Having a Funeral For Your Church: Principles on Revitalization (Part 1)

Immanuel Presbyterian Church was an aging, monocultural church in an increasingly younger and ethnically diverse neighborhood in South Miami. Pastor Felipe Assis shared how replanting a church first included having a funeral.

When a church finds itself struggling, people usually say it needs to be “revitalized.” Sometimes, this is true. Many churches have found a renewed spirit after slowing to a crawl. But in some cases, churches may need to consider an alternative to revitalization — replanting the church.

What does it mean to be revitalized versus replanted? When searching for the answer to this question, John 12 comes to my mind. Jesus shows up to the disciples and tells them, “My hour has come,” and “Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much fruit.”

As church planters think about revitalizing or replanting churches, there’s a great opportunity before us. 3,700 churches die in North America each year. Though about 4,000 are planted there annually, almost that many close their doors in the same amount of time.

In the last 10 or 15 years, the church’s discussion on expanding the kingdom has been about church planting. There’s very little material on church replanting or church revitalization. And if we don’t start taking this conversation seriously, we’ll miss a huge opportunity to help churches that have already been planted.

My own story illustrates the power of replanting.

About 13 years ago, Immanuel Presbyterian Church was on life support in Miami. It was planted in the 1970s by a man named Terry Gyger, and peaked in the ’90s. Then, the demographics of the city changed tremendously. A lot of people moved out. Church attendance dwindled, repairs needed to be made, bills couldn’t be paid, and seven pastors came and went. They contemplated selling the property and dispersing the money among several non-profits and church organizations.

Before they did, they called Terry, who had long since been called elsewhere. “The ministry is unsustainable,” they told him. “We’re down to 60 people.”

Terry said, “Don’t do anything. I’m coming down there. I want to talk to you about replanting the church.”

Around this time, I was living in Brazil, five years into a church plant. On one of his trips to Brazil, Terry asked me to leave everything I was doing to move to the United States. (You can read the story of how Terry recruited me to move from Brazil to Miami to replant the church here.)

I said, “Terry, it’s been five hard years, and my church is sustainable now. Things are going pretty well. I can actually spend time with my wife and kids. There’s a team around me. And right when the church stabilizes, you want me to move?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’d like you to move because this is that great of an opportunity.”

I went home to talk to my wife. We had just had our second daughter. Hormones were all over the place. She asked me how the meeting with Terry went. I told her he wanted us to move to Miami. She said I could go by myself — she was staying!

My wife is American, but she loves Brazil even more than I do. We had a great structure around us — our family, my parents, and a great group of friends. She felt that this wasn’t the right season to move.

We prayed about it and visited Miami for a week. We got there. I was scheduled to preach. When I walked in the church, it was like I time-traveled back to the ’80s. The youth group started at age 62. There was a handbell choir in the middle of Miami!

“I don’t think this is gonna work out,” my wife told me right before I went up to preach. I think I gave my worst sermon ever. I didn’t know who I was talking to. I couldn’t relate to the church at all.

Surprisingly enough, we continued to pray. We liked some of the folks. Though there were a lot of red flags that threw me off or discouraged me about the church, I sensed a posture of humility. They were ready to give up power and do something radical. And where there’s humility, there’s hope. So, we took the whole year of 2007 to pray.

One night, my wife and I went out on a date. She looked at me across the table, took a sip of wine, and said, “Would you be okay if we go and completely fall on our faces?”

I thought a little bit. “I think if God wants to be glorified through our failure, I’m okay with that. Are you okay with that?”

“I’m okay with that.”

We landed in Miami in 2008. We took hold of a very tired church. I gathered a core group of people across the city that were interested in a new expression of the gospel. We imagined what the church would look like and how it would reach our neighbors. And we spent a lot of time in prayer. After six months of meeting with that group, we presented the vision to the congregation and invited them to be a part of it. They said, “Sure, let’s do this.”

“We imagined what the church would look like and how it would reach our neighbors. And we spent a lot of time in prayer.”

We set up a funeral service for Immanuel Presbyterian Church. In that funeral, we allowed the congregation to share stories of how God had moved in the church throughout years past. People shared stories about meeting their husband, having their kids baptized, or being sent off to the mission field with the church’s support. They were beautiful stories that allowed our core group to build respect for the history and the people that were there.

And then we turned the page. We took down the church sign on the same day. We re-launched as Crossbridge Church. In the first service, we already had 168 people, the average age dropped down to the 30s, and God started a new, dynamic expression of the gospel in Miami. Eventually, other churches heard what we had done and wanted to know how they could replant themselves.

I never imagined that I’d help pastors replant churches. Throughout my life, I felt called to plant new ones. But after seeing God transform these struggling churches into new and exciting communities, I know that a replanted church can be just as effective as an entirely new one.

What are the practical steps for replanting a church? Read Part 2 here.

About the Author

Felipe was born in Brazil but had part of his upbringing in the United States. He founded and pastored two churches in Recife, Brazil. In 2008, he moved to Miami at the invitation of City to City with his wife, Beth, and two children to plant Crossbridge Church and serve as a catalyst to a gospel movement in Miami.

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