sake of making changes. It’s like that’s just dumb.

Dan Hurst:

Or convenience.

Mark Hallock:

Because as we talk about often in here, there’s a lot of things that should not be changed. So when you do make change, it better be wise and does it make sense? Is this going to move our mission forward as a church or is this just going to tick people off? Let’s be honest.

Mark Clifton:

And also, I think if you burn your bridges making changes that don’t really matter, then you’ve got nothing left when you need to make changes that really do matter.

Mark Hallock:

Dude, yes.

Mark Clifton:

And so you got to be real cautious about that at all. Okay. Number six, a vision with no mission. What’s that mean, Hurst?

Dan Hurst:

Well, we’ve talked about this a little bit, that it’s real easy to come up with a vision, say, “This is where we’re going to be, this is what we want to accomplish,” that sort of thing. But your church doesn’t understand what the mission of the church is. And if you’re not grounded in what the actual mission of that church is, and it’s easy to come up with all of these platitudes like our churches to reach, to quote the great commission, that’s our mission. Yeah, that is our mission, our overall mission. But what about the mission of this church, at this place, at this time, at this point in history? What is our mission right now? If we don’t have an understanding of that mission, there’s no way that we can develop a vision to get to that mission, to accomplish that.

We get it backwards. We develop a vision and then we say, “Okay, now we need to come up with a mission.” No, we don’t. We’ve got it all backwards.

Mark Clifton:

Well, and a lot of times their only mission is to stay open, not to die. And they can’t see beyond that. “That’s our mission is just keep the doors open. How do we do that?” And boy, that is a killer right there. Because then you’re making decisions not based on what Jesus wants your church to do or how you might reach people or grow the great commission, but how do we just keep from dying?

Dan Hurst:

But is that not just a vision without a mission?

Mark Clifton:

Sure it is.

Dan Hurst:

This is a vision. Let’s keep the church open. That’s right. But why?

Mark Clifton:

Why? What’s the point if we’re going to continue to die?

Mark Hallock:

Well, we’re driving around last night, Independence, and I’d never been there. This is where, Clifton, you grew up there. And I’m looking around and I’m getting just so excited for you and for First Baptist Independence because I’m going, “The diversity, there’s so much potential.” And it’s helping though the people come alive again to see, look at all the ministry opportunities around us. Look at all the people who need Jesus. What a unique in this time and place… Because you could see that church and go, “Man, the heyday, we’re past those, man. The glory days are over.” And I’m going, “Well, listen, see that 10-year-old kid riding his bike right there? He has no clue about the heyday of this church. That kid needs Jesus now and God’s put him in our life right now. So where are our eyes focused? Where are we looking?”

And that church is like so many churches. It’s like helping your people snap out of, we’re living in the past and going, “Who are the people right before us, the souls right before us that are just waiting to hear the gospel, man?”

Dan Hurst:

I think that we’ve said this again in another podcast that the truth of the matter is generally when we’re dealing in revitalization, what we’re doing is we’re planting a church that already has a building. And so how do you do that? You’re planting. I don’t even want to use the word replant in that case because the church already exists. We’re just planning the mission.

Mark Hallock:

What are we doing? Yeah.

Dan Hurst:

We’re planning the mission and growing a new church in an old building is really what it accounts to.

Mark Clifton:

Well, and they have to understand that, again, the vision and the mission, they have to see that it’s what Jesus wants for our church, not what we want for our church.

And I know by this time you’ve all heard me say everything I got to say 10 times, but you never ask people, “Are you for this or are you against this? Do you think we should share the building with another church? Do you think we should change our Sunday schedule? Do you think we should have Awanas?” You never ask them what they think we should do. It doesn’t matter what they think or what you think. The way you phrase that question, and we get the wrong answers because we ask the wrong questions, the way you phrase that question is, “How have you prayed about it? How long have you prayed about it? And what did Jesus tell you he wants you to do with his church?” And the way you say things matter.

Mark Hallock:

That’s right.

Mark Clifton:

And so to help them understand, I am responsible to be a steward of Jesus’ church, what would Jesus want me to do?

Mark Hallock:

Exactly. That’s right.

Mark Clifton:

Would Jesus want me to share this church building? I may not want to share it, but would he want me to do it? Would Jesus want me to open up the building on Wednesday night and let other groups use it? Is that what Jesus would want or what I would want? And help them frame it that way.

Dan Hurst:

It’s such a good word, Clifton, because I mean, if the people don’t have that sense, then they don’t have that sense for themselves as a church either.

Mark Clifton:

Right.

Dan Hurst:

If they don’t have that vision for another church, for another group, we have four congregations meeting in our building now. Last night when we were there, we could hear the Hispanic. The whole building is three stories tall. We could hear them down in the basement. It was loud, brother.

Mark Hallock:

Oh, yeah. They were going for it.

Dan Hurst:

They were going for it. And I thought, “I love this. I love this sound.” And we met Juan at the door. He was just meeting everybody and bringing, “Well, I have to stay here for people that are coming late.”

Mark Hallock:

I love that.

