Customer Reviews

Comeback Churches: How 300 Churches Turned Around and Yours Can, Too

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According to Leadership journal, "85 percent of churches in the United States have plateaued or declining attendance." That's approximately 340,000 churches. Mine is one of them.

During our heyday in the 1980s, we had two services in an auditorium that seats 760 people. Today, we have one service and an average of 100 people in attendance. We're almost 87-percent empty.

But I'm not worried for two reasons. First, I know that God wants us grow. Second, God has provided plenty of tools to help us grow.

One of those tools is Comeback Churches by Ed Stetzer and Mike Dodson. It identifies five crucial issues in revitalizing your church: leadership, vibrant faith, lay ministry, intentional evangelism, and celebrative but orderly worship.

Church revitalization requires strong, change-oriented leadership from pulpit and pew. To make a comeback, your church needs the right people in the right jobs doing the right thing.

But leadership is not everything. Members of comeback churches must also have a faith that is characterized by personal commitment to Jesus and the church's mission, a servant attitude, and strategic prayer.

In revitalized churches, pastors have limited roles, and they invite the laity to exercise their God-given ministries. And the whole church is involved in intentional evangelism, gradually incorporating unbelievers into the community and then into the faith.

Finally, comeback churches have celebrative (but orderly) worship services. More often than not, their musical style is contemporary, and they do everything with excellence.

If, like me, you're the pastor of a church that's seen better days, read Comeback Churches, and discover that your church's best days are still in front of you.

Comeback Churches is an excellent resource for those eighty to ninety percent of churches that are plateaued or declining. In my eleven years of pastoral ministry I have served three churches in this category of needing to make a comeback and have read many books on the subject, and this is the best I have read. There are some books on this subject that are written from the perspective of how one pastor led his church to change and growth, and that is inspiring, but that isn't necessarily going to help me. This book is grounded in reality since the authors are both pastors, so they aren't just researching the subject, they are living it; and they studied 324 churches that have successfully made the comeback. These churches came from ten different denominations, of different sizes, locations and histories. Because of that broad background, the principles can be applied to most any church in need of a comeback. The book is thorough; covering a number of subjects from worship to finances to evangelism to what books these comeback pastors are reading; as well as factors that hinder the comeback and how to address those. Comeback Churches is a great textbook on how to lead a church from a position of plateau or decline to growth, and it is also a great book on leadership. After reading the book it is not at all surprising that it is recommended by Rick Warren, Thom Rainer, Elmer Towns, Leonard Sweet, Jack Hayfard and Gary McIntosh.

I am not normally a fan of church growth books. Too many times I think they are all about marketing, making church about product placement and promotion instead of loving God and loving people. I have come away from some books on church growth convinced that it could all be done without reference to or dependence upon God at all.

It was with this skepticism that I came to Stetzer's and Dodson's Comeback Churches. I was pleasantly surprised to read a book that pointed toward the biblical foundations of the church and biblical patterns for its growth. The book is a great encouragement that churches in decline can be revitalized. The reader will be challenged but at the same time stories of leaders and churches sprinkled through the book give the reader hope. I believe that leaders who take the message of this book to heart will be used by God to increase the numbers of Comeback Churches all over the world.

It's no secret that most American Evangelical churches are in plateau and decline, but what can anyone do about it? Ed Stetzer and Mike Dodson have developed a good book for helping these churches recapture their sense of calling and vision and get them back on the road to church health in the book "Comeback Churches: How 300 Churches Turned Around and Yours Can, Too"

The book is based on Dodson's thinking and work in his doctoral thesis "An Analysis of Factors Leading to the Revitalization of Comeback Churches". I like this book because it doesn't give what most are looking for-a cookbook of programs to try to use in church planning. Too many ministry leaders want pat answers and canned resources they hope exist that will automate growth. The mistake I see churches making is too they often choose expediency and pragmatism rather than principles and healthy practices. The "method" Stetzer and Dodson recommend is to practice sound missiology.

The fact is the belief in programs as a solution for church growth is false. What churches need is more than promotional packaging that makes them "seem" more relevant, they need to "become" relevant by putting into practice good missional thinking. There is no short-cut to missional ministry.

This is a great book written by an author who has the experience and research to back up what he is saying. If your church is going through a rough time, this book will give you Biblical advice to turn it around. I must read for any church in decline or transition.

This is a book the vast majority of pastors and church leaders in America need to read. It is well researched, well written, completely Biblical and extraordanarily practical. This book can help anyone who follows this well written and researched guidance.

Les White D.Min

A good book on church growth. The authors conducted a survey of congregations that were once in decline but now are growing. Most of the information is basic church growth thought, not much is new concerning the declining church situation. The major ideas from the book are: change in leadership style, involvement from more members, increased prayer, develop children and youth ministries, update worship services, and become more intentional about evangelism.

Best book I've read on the subject! It great, easy to read and understand and the references are wonderful. Would recommend this book for anyone who's church is in decline.

I very informative book that really causes you to look at your own church and realize the changes that need to take place. I would recommend this book to anyone in church leadership. I'm not finished with the book yet and already it has made a change in me and our church. I know I will refer to this book often.

What a fascinating title for a book. This book is a great book for both church planters and those who are struggling with a church that has reached a plateau or is declining. Here are some of the great qualities of this book:
1. It puts a priority on churches being biblical before it deals with revitalization. On pages 1-4 the authors give six criteria that are important in the Word of God.
2. It emphasizes also churches being "missional" in the right sense--"missional churches are biblically faithful and culturally relevant." (8)
3. It does not forget to also emphasize that churches should be "spiritual" and therefore healthy. There is a great emphasis on prayer as the first key to being a revitalized church. "Comeback leaders know that our Lord considers commitment to Him and His desires an indispensable ingredient to growing spiritually and numerically." (12).
Stetzer and Dodson list what they call a "Dirty Baker's Dozen" or thirteen reasons why churches plateau or decline. I have worked through a study on this for seminars on church planting and multiplication called, "Growth Ceilings in Churches -What they are, Why they are Important, Where they are, Why they Occur and What to do about them."

Church planters and those who want to see churches revitalized can learn the importance of what Stetzer and Dodson call being "indigenous." They explain:

Being indigenous is harder than it sounds, because almost all declining churches already have a culture. In most cases, the existing church culture is from a former era that is only meaningful to those in the church, not those in the community. We believe that the gospel is best lived out when churches are firmly rooted in their surrounding community's culture. They are driven by Scripture, but people from the community see people like them--just radically different in the way they live. (6).

This book is also full of some helpful ideas such as, "Comeback pastors and their best leaders needed to focus their time on two groups: leaders and the lost." (216).

As it has been said, "readers are not necessarily leaders but leaders must be readers." That is certainly true of a church planter. So read in order to lead more effectively.