5 Ways to Win Together as a Team in Revitalization

Achieving small wins in church revitalization can go a long way. Many churches feel hopeless and ineffective due to their challenges and circumstances. While some churches are content with the status quo and living off the fumes of past wins, many churches desire to experience the momentum that new wins can bring. God is still building His church and wants to use you and your church to accomplish it. Small wins can help jumpstart a church revitalization.

I remember a scene from one of my kid’s favorite movies.  In that scene, a Mexican Chihuahua felt defeated.  One of his dog friends said to him, “Remember bro, you are not a ‘Mexi-can't’, you are ‘Mexi-can’.” After that short pep talk, the dog continued to victory. Too many pastors and leaders think "Can't" when they should think "Can." Why? Because God can. You can experience small wins in your church even though you feel you are losing big. Instead of focusing on all the big problems, focus on small wins in a few areas.

Win by praying together.
If your church needs a miracle, then pray more. We move toward what we pray towards. Understanding the urgency and power of prayer is a sign of a righteous people (James 5:16). Prayer changes people. It changes attitudes, it changes perspectives, and it changes the church. When a church is not praying, it is straying.  The prayerlessness results in self entering the body, which will eventually cause the church to self-destruct. People coming together in prayer for the church builds small wins.  It focuses people on the heart of God and what He wants for their lives and the church.  It makes people see and think differently and builds reliance on God.  After all, without Him, we can do nothing.

Make your small win celebrations prayer celebrations, a time when you pause and thank God for what He has done. If you want to see growth in your ministry, then start praying over every area of your ministry. Challenge your people and volunteers to pray together for God to move and work through them. From the parking team to the tech team, everyone serving and leading should be praying, expecting that someone's life will change as they serve. Life-changing stories come through salvations, baptisms, a first-time guest, a breakthrough, or an accomplishment in someone's life. Use whatever good is happening to embrace the wins and live in expectation of what God will do next.

Win by thinking positively together.
When you have positive people in your church who are united and desire the same outcome as you, this a win. Think of these people as prayer allies and partners in the future mission and vision of the church. Positive church members pray. Positive church members carry the people's burdens and ask God for breakthroughs. Positive church members fight for their church and stand by it. Positive church members think about what is best for their church and its future.  Positive church members think through situations and pray for the right answers. Their words, tone, and attitude protect the culture of the church.

Thinking positively together can feed a hunger for God. Nothing is impossible when we think about God's power and what He can do. We can’t help but think positively.  Established churches needing revitalization must keep thinking and adapting while innovating for the future. Think about what God wants for your people and what He can do in and through them. You can see the power of God move through your church if you focus on thinking positively together.

Win by strengthening together.
In church revitalization, it is easy to overlook your church's strengths. Much of the focus in church revitalization focus on the negative, not the positive or strengths of the church. God has entrusted people to you who have gifts and abilities that can be used to bring strength to the body. Your responsibility is to develop those strengths and equip them to do the work of the ministry. Do you know the strengths, gifts, and abilities of the people in your church? One of my favorite things to do as a pastor is to help people discover their God-given giftings and abilities and how they can use them in the church and community. Focus on who you currently have and what is going right. Then work to help them help you make things even better. Count the blessings that God has placed right in front of you.  Don’t waste energy looking over the fence at what you don’t have or wish you had. Deploy your current people using their abilities and availability to create new opportunities to engage others to do the same.  Release them to do more extraordinary things for the Kingdom.

If your church is going to strengthen and work together to see wins, everyone must put aside their personal preferences and work together. While people may have good intentions, dividing over music, paint, carpet, or budgets is not the way to strengthen the church. The only way you can win is to have a shared mission and vision for your church and community. Stepping outside the four walls of the church and seeing the brokenness in the community will cause momentum for the entire body to act. The church doesn’t need spectators. It needs people willing to engage in the work of the ministry. When the needs of the community become the priority and not the individual needs of the people in the church, the entire body is strengthened in behavior, belief, conversation, giving, love, and faith. The church becomes less critical toward one another and more praiseworthy to God.

Win by dreaming together.
When was the last time you meditated on the power of God, the power that formed the universe, the power behind our existence, and the power that rescued us from a life of sin? God's power is something to meditate on and dream about. What if you prayed for God's power to reach your community, to rescue every broken person in every broken house, and restore every broken soul? As a church revitalizer, you cannot bring health and vitality to your church apart from the power of God. You cannot do it in your own strength. God has the power to restore what has been broken, and the biggest threat to a church is a pastor or church member that thinks they can build the church on their own strength, intellect, and wisdom. Building the church is Jesus' job (Matthew 16:18).  When we step out of the way and let the Holy Spirit of God step into our situations to move and do whatever He wants to do, powerful things will happen. What would happen if you and your people came together to dream with God about the possibilities in your church and community? What if outreach wasn’t just a program but a way of life? Dream with your church and share with them that God can open every eye to the miraculous possibilities of God's blessing. "For with God, all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26).

Establish the W.I.N. together.
Have you ever found yourself trying to solve a problem only to realize it was a problem you weren’t meant to solve? I am guilty of this. Sometimes we bring inadequate solutions to the wrong problem because we are asking the wrong questions. To experience small wins, you must first define What’s Important Now (WIN). Wins look different for different churches and groups of people. Sometimes the battles we face daily are because people do not understand their WIN. They may be working to solve the wrong problem. To experience the small wins, people need to understand their big W.I.N.. This involves asking the right questions.  As people serve and engage in your church, do they know what is important and what makes them successful in their role?
 
Take a volunteer on the parking team. Their WIN as they serve on this team is to be the first and last smile for every person as they come onto the church campus and point them in the right direction. A worship leader’s WIN may be to prepare the people's hearts to hear the message coming after the worship through song, preparing the way for the Lord to work. While almost every serving team and ministry in the church has a different WIN, they all work together to accomplish the overall mission and vision of the church. Winning is about coming together. Spend some time with each team or ministry in the church and work towards developing a strong WIN that is focused on the mission and vision of the church and its role.  This helps clear the WIN and allows people to celebrate when it is achieved.

The challenges and circumstances you are facing may seem big, but don’t lose sight of our BIG God.  Determine to work on achieving small wins that can help build momentum towards greater health and vitality.