The Church Revitalization Podcast – Episode 280

Outreach is the lifeblood of healthy churches. Yet many churches find themselves stuck in patterns of internal focus that prevent true growth and community impact. In today’s exploration of healthy church principles, we break down three essential steps to transform your church from inward-focused to externally-minded, a key component of sustainable church revitalization.

Many churches have outreach activities but lack a cohesive outreach strategy. This distinction makes all the difference in church revitalization efforts and the journey toward becoming a healthy church. Let’s explore the three critical steps to becoming an externally focused church that experiences true growth and renewed vitality.

Step #1 – Change the Mindset: Shift from “Us” to “Them” for Church Health

The first and most fundamental shift required for church revitalization is moving from an internal “us” focus to an external “them” focus. This isn’t merely about running occasional outreach events—it’s about fundamentally changing how the congregation views its purpose and community.

As churches decline in size and resources, they often become increasingly inward-focused, creating a downward spiral. Diminishing resources make outreach seem more difficult, leading to even less external engagement.

This shift isn’t about seeing outsiders as “others” we occasionally serve but as potential members of our community. It’s about expanding our definition of “us” to include “them.” When outreach becomes merely a charitable act rather than relationship-building, something is missing.

The borders of “us” must expand to include “them”—that’s the mindset shift that’s missing in declining churches.

A telling sign of this problem is when churches engage in outreach activities that make members feel good but involve minimal risk of those served actually showing up on Sunday morning. While ministry to those in need is valuable, if we’re doing it to avoid reaching our actual neighbors, we’ve missed the point.

Step #2 – Discover & Understand Your Community’s Needs to Drive Church Revitalization

Once a church has committed to externally-focused ministry, the next step is understanding the specific needs of their community. Many churches default to standard outreach programs like food pantries or clothes closets without ever investigating what their particular neighborhood actually needs.

Everybody has problems, even in affluent areas. This means reaching both “the needy and the proud”—those with obvious needs and those whose struggles are carefully hidden beneath polished exteriors.

To discover these needs, churches must do their homework:

• Conduct demographic research (divorce rates, income levels, etc.)
• Talk to community leaders and school counselors
• Walk the neighborhoods and start conversations
• Utilize coffee shops as listening posts (Want a simple tool? Check this out)

Break free from preconceived notions about what outreach means. Instead of limiting ourselves to soup kitchens and food drives, consider programs that address financial struggles (Financial Peace University), relationship challenges (Divorce Care, Re-engage Marriage), grief (Grief Share), or spiritual questions (Alpha).

The key question becomes: “What are the hurts and hangups of the people in my particular community, and what am I doing to address and meet those needs?”

Step #3 – Establish Sustainable Outreach Practices for a Healthy Church

The final step is creating sustainable outreach practices that become embedded in your church’s DNA. One-time events won’t transform a congregation—you need ongoing, strategic approaches that involve everyone.

This means establishing a distinct outreach step in your discipleship pathway with both primary ministries (ways everyone is expected to engage) and secondary opportunities. It requires organization, leadership, training, and clear communication.

Outreach strategy needs good thought, prayer, and planning within church leadership. Simply telling members to “go find something” without direction isn’t enough. Structure and clarity help people engage, especially those who might be hesitant.

Jesus makes it clear that following him requires everything. It’s okay to make people feel a little uncomfortable. Frameworks like “Good-God-Gospel” can help ease people into sharing their faith naturally, starting with genuine conversations.

The goal isn’t to turn everyone into a “street corner evangelist” but to equip all members to engage in relationships with non-believers in ways that match their personalities and gifts.

Healthy Churches and Revitalization Require External Focus

A powerful example of these principles in action comes from a declining church that had made internal improvements but saw no growth until they focused externally. After several months of community engagement at local festivals and events, they experienced 40% growth.

This outward focus is the key to revitalization. While internal health matters, growth won’t happen without intentional outreach.

In our “you do you” society, the idea of sharing our faith can feel intrusive. But consider reframing this mindset: you have an obligation to people who are spiritually in need. Just as we wouldn’t leave someone physically dying on the roadside, we shouldn’t ignore the spiritual needs of our neighbors.

By shifting our mindset, understanding our community’s needs, and establishing sustainable outreach practices, any church can begin the journey toward becoming externally focused—and experience the church revitalization and renewed church health that follows. These principles are foundational for building healthy churches that thrive for years to come.

