I have worked in church renewal for most of my professional ministry career. I started renewing an urban congregation in Columbus, OH and each step along my journey has involved renewal and congregational development in one form or another. It is my life’s work and my passion.

But I have also learned a lot along the way and most of what we are doing to renew congregations isn’t working all that well. It has some success and it is better than quitting and giving up. But we start too far up the system in most places and then have to hope for good fortune to send us the things we need to turn the corner. Between good practices and some focused attention, some places are transformed and I am thankful for that. But as I watch larger efforts, look at the outcomes of other consultants’ work, and see how denominational efforts are faring, I am convinced that renewal needs to change the starting point in almost every situation.

I am a Lutheran, so I point to my own formative confessions and Article 7 of the Augsburg Confession. But because the Lutherans' work was foundational for all of Protestantism, other Protestant traditions all agree with this – some even more than Lutherans.

The point is simply this: the church is the “assembly of believers.”

That means that no matter what your denominational polity and structure that your national church, your regional church and your local church are all derived through the assembling of believers. The basic unit for building the life of the church is an individual believer. The church will NEVER be stronger than the faith and faithfulness of the people. Design the same house plan and then build it twice – once out of stone and once out of straw and the two identical designs will not fare equally well. You can’t make anything out of weak materials and have it turn out as well as if you use strong ones.

Study after study about the faith life and discipleship of mainline participants shows underdeveloped faith, lack of growth and maturation that is connected to congregational life, and in many cases a majority who either don’t believe it at all or have no idea what it has to do with the rest of their lives. This is the raw material out of which we then build congregations and the rest of the church.

So here is the bottom line:

As long as we don’t do more to help people develop as Christian disciples who see their lives claimed by God’s grace and then continuing the work of Jesus, anything we do to make their congregations stronger is working uphill.

If we don’t rethink this, the work of renewal is built on sand. If we want to help congregations renew and become vital places for ministry again, way more attention needs to be given to growing the discipleship of the people there as the foundation.