Replant: How a Dying Church Can Grow Again

Mark DeVine and Darrin Patrick. Replant: How a Dying Church Can Grow Again. Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2014. 176 pp. $14.99.


It’s easier to give birth than raise the dead.

So replied one of my mentors whenever someone asked him why our church prioritized starting new ones. The task of revitalizing older, fading churches seems almost hopeless when you consider aging members, dilapidated buildings, labyrinthine polity, dysfunctional community, and power-hungry leaders. Who ever would choose such a ministry? As John Cionca put it, “If you put a healthy minister into a dysfunctional church, the pastor will become dysfunctional within four months” (Red Light, Green Light: Discerning the Time for a Change in Ministry, 68). Why clean up someone else’s mess when you can just start your own?

That’s the question Mark DeVine and Darrin Patrick ably address in their story, Replant: How a Dying Church Can Grow Again. And I do mean “story.” This is not a book of principles about how to bring renewal to dying churches, but a narrative of how God did that for one congregation in midtown Kansas City. Their purpose isn’t to give pastors tips for leading a church recovery but “to inspire you to take risks for God's glory, to raise your gaze to what is possible, to challenge what is comfortable, so that God's plan A—the local church—advances” (20). In this they are largely successful. Keep reading