Watch this episode on YouTube!

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Church Revitalization Podcast Transcript:

A.J. Mathieu [00:00:00]:
Three steps to becoming an externally focused church this week on the Church Revitalization Podcast.

Scott Ball [00:00:06]:
Hello, and welcome to the Church Revitalization Podcast brought to you by the Malphurs group team, where each week we tackle important, actionable topics to help churches thrive. And now, here’s your hosts, Scott Ball and AJ Mathieu. Welcome to the Church Revitalization podcast. My name is Scott Ball. I’m joined by my friend and cohost, AJ Mathieu.

A.J. Mathieu [00:00:32]:
Here I am. Alright.

Scott Ball [00:00:34]:
So talking about revitalization through outreach. We’ve we’ve done a handful of episodes on outreach, from time to time over the course of the podcast, the life of this podcast, over the course of two eighty episodes. We’ve checked on this topic.

A.J. Mathieu [00:00:50]:
It’s come to probably not often enough, actually.

Scott Ball [00:00:54]:
Yeah, that’s a fair point. And I think maybe one of the things that’s worth mentioning here is how consistently, we when we’re going through the strategic envisioning process, especially as we kind of get to that part of the the discipleship pathway, exercises, and we start evaluating our outreach strategies. Very often, it’s it isn’t that churches aren’t doing outreach. They’ve got outreach activity, but they don’t really have an outreach strategy. They don’t really have a plan. So they got stuff they do. They have partnerships maybe with community organizations or they have events that they do every year, but it it may or may not be cohesive. It may or may not be building towards something.

Scott Ball [00:01:40]:
It may or may not be clear to the average person in the church how exactly they’re supposed to engage in outreach. Outreach feels scary to people. Evangelism is sounds like not something I wanna do, you know, to to the typical churchgoer. So for all of these reasons, outreach is difficult and can be a a hurdle for churches, but it really is the linchpin. It’s the key to revitalization. So we’re gonna talk about that today on the podcast.

A.J. Mathieu [00:02:15]:
I think, in my experience, the smaller the church has grown, the less the external focus is. Sometimes that, you know, is driven by the decreasing number of people that, you know, can even pull something off at some kind of event or outreach, money. You know? I mean, as the church gets I’m talking very small. You know? You’re down to less than 50 people. In in an aging congregation, outreach becomes less and less. And maybe the things that you feel like are outreach just aren’t really geared. They’re not really designed to have excellent outcomes that you would maybe hope for. Yeah.

A.J. Mathieu [00:02:56]:
I think you’re right. Sometimes there are things happening, but there’s not a lot of intentionality or strategy around it, not good communication about it, not good training around it. And then it kind of goes down from there to the point that it’s sometimes not even existing anymore. This is a very important topic, and it is absolutely key. If your if your church has plateaued or declining, this needs to be one of the key elements that’s focused on. And, as we jump into our first step of the three, Scott, This is where we’ll drive that point home, and that’s changing that mind that mindset from us to them. This goes right to the heart. This is step one.

A.J. Mathieu [00:03:39]:
This goes right to the heart of the great commission. So churches that have, you know, just gotten away from that. They’ve they’ve gotten you know, a few weeks ago, we did the comfort commission versus the great commission. And that’s this. That’s in internally focused just, you know, are we happy with us, and not really thinking about the world outside? But this is the primary mindset shift that has to happen for churches to get back on a growth trajectory because growth is about enlarging the kingdom of God and and bringing the gospel to people that that need to hear it, engaging them then in discipleship. So, yeah, the the church has got to reach a point of deciding, we haven’t been doing this right. We wanna we wanna course correction, and then beginning to build that back into the people, rebuilding the culture of the church to to care for one another, but to focus our our work and our attention on the people outside.

Scott Ball [00:04:35]:
Yeah. I I think what happens is, even I think the most common thing it’s just very rare for me to encounter a church. It’s not it’s not it’s a nonzero number of churches that I’ve worked with where they have nothing that they’re doing for outreach. I have worked with a few where that was the case, but that’s not the usual case. The usual case is that they are doing things for outreach. They have outreach programs. They have partnerships. They have events that they do.

