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Then he saw the data.
The church had been declining by more than a hundred people a year for fifteen years. Ninety-seven percent of the budget was going to staff and the building, leaving almost nothing for ministry or missions. The beloved founding pastor was retiring after decades of service. This was not a church that needed tweaks. It needed an overhaul.
So Mark asked the board one question: if God made it clear that we needed to relocate, would you be open to it?
They said yes. Five years later, the church has sold its Plano campus, survived two and a half years of portable ministry, relocated to a new community twenty-six minutes north, and doubled in attendance. Baptisms are up. Students and kids ministry are hitting record numbers. Hundreds of adults are in small groups.
It also cost them nearly half the congregation.
In this conversation, Mark walks through the whole journey with unusual honesty: the decisions he got right, the ones he would do differently, and what he learned about leading people through loss.
Why fifteen years of decline had nothing to do with scandal or a church split, and everything to do with a community that changed around them
The one question Mark asked in his interview to test whether the board loved the mission enough to change
“First who, then what” and why he spent early energy on people rather than programs
How a single attendance graph told the truth without making the new pastor the bad guy
Leveraging the founding pastor’s voice and credibility instead of distancing from the past
Why they couldn’t move the piano one inch at a time
Counting the cost before the decision: modeling best case, expected case, and worst case
What it felt like to say goodbye to families he loved, and why obedience and approval don’t always travel together
The hidden work of two and a half years of portable church, including retirees in their sixties doing setup and teardown
“It took a few months to sell the building, but a couple of years to get the building out of us”
The question an elder asked after a failed church plant that reshaped how Mark leads today
“The question was never whether they loved the church. The question was whether they loved the mission enough to make significant changes.”
“The last five years have been harder than I ever imagined, but better than I ever dreamed.”
“You won’t experience opposition. You’ll experience apathy.”
“Bold strategy coupled with bold prayer positions you for the supernatural hand of God.”
Mark Riggins is the Senior Pastor of Church at the Creek in McKinney, Texas. He has helped lead two churches through full relocation processes and served in the United States Air Force before entering pastoral ministry. He and his wife, Ginger, have been married more than thirty years and have four adult children: Reagen, Kennedy, Lincoln, and Madison.
Learn more at MarkRiggins.org.
Not Finished Yet: How a Declining Church Was Revitalized Through Relocation by Mark Riggins. Written at the request of his board, the book is an honest account of a church that refused to settle for preserving the past. Available now.
Praying for Renewal in Your Church, a forty-day prayer experience for congregations that sense God is not finished with them yet. Includes a six-week sermon series outline for pastors who want to lead their whole church through it.
Good to Great by Jim Collins, referenced on getting the right people on the bus before choosing the direction.
If your community has changed around you, if your building costs more than your ministry, or if you’re quietly wondering whether your church’s best days are behind it, this episode is for you.
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