Dan Hurst:

And I thought, “How cool is that?” And the fact that we have a group of people who have bought into that.

Mark Hallock:

That’s exactly right. Yep.

Dan Hurst:

Kevin Payne was the pastor before I was, and he gave them that vision. He gave them that sense of ministry like, “We’ve got this place. Let’s let God use it.”

Mark Hallock:

How can we use it for Kingdom purposes?

Dan Hurst:

It’s not that we’re doing it’s that God’s doing it. And he’s including us.

Mark Hallock:

I love that. Good word. All right guys, last one. You ready?

Mark Clifton:

I’m ready.

Mark Hallock:

Number seven is a lack of true leaders.

Mark Clifton:

Well, we’ve said before in a declining church, what happens is the decision-making process has systemic problems. It just does, or it wouldn’t be declining, right? And if the decision-making process has systemic issues, systemic problems, people who are true leaders are going to get so frustrated with that over time, they’re just going to leave.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah, that’s right.

Mark Clifton:

They’re not going to waste their time in a place where they say, “I can’t make any impact here because the decision-making process…” Maybe we’ll do a task force to decide what we’re going to do about something. And I’ll work on that task force and I’ll lead that task force and we’ll do some great work and we’ll bring a recommendation to the deacons and the deacons will bring a recommendation to the church. And then when we do that, in business meetings, some people say, “Well, my brother tried that,” or, “We tried this,” or, “I don’t think that’s going to work or this could happen.” And we table it. And these people say, “I put all this energy into this and we don’t have a decision-making process that lets us follow through with this.”

And what happens is people who want to lead that aren’t allowed to lead, people who are gifted, I should say, in leadership and not truly allowed to lead will leave. And then what you have is a church full of… A leaderless church. And that’s what you’re going to have in many declining churches. You may have one or two guys who just stick it out and you’re grateful they’re there because they’ve gotten frustrated and they’ve left and they’ve gone someplace else.

Mark Hallock:

That’s why you’ve got to make leadership development a top priority.

Dan Hurst:

Oh, my.

Mark Hallock:

Everybody in your church, they need to know you are about raising up leaders, developing leaders and unleashing leaders. That goes back to what you’re getting ready to preach on with gifting. Part of the problem is, man, you got to get, we say this all the time, but you’ve got to get your people in the game using their gifts, unleashed to do the work of ministry. You’ve got some great leaders. You’ve got some men who are great leaders. You got some women who are great leaders. God’s given them passion to help lead in different areas of ministry. How are you not only equipping them, but unleashing them to do the work? That’s where new life begins, man. That’s when the spirit begins to move in power. But if you don’t, if you’re not into that or you’re a micromanager… I tell you what, man, you want to kill a church, be a micromanager in a small declining church.

Dan Hurst:

I met last night with our nominating committee. It’s time for our business meeting where everybody gets to know what committee they’re going to be serving on.

Mark Hallock:

Woo-hoo.

Dan Hurst:

And so all 423 committees, they have to have at least four members and there has to be a chairman of every one. And they were just fretting about the fact that they just couldn’t find… Nobody wanted to be the chairman of this particular committee. And there were several committees that didn’t have… And there were several committees that they couldn’t find four people for. And I said, “I’m going to be honest with you, that excites me. It excites me that we have openings because it tells me that if we’re going to get new people in here, we’re going to find a place for them to serve, for them to minister.” I said, “But I tell you what really bothers me is, let me ask you this, about these chairmen. Do you see them as leaders or as directors?”

Mark Clifton:

Oh, yeah.

Dan Hurst:

And that’s one of the key issues is we have a lot of directors in churches without the leaders.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah, that’s true.

Dan Hurst:

And we consider that somebody who is a director is a leader. Not true.

Mark Hallock:

Not necessarily true. No true at all.

Mark Clifton:

Not letting them lead.

Dan Hurst:

Tell me a little bit about how you develop leaders in your church, Hallock.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think it’s one, part of it is the culture, how you talk. Is there an expectation that we develop people, that we’re helping to grow people? So it depends on the different area of ministry. On every ministry team that we have, children’s ministry, youth ministry, women’s ministry, men’s ministry, one, we’re all about team, which means this. One of your jobs, if you’re a team leader, is you are building your team. So you’re raising up other team members. When I say that, I’m not just saying yes men, but on your team, you should have leadership slots for every person. In other words, the best teams are made up of leaders, if that makes sense.

Dan Hurst:

Good point.

Mark Hallock:

And so you’re a leader of leaders. Over time, what happens… Now again, part of it with our church, remember, we’re a multiplying church, so we’re planting and we’re sending people out all the time. We have to be developing leaders because we lose great leaders twice a year basically when we plan to replant a new church. So part of it’s in the DNA. It’s how are you reproducing yourself? And for me as the lead pastor, part of it is I have to bleed this. I’ve got to be the one who’s constantly encouraging and helping saying, “Hey, who are you developing right now? You’re losing half your team to go to this new church plant. What do we need to do to rebuild that team?” You know what I mean?