Scott Ball [00:05:06]:
But the problem is, as it relates to this first step of we need to change our mindset from focusing on us to focusing on them, is maybe even phrasing it this way that they are us is is what how we need to really shift it. Because when you’re focusing on them as an as I hate kinda hate this language, but as, like, a as a as an other or as a group, then it’s almost it’s it’s a charity work that you’re doing. We’re going, and we’re just doing this for them. And then there’s the real work. You know, there’s the real church that’s just us inside. And and then we we deign to leave our, you know, we we open up the gates, you know, like Willy Wonka. We allow the riffraff to come in, for this one event a year. And but in reality, we’re trying to get these, you know, get a okay.

Scott Ball [00:06:01]:
It’s done. Now, you know, I feel dirty. You know, we let them in. You know? And and there’s there’s a little bit of that to be if we’re being entirely honest. And if you think about the kinds of things that churches often wanna do, it’s stuff where they want to it sounds good for us to do it, but you don’t really want those people to show up at your church on a Sunday. You know, let’s go you know, I worked with a church once in an unnamed city. I won’t say where it was. In an unnamed city in a suburb of a major urban area.

Scott Ball [00:06:33]:
And one of their outreach things was that they would, once a month, go into said urban area and work with the homeless there. And then I’m not saying that that wasn’t important work. I mean, it’s good to serve the homeless, but it was a kind of thing that they could tell themselves we’re doing outreach without any risk of those people actually showing up at their church on a Sunday morning. And and so that’s the mindset shift that I’m talking about is rather than seeing them as a whole different category of person, them, one beginning to develop a heart for them to become us. That’s that’s the mindset shift. We want to the the the borders of us has to expand to include them.

A.J. Mathieu [00:07:19]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Ball [00:07:20]:
And and that is that’s the mindset shift that’s missing in declining churches.

A.J. Mathieu [00:07:25]:
I mean, let me clarify. I mean, I don’t think you’re you’re not suggesting that everything that you do has to result in people then coming to your church because there’s a lot of things that could be done outside that. For instance, that example you just gave. I mean, if they were coming alongside an urban church right there in that neighborhood that was underfunded and and resourced, it could help them and make sure those people get connected to that church and are being discipled. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Doing the fly in, fly out, yeah, kind of virtues signaling.

Scott Ball [00:08:01]:
Yeah. I’m I mean but that’s my experience with a lot of declining and plateaued churches is the kind of outreach work they do is the kind that makes them feel the best but has the least risk of someone actually showing up at their church because

A.J. Mathieu [00:08:16]:
check your heart on that for sure. Yeah.

Scott Ball [00:08:17]:
It’s like, oh, we we we go and we serve at the soup kitchen. Yeah. But you don’t want those people at your church. Like Yeah.

A.J. Mathieu [00:08:23]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Ball [00:08:24]:
Yeah. For the most part.

A.J. Mathieu [00:08:26]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Ball [00:08:26]:
You know,

A.J. Mathieu [00:08:26]:
it’s that’s that is

Scott Ball [00:08:27]:
something that makes you feel good, but it’s not is, you know, you don’t have to build a relationship with those people on an every week basis.

A.J. Mathieu [00:08:36]:
Yeah.

Scott Ball [00:08:37]:
You see them once a month when you when you swoop in. And that, again, that doesn’t mean that that that’s valuable work. Like, that’s good. But, if you can if you can continue to do that and do the things that reach your neighbors, great. But if we’re doing that so that we don’t have to actually reach our neighbors, that’s where the that’s where the problem is.

A.J. Mathieu [00:09:01]:
Well, we’ve both were both worked with churches in locations in which, you know, there may be really close to a neighborhood, in the middle of a neighborhood. There’s plenty of people nearby. And and you’re like, what what are you doing here locally? And the answer is nothing. You know? Nothing. No. We don’t know We don’t know who who lives there. I mean, you know, this was something that I mean, I remember, you know, years ago when you and I were still new to the Alphys Group and Aubrey, you know, was was still engaged and training us up and everything. You know, I mean, we used to we used to grab, like, satellite views, you know, like, look at show the team, like, here’s your church.

A.J. Mathieu [00:09:36]:
Look at these rooftops. You know? I mean, do we know do we know who lives in any of these? And I don’t remember ever being at a church where, like, oh, yeah. We totally we we know our neighborhood well. You know? I mean, that’s that’s who we’re really reaching. Everybody was always like, no. We don’t we don’t know. Literally across the street from our church. We’ll have an idea who lives there.

