Wherever you live, you are likely aware of the seasons that change throughout each year. We even have names for them: winter, spring, summer, and autumn. These names for the seasons declare that there are changes that impact our lives.
You may live where the seasonal changes are minimal. Or your seasonal changes may be quite dramatic. For example, if you live in a northern area of the world like North Dakota, winter is far different than your summer. The same is true if you live in the southern part of the country of Chile in South America. God’s creation is amazing. When North Dakota experiences winter, southern Chile experiences the warmer part of their year.
There are also spiritual seasons. In Psalm 1:1-3, Scripture says, “Blessed is the person who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked … but his delight is in the Law of the Lord…. He will be like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season … and in whatever he does, he prospers” (NASB).
Also in Ecclesiastes 3:1, it says, “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every matter under heaven” (NASB). In the Apostle Paul’s second letter written to young Timothy, he says, “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2 NASB). He’s declaring that God’s Word is powerful in all seasons—good times and even in challenging times.
Whole countries go through seasons. In our work as Church Doctors, we’ve been invited to teach Christian conferences in numerous places all over the world. Some of these places might surprise you. At one time, we were invited to teach a conference in Moscow, not too far from Red Square. There had been a change in the leadership in the country of Russia, and hundreds of Christian young adults were released from prisons where they had been detained. They were eager to start churches and flocked to our teaching conference to learn as much as they could to grow their young congregations.
On another trip, we were invited to Almaty, Kazakhstan, which is on the east end of Russia. The conference drew hundreds of young, eager Christians from eastern Russia and from the “stan” countries, those countries south of eastern Russia.
During that time, I had written a book called Foundations for Church Growth, which is still used by many churches today. It was translated for that purpose in Russia, and it was translated into the Russian language to be distributed to these young Christian leaders who attended those conferences. On another trip to Russia, we delivered hundreds of copies of the book to a Christian college in the city of Odessa in southern Ukraine.
Obviously, the season for receptivity was a lot different than we think in many countries at this time in history. There is no doubt in my mind that many of these Christians are still preaching and teaching, even if it’s “under the radar” in those parts of the world.
There Are Seasons of Receptivity
It’s a powerful statement about the seasons of life. In addition, there are seasons of receptivity. You may be aware of this. You may be a parent of adult children who, perhaps for years, have ignored the spiritual faith you trained and tried to instill in them when they were young. Most Christians know younger adults who grew up in the church, got married, moved away, and show little or no interest in the faith. This could be called a “seasonal multigenerational disruption” from the perspective of the parents.
If this applies to you—if you have adult children who show little or no receptivity to church worship or to a spiritual lifestyle—approach it as a “seasonal issue” that you can begin to pray about. Don’t pretend to ignore the challenge. It provides insight into the importance of your spirituality in your own life. Don’t debate with your adult children or dictate, but share the values of faith and what it has meant for you. Talk about your faith through good times and challenging seasons of life. Don’t preach at your adult children. Just focus on what your faith has meant to you. Discuss the personal challenges you have endured in your own life. Reflect on your belief that God has brought you through these difficulties. In short, talk about the hard seasons of life you have experienced and the power of your personal faith in Jesus.
Seasons in Your Church
Everybody has these seasons, and the same is true for every church. If you are part of a church and you have been there for several years, you probably have experienced several different seasons in your church, whether you used that word at the time or not. After seminary and graduate school, my denomination placed me in a church located on the east side of Detroit. The church was a powerhouse of Christian outreach for many years. About 10 years before I was sent to that church, it had begun to decline. Several years before I arrived, they had three pastors and the largest Sunday school in the denomination. By the time I was called as their pastor, they had no active pastors. I quickly learned that the church had been in severe decline and that the surrounding area was culturally changing from Anglo to African American young families. Yet, the worship services—with good people in all three services every Sunday—were 100 percent white, Anglo people who drove in from their suburban homes on the east side of Detroit. The majority of the congregation was older than 50. This was my wake-up call about how churches can go through seasons of change.
As we began to reach out to those in our immediate community, our church began to change—in color and in age. It was an example of God’s blessing of rebirth. Our worship attendance began to grow, and I learned something that became extremely important: Churches go through seasons. Christianity, at the local church level, is a movement of seasons.
That experience was a season for me as well. I had never pastored a church that was multicultural. I had never lived in a culturally changing community. I learned that I had a lot to learn. Even though I had a master’s degree in theology and a PhD in theology, it became clear to me that I needed to learn much, much more. If your church is going through changes, maybe you should learn much, much more as well.
For me, it was at that time that I received information about a seminary in the Los Angeles area that taught active pastors to become missionaries. It was a small step at first, but it changed me. Over the three years that I was involved in that training, the training model included reading many assigned, mission-oriented books, followed by a two-week intensive teaching session at their seminary in Los Angeles. It required three trips per year for three years. After each trip, I had to return to my church and write a paper about how I would implement what I learned in my own church. When I finished that education, I received a degree called Doctor of Ministry that formed me into a missionary to my own community. My life entered a dramatically different and new season, and our church grew in the middle of a racially changing neighborhood.
The Emergence of Church Doctor Ministries
In the process of all these exciting years, we developed and saw the emergence of what now is called Church Doctor Ministries—as an extension of that exciting church in Detroit. Some Christians call us “consultants to churches.” We’ve helped thousands of congregations in several countries. Have you ever looked at your church and asked this important question: “What season is my church in right now?” Have you ever heard this phrase: “We can’t see the forest for the trees”? It’s a powerful way of describing the concept of being “so familiar with the issue that you can’t figure out the solution.”
I explain it this way: I don’t like going to the dentist. It’s just not comfortable to sit in the chair and have someone mess with your mouth for over an hour. Yet, twice each year, I go—and even pay money for someone I don’t know very well to mess with my mouth. And it’s not cheap. It’s just the smart thing to do.
So, I ask you: How is your church? Is it growing? Are you reaching those in your community? Are you a church that is in a season of growth—reaching your community for Jesus? Does your church reflect Jesus’ commission to make disciples of all people? Consider how close your church is to maximum impact. Are you in a season of effectively reaching people for eternity?
Your season is very important to your community! Your season is very important to God. Ask God to use you, to use your church, to change the eternal destiny of those in your community. Ask these tough questions: “What season is my church in? What is God calling me to do? And what am I going to do about it?”
Dr. Kent Hunter is the founder of Church Doctor Ministries, a mission to help the local church renew, revive, and thrive. He is the author of Who Broke My Church? 7 Proven Strategies for Renewal and Revival. He has written more than 40 books aimed at helping Christians like you to renew the Christian movement and reach our world for Jesus.