And you got to be strategic. We talk about this, the head, the heart, and the hands. What are you developing in people? You’ve got to help people learn what leadership is. Don’t just assume people get it. What is good leadership? What does that look like in ministry? The heart, do you love people well? Nobody’s going to want to follow you if you don’t love people well, love the Lord and love people. And then the hands, how do you actually lead people? What do you do? How do you have a conversation to cast vision with somebody? How do you recruit other leaders for your team? Because what happens is as you build teams, really our teams become teams of teams. Our children’s ministry may have started 17 years ago with one sweet lady who volunteered. Well, now that is a team of leaders with subteams. We’ve got a preschool team, we’ve got a kindergarten team. You see what I’m saying? And on and on it goes.

I would say this, you yourself, you can’t lead, you’ve got to develop yourself as a leader. This is where there’s so many great basic leadership books to help you grow yourself. I know for me early on, honestly, is reading guys like John Maxwell, Developing the Leader Within You. I remember reading that when I was 20 years old and I’m like, “Man, this is gold.” He wrote a book called The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. I read that when I was like 22. I still think about that stuff all the time. So there’s simple, great stuff. A lot of this is not rocket science, but it’s learning how do I grow myself as a leader so that I can develop other leaders who can develop leaders.

Mark Clifton:

And, brothers, I don’t want to end this necessarily on a harsh note, but I was with Richard Blackaby one time and he related to me a story of a guy that came up to him after one of his presentations and the guy said, “You don’t understand, Richard. There’s just no leaders in our church. Just none. I got no leadership at all. I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Richard said, “Well, how long have you been there?” I don’t remember exactly what he said, 12, 15 years. It was a long time the guy had been there. And Richard said, “Well, that’s your fault.” Now Richard said it in a sweet way, but he still said it.

Mark Hallock:

He still said it.

Mark Clifton:

And the guy was stunned. And he said, “It’s your job as the pastor to develop leaders.” He said, “But before you get too angry with me, let me give you some good news. You can learn to do that.”

Mark Hallock:

Yes, exactly.

Mark Clifton:

“You can learn to do that, but you’ve got to learn to do that. It just doesn’t come naturally to some of us.” He said, “So the bad news is that’s your fault. If there are no leaders in your church, you’ve not developed any, but that’s because you don’t know how. The good news is you can learn how.”

Mark Hallock:

You can learn how to do it. That’s right.

Mark Clifton:

And there’s a lot of opportunities to do that, and you can learn from other pastors and other leaders.

Mark Hallock:

Totally, find guys who are doing it.

Mark Clifton:

You can’t just say, “Well, I can’t do this.”

Mark Hallock:

Yes, that’s right.

Mark Clifton:

Right? We talked about Legos. I can’t build them, so I just buy them already put together. But if I really want to have the full experience, I got to learn how to do it. And so you can learn how to do these things. I would say, pastor, if you don’t have any leaders in your church, make that your first movement is to say, “Man, how can I learn to be a developer of leaders?”

Mark Hallock:

Amen. That’s so good, man.

Dan Hurst:

Okay.

Mark Hallock:

That’s so good.

Dan Hurst:

All right. That wraps up part II of Seven Characteristics of a Failing Church. And if you missed the first episode, we hope it goes well for you and that you get over your episode quickly.

Mark Clifton:

Get over your episode.

Dan Hurst:

I don’t know why we use that word. Why do we use that word? Anyway-

Mark Clifton:

We had an episode.

Dan Hurst:

… thank you for joining us and thanks to the North American Mission Board for making it possible for us to do this. Thank you for your support and your encouragement. Boy, we appreciate your notes of encouragement and even your notes questioning and challenging and suggesting.

Mark Clifton:

Well, let’s be honest. We don’t get any really. We just say that. We get no mail. We get no notes.

Dan Hurst:

Who’s writing the stuff that I’ve seen?

Mark Clifton:

I bring it.

Dan Hurst:

Oh, thanks a lot.

Mark Hallock:

Clifton just sneaks them in himself.

Mark Clifton:

I just sneak them in there.

Dan Hurst:

And you know what they say.

Mark Clifton:

You know what they say. You know what they say? No, we do. We thank you. No, you do.

Mark Hallock:

No, we do. Yeah.

Mark Clifton:

You do send us notes and encouragement and-

Mark Hallock:

We’re grateful.

Mark Clifton:

… gift cards. We’re grateful for that.

Dan Hurst:

Especially the gift cards. All right. This, by the way, is the second podcast in a whole… We’ll be doing podcasts for a couple of days. This is how we do this, in groups. This is the second one of the first day, and it’s already time for the buffet.

Mark Clifton:

It is. We’re going to lunch.

Dan Hurst:

So we’re going to go to lunch and we’ll be back. See you next time.

Thanks for joining us today on Revitalize and Replant with Mark Clifton and Mark Hallock. This podcast is brought to you by the North American Mission Board, where we help dying or struggling churches regain health for the glory of God and the good of their communities. If you found this podcast helpful, don’t forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. To learn more about becoming a Replant pastor or to explore revitalization resources for your church, subscribe to our monthly newsletter at churchreplanters.com.

Speaker 4:

Hey, man.