Scott Ball [00:09:56]:
Yeah. Well, this is a good this is timely, depending on when you’re listening to this. This has been in the news lately. I’m not gonna make a political point here, but there’s this concept of ordo amoris, like the peep the people the order of people that you have an obligation to. So we have an obligation to love and serve all people. Like, I I think that’s maybe a misunderstanding, actually, in this, political environment. Some people say, we should only care about these people or we should only care about these people. That’s not rightly understood.

Scott Ball [00:10:27]:
We we have an obligation to love and care for all people. But there is an order of obligation that you have. Your first order of obligation is to your family. You know, if I what good is it for me to love some person in some other country if I don’t love my wife and my kids first and take care of them first? I have my first obligation. My first duty is to them. Your next layer of that would be to that immediate community that you have. What good is it for me to love, you know, some people in some other neighborhood, you know, if I don’t love the people in my community first, you know, and then to your nation and then to the world. Like, there is an order.

Scott Ball [00:11:06]:
You have do have an order of obligation. It’s a little bit like, the example that gets used. I think this is a good one. If there were it’s all although maybe a bit drastic. It’s it’s colorful analogy. If there are two kids drowning in a pool, and one of them is your kid and another one is a stranger’s kid, and you can only save one kid, who’s which one are you going to save? You would likely save your own kid first because you have an obligation to that child more than to the other child. That doesn’t mean if you could save both kids, you’d save both. But you you would, of course, you would you would dive in to save your own child first because it’s your kid.

Scott Ball [00:11:50]:
And what I see sometimes, AJ, and this is maybe just a shift to this next point, which is to why we need to discover and understand our community’s needs, is I see churches that do seem to care more about global missions, about the person who’s in Africa or Costa Rica or Nicaragua more than they care a purse about the person who’s two blocks from them.

A.J. Mathieu [00:12:13]:
Yeah.

Scott Ball [00:12:14]:
They know the names of people who live in Nicaragua, but they can’t name a person who lives two blocks away. And it’s disordered, actually. You should care. I’m not saying you can’t care about both. You should care about both. But to care about one at the exclusion of the other is a problem, and it is a hallmark of declining churches, is that you see more of this. Yeah. And it’s a problem.

A.J. Mathieu [00:12:41]:
Well, I always think about the parable of the Good Samaritan, you know? I mean, I because it begs the question, who is my neighbor? Who, Jesus, am I supposed to apply this truth to that you’re explaining to me? And that’s the answer is contextual. I mean, the first, the one that you have the most direct contact with, Who do you have the most opportunity to influence, with the gospel? And so, yeah, to

Scott Ball [00:13:08]:
Yeah. The irony of that is that the the irony of that parable is that the people who should have cared did not. It’s an indictment. The story is as much as it is a celebration of the Samaritan, it’s such an extreme story. This is a person who who had no obligation to care about the injured man but did, whereas the people who passed by the man did have some obligation to that man and did not care. It’s an indictment on those who passed by as much as it is a celebration of the of the man who gave generously and unrealistically, actually. Like, normal people don’t get a hotel room and say, and whatever the tab is, I’ll pay it. Like, that’s

A.J. Mathieu [00:13:54]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Ball [00:13:55]:
That’s like an exorbitant extravagant kind of love that you definitely wouldn’t expect from someone who has no obligation to you. Like, that’s the the point of the story is is and largely, it’s an indictment on the people who passed by. And, yeah, I I’m suggesting that a lot of our churches are the people who pass by, the the person who’s right in your neighborhood who’s struggling. And I think to finally segue to number two here, I think that one of the reasons why we do it is we fundamentally misunderstand the needs of our community. Mhmm. So we only think about outreach through the lens of things like a soup kitchen or, you know, a a food pantry or a clothes closet. And if it doesn’t fit into one of those neat buckets of, like, outreach thing, we’re like, I don’t know how to help you. Yeah.

Scott Ball [00:14:46]:
And so if you live in a community that’s relatively affluent, you think, well, they don’t really don’t really need a soup kitchen because that’s not really the the biggest need in my neighborhood. Well, what are the needs in your neighborhood? And so that’s maybe let’s dwell there. So step one is you gotta shift your mindset. Like, I have to start caring about the people who are closest to us. Not at the exclusion of global missions, not at the exclusion of but starting with starting with the people who are closest to me. And then, number two, if I’m gonna do that, then I need to understand them.

