Re:Vision: The Key to Transforming Your Church

by Aubrey Malphurs

My primary assumption or “educated guess” going into this exploration was that turnaround pastors exhibit significant differences in their leadership style, spiritual gifting, interpersonal relationship skills, and “visioneering” skills when compared to non-turnaround pastors (NTAPs). I assumed that a variety of characteristics is found in TAPs that isn’t found or that would exist to a lesser degree in NTAPs. As happens with most so-called educated guesses, some of this was true and some didn’t pan out. In addition to my primary assumption, there were nine additional assumptions that surfaced in process. Church growth is good. The Savior promised to build his church (see Matt. 16:18). Therefore, I assumed in Discovery 1 that church growth is good. Not every church is able to grow. Often there are mitigating circumstances that make church growth impossible. The majority of churches can grow given the right leadership. Worship attendance is the best indicator of growth, plateau, or decline. There are certainly other strong indicators of church health and growth, but, for this study, I chose worship attendance as the most accurate measure of church growth.[2] The responses of the pastors and lay leaders were representative of pastors and lay leaders found in the Rocky Mountain States. Pastors and lay leaders answered their surveys truthfully. Some of the information from the pastors and others may be exaggerated and in some cases incorrect. This may surprise some but shouldn’...

What is a turn arround pastor, and what churches should be able to turn around