A.J. Mathieu [00:15:21]:
Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I think there’s there’s so much more opportunity than we believe there might be nearby. And no matter what your church context is urban, suburban, even rural everybody has problems. I mean, who do you know that has no problems? And, you know, you your knee jerk reaction might be the person that you think maybe has the most money. Like, they got it all together. They got the house. They got the boat, the cars.

A.J. Mathieu [00:15:47]:
The kids are in private school. I guarantee you, not everything is well in that house because they’re human, and there’s they they still have needs. I’ve described this before as needing to reach the needy and the proud. And what I mean by that is and the needy are the obvious ones. You know, the people that outwardly were like, Wow. They’ve really got a lot of problems. But the proud are the people, you know, that that, you know, that on social media, it looks like everything was great. And they they may not not ever ask for help, and they might try to hide the fact that they even need help.

A.J. Mathieu [00:16:22]:
But down down deep, they do need help. We all do. And, you know, or just the regular old middle class family across the street from your church or across the street from where you live might be barely holding it together. You know? Did did one or both lose a job? You know, I mean, is is there a chronic illness? I mean, there’s any number of things that could be happening. And everybody is as deserving of the love of Christ as anybody else and of having a relationship, you know, that could be of help to them. Yeah. I think finding out what those needs are. Now how are you gonna do that? It’s harder for some.

A.J. Mathieu [00:17:01]:
Right? Because the people with obvious outward needs, I mean, just like they can’t even hide it. We know that’s a big problem for them. The people that are hiding the need, you know, whether because they they just don’t they don’t maybe, you know, in in pride, they don’t want to expose that, or they don’t think anybody cares. Those are harder. What is but how do you do that with a relationship? If and and that has to start with, you know, a handshake and a conversation, an introduction. And so to to pass by those that we perceive would have no need or interest to go to the ones that have the obvious need. I’m not saying it’s wrong to go to the ones with the obvious need. I’m just saying there’s a big opportunity that we’re probably not spending a little bit of time, trying to to crack into to find out what’s really going on in people’s lives.

Scott Ball [00:17:49]:
Yeah. Totally. I I think, again, once we break free from just the assumption that this the outreach means and then fill in the blank with whatever your preconceived notion is. Once you break free from that and you start to open yourself up to the idea, okay. Well, there might be a different way for us to do outreach. I’m just not sure what those specific needs are in my community. Once you that’s once you’ve made that mindset shift, then you can just start exploring things, and you need to do the you need to do the work. You have to do the research of figuring out what that is.

Scott Ball [00:18:26]:
So talk to people, pull a demographics survey, like, what’s the divorce rate in your area? Can you can pull psychographic studies. You can pull there’s all kinds of information that you can find, you know, at the macro level. And then, yeah, talk to people. Talk to school counselors. Talk to community leaders, talk to go go on walks around the neighborhoods and, you know, strike up conversations with people as appropriate. Don’t weird people out, but, you know, as appropriate, have conversations. At one point, we we maybe even still have some of these, AJ. We had stickers that you could put on your laptop, that what do they say? Like, I’m a pastor.

A.J. Mathieu [00:19:10]:
It said I’m a pastor.

Scott Ball [00:19:14]:
Chair.

A.J. Mathieu [00:19:15]:
Yeah. Yeah. Put on the back of your laptop at the coffee shop. Yeah.

Scott Ball [00:19:18]:
Yeah. Go to the coffee shop not near where you live, but the one that’s closest to the church and see who just put put that put that sticker on your your laptop. See who comes up to you. See see who chats with you and, find out what’s going on in their lives and hear their stories. But there are other resources out there that can help you with this. So, like, that can help you meet these kinds of needs. Financial Peace University is a common one to help people with, you know, financial hang ups. You know, divorce care.

Scott Ball [00:19:52]:
So is a resource out there. Grief share Reengage marriage. For marriage stuff. Alpha program for people who are exploring faith, but, they’re, you know, they’re filled filled with doubt or, you know, they’re an atheist or agnostic, but they’re open to exploring faith. There’s all kinds of great resources out there. You don’t have to build something from scratch yourself. But just start thinking. What are the what are the hurts and the hang ups of the people in my particular community, and what am I doing to address and meet those needs? And which leads them to the third step, which is you you can have whatever program or whatever event, but it doesn’t matter if people don’t know about it.

Scott Ball [00:20:44]:
Like, you have some way of connecting people to that. So the third the first step was we need to shift our mindset from thinking about us to thinking about them. Second step is we need to really understand the needs of our community. The third step then is we need to establish sustainable outreach practices. So, a one and done event isn’t gonna get it done. We really need to embed the an outreach strategy into the DNA DNA of our church. We talk about this as, in your discipleship pathway, you need a distinct outreach step

A.J. Mathieu [00:21:21]:
Mhmm.

Scott Ball [00:21:22]:
That is characterized by a primary ministry and maybe some secondary ministries. And a primary ministry is a way in which you expect everyone in your church to engage in in in outreach that can function as a bucket of things or a category of things. There could be, like, one label on it, so to speak, with with multiple opportunities underneath that. But there needs to be some way in which we are expecting people to, connect with that outreach strategy, and we hold people accountable to that. So it’s not just two or three people or a handful of people who are engaged in outreach, but it’s an expectation for our whole church.

A.J. Mathieu [00:22:03]:
Yeah. I would you know, I think this is an area that needs some just really good, thought and prayer and strategy, you know, in the leadership of the church. You know, some churches also, they just kinda leave this open where, like, just everybody go out and just find something, do whatever you want. And that can be a little difficult to manage. And so and it’s really hard then for, you know, the people that just need that’s maybe not how how they think, their personality. It’s better to have something that you can go. Here’s something really specific you can engage in. And and have it be limited.

A.J. Mathieu [00:22:39]:
I mean, you obviously, you want the greatest impact for the resources that you’re gonna be putting into it. And then, you know, be able to communicate it well, train people to participate in it, and, you know, have some continuing education in it as well, supporting people that they can remain confident in in that area that they’re serving in. All these are important aspects of it. And, it’s not just something you just throw together overnight. It definitely requires some some thought and some strategy and, some leadership. It requires people to lead the work, to be able to, you know, have a point of contact for people to engage with, find out more more about it, how they can serve, the areas in which they can serve. You know, there’s all kinds of details that go into this, you know, between scheduling people and and what are we doing, where is it, how long is it, all these things. So but, yeah.

A.J. Mathieu [00:23:34]:
Developing something that can be sustainable long term and that, is clear enough in your church so that people know. They can’t hide from it. Are are you either in this you’re participating in this level, or step of our pathway or you’re not. But there would not be any ambiguity, to it. And I think that’s that’s an important aspect, because, you know, the more the more hands that are working in the ministry, the greater, effectiveness you’re gonna have, the greater results you’re gonna have. So, yeah, these are all important parts of it, but it has to be intentional for sure.

Scott Ball [00:24:07]:
Totally. I you know, it’s it’s just not gonna happen on accident. And and I think that we don’t want people to feel uncomfortable. You know, we don’t we we feel this tension of, like, I don’t know. We don’t I don’t wanna ask our people to to step out and do this thing or whatever. And, we’re not serving them well when we when we don’t when we do that. Jesus makes it pretty clear that following him requires everything. And so it’s okay to make our people feel a little bit uncomfortable and say, hey.

Scott Ball [00:24:44]:
We expect you to be sharing your faith. Now we we can grease those wheels. We can provide training for them, maybe a framework. You know, one of the churches that I worked with last year introduced me to, a framework called Good God Gospel, and I really you know, I I’ve shared that with several churches, and they really like that framework. They came across it. I can’t remember. You can look it up. I think it’s goodgodgospel.com, and, there’s some free resources there helping be they have had a lot of success with that framework, helping their people understand not every conversation I have has to be a turn or burn conversation.

Scott Ball [00:25:26]:
It can start with a good conversation. Can I just build rapport with someone? And I don’t have to have an ulterior motive. Like, I can just have a genuinely good conversation, and that be enough. You know, and you have enough good conversations, it leads to a God conversation where you can talk about how, what the Lord is doing in your own life, just sharing your own story and, or your perspective on things and what God is doing in in the world, which can lead to a gospel conversation. And being equipped to have each of those kinds of conversations, certain personality types are like, I don’t I don’t wanna go to a training. You know? But others are like, no. I would love to go to a training that gives me a framework. So you can grease the wheels for them, but to say, hey.

Scott Ball [00:26:11]:
This is not something that we expect of everybody is to leave them an incomplete disciple. And that’s not good. We we have a we need to disciple people fully, and that includes empowering them to share their faith.

A.J. Mathieu [00:26:25]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Help people get over, you know, maybe some some levels of discomfort that they have. You know? I mean, we all have room to grow. It doesn’t mean everybody becomes, you know, a street corner evangelist. That’s that’s not how God designed us. And hopefully not because that’s probably

Scott Ball [00:26:42]:
not the most effective form of evangelism anyway.

A.J. Mathieu [00:26:46]:
But but that’s what people think a lot of times. You know, even you use the word evangelism and they’re like, oh, I don’t know. That’s that sounds scary and cringe. And so that’s why, you know, it takes clear communication. Yeah. I I mean, I’ve told this story to various churches and stuff, but I just always think about this flight that I was on on a mission trip with, and one of my pastors leaving London on on our way to to, Nairobi, which was our next layover. And, you know, one of my pastors having a conversation with a guy in a plane, you know, and I’m just kind of leaning over, overhearing, you know, the gospel’s being presented and answering questions and overcoming objections. And in the end, you know, I mean, I’m thinking we’re about to have a salvation right here, you know, the over Southern Europe.

A.J. Mathieu [00:27:30]:
But no. That’s not how it ended. The guy was like, okay. That’s that’s good information. I’m gonna I’ll I’m gonna consider that. It wasn’t ready. It wasn’t the right time. And I and I always just think back, you know, like, I mean, I I thought my if anybody was gonna hear the path the gospel from this guy, they were a %.

A.J. Mathieu [00:27:46]:
They’re about to become a believer. And that’s not the case. So, you know, when the greatest of those in that skill and gifting, don’t close the deal, there’s hope for all of us, you know, that that we can we can We

Scott Ball [00:27:59]:
can all not close.

A.J. Mathieu [00:28:00]:
We can all fail at it. That’s okay. The point is to try. So, Yeah. You know? But yeah. So that’s that’s a an example that I hold on to of encouraging failure, that, yeah. There we all have got a role to play. It doesn’t always look like that.

A.J. Mathieu [00:28:18]:
But I think this is an important thing because it’s a scary thing. It’s it’s uncomfortable for at least Western American believers. This is not built into our DNA in most churches to to be discipled into this is how we think and how we view the world and how we go about our day. And it’s a it’s a very slow movement to to work.

Scott Ball [00:28:40]:
So Yeah. I mean, we live in a you do you society, so we we don’t want to in any way, put upon someone, you know, our our perspective or our faith. And and we really have to shift that mindset too and go, you know, you know, if you know a person walking in a lie, it it’s wouldn’t it be good for them to know the truth? You know? I I don’t know. That’s always been my perspective. It’s like the it’s like you think about parenting. You know? There are times where it’s okay to let your kids believe in something or think something that’s not quite true. It might even be a little bit cute. But then it kinda gets to a point where you’re like, oh, no.

Scott Ball [00:29:27]:
If I let this go on, they’re gonna grow up thinking this thing that isn’t true. You know? I I, here’s a small example, a dumb one. And it was it was a a lie of omission, not one of commission on the part of my parents. But I was a full grown I’m embarrassed to say how old I was, but I was I was probably 18 years old before I understood that, AJ, what do you call what do you call the things you what’s a topping for salad? It’s a little crunchy. Brutons? You got it.

A.J. Mathieu [00:30:06]:
Okay.

Scott Ball [00:30:07]:
I was under the impression that that was called dead bread.

A.J. Mathieu [00:30:12]:
What?

Scott Ball [00:30:13]:
Yeah. Because my dad doesn’t like croutons, and so he called it dead bread. I had I made it all the way to 18 years old before I realized that’s not the real name. Like, those are called croutons. And I also didn’t know that no one else not only, like yeah. It’s not just an alternative name, croutons.

A.J. Mathieu [00:30:36]:
No one’s ever heard

Scott Ball [00:30:37]:
of it. No one has ever heard of dead bread. Right? So, yeah, would have been good for, that wasn’t my parent. My dad I’ve told my parents this, and they laugh about it, you know, because they didn’t intentionally not teach me the word crouton. It’s just that my dad always called it dead bread, so that’s that’s just how I learned it.

A.J. Mathieu [00:30:57]:
Wow. That’s pretty good. That yeah. I had not heard that story before, Scott.

Scott Ball [00:31:03]:
I’m full of I mean, I’m always good for a story. The point is, you got people there are people around you who that’s a small, silly thing, but their lives are filled with lies. Lies about who they are, lies about why they are the way they are, lies about what will fix their problems and make them feel good, and they are just as silly as as dead bread. And you know the truth. How how loving and kind is it going looping back to kinda the Good Samaritan? How loving and kind is it to ignore a person who is spiritually dying on the side of the road when you have the truth? And and when we can understand that, we don’t beat people up with the truth then as a consequence of that, but we do need to come alongside people lovingly with the truth and be prepared to just share that truth. And, most of our people are are not thinking about life that way. They’re thinking, I don’t wanna impose. Impose.

Scott Ball [00:32:08]:
You have an obligation to to the people who are spiritually dead.

A.J. Mathieu [00:32:11]:
Yeah. Transformation from dead bread to disciple makes a crouton.

Scott Ball [00:32:16]:
To to to to to crouton. Yeah. That feels like a good place to, maybe just do a quick recap, AJ. So

A.J. Mathieu [00:32:25]:
we’re moving, we’re moving from that inward focus to that outward focus. This is how this is how this is how god designed the church to grow. This right? I mean, if we’re gonna take the gospel to the ends of the earth, it’s gotta start with, across the street. But we’ve gotta shift from an us to them mindset in the church, because we we are very comfortable in many of our congregations, not doing anything different. We’ve got to understand who is outside, who do we not know, what are their needs, And then actually develop a strategy. How are we gonna engage our people to engage the world and, move this move this ball forward with people coming to know Christ? So there you go. Three, very difficult and simple steps. We would love to help you help you put that together.

Scott Ball [00:33:12]:
Yeah. Absolutely. I I I do wanna just share one encouraging story to wrap as we close. You know, I’ve been working with a a church that in the last year or so that has had has declined quite a bit over the previous decade. And, they made some internal changes. Like, they they fixed some things on the inside, like, spruce some things up and did some signage changes and initially were discouraged that things weren’t just, like, magically turning around, and they you know, we were having one of our implementation coaching meetings. And as they were explaining to me all the things they’d done, I said, the thing you’ve not yet done is you gotta go out. Like, you got to get with the people.

Scott Ball [00:33:57]:
And, you know, it was not just a couple months after that that they that they really leaned into that, started just simple things, going to festivals where you’re just being present, being visible, getting to know people. And and in the subsequent months, they have grown. They’ve grown something like 40% in the last, four or five months or so. And so, that it’s this is the key to revitalization. The other stuff is good. It’s imp also important, because when they show up, there needs to be a healthy church there for them to grow and be discipled in. But you won’t turn around unless you actually focus on on outreach.

A.J. Mathieu [00:34:38]:
Yeah. Absolutely. Alright. Well, before we go, one quick plug because we’re horrible salespeople, but we do have to mention the Healthy Churches toolkit. So if you’ll go to Healthy Churches toolkit dot com, you can register there for a free seven day trial and have access to every feature in the toolkit. Go get in there and explore it. This is coming out around, the March 1 or so. Easter is right around the corner, and we’ve got an amazing Easter resource hub in there that you would want to take advantage of.

A.J. Mathieu [00:35:10]:
So check

Scott Ball [00:35:10]:
that out. Speaking of outreach, there’s, like, there’s invite cards in there. There’s guest follow-up email sequence generator. There I mean, there’s there’s stuff in there that you can use right away to help you be successful in an Easter outreach strategy.

A.J. Mathieu [00:35:24]:
Yeah. Absolutely. Go to healthy churches, toolkit.com and check that out. Otherwise, this has been episode 280 of the Church Revitalization Podcast. And today’s show notes are at malphursgroup.com/280, where you can, check out today, this week’s article and, some resources in there. Maybe, Scott, I’ll even throw the, the link in there to get those stickers. We got a few of those stickers left for the, laptops. Really? Fresh stickers.

A.J. Mathieu [00:35:51]:
So yeah. Little bonus.

Scott Ball [00:35:52]:
Did you do you have one? Do you have one there?

A.J. Mathieu [00:35:55]:
Sure. No. I looked while we were talking. I could it’s out of reach. But yeah. Alright. I’ll put that I’ll put that in the article this week. You can see that.

Scott Ball [00:36:01]:
Okay.

A.J. Mathieu [00:36:02]:
Thanks everybody for being with us. We’ll see you again next time.