Thirty years ago, Mark Jobe was a college student in Chicago looking for a church where he could volunteer and share his talents. He found himself in a small church on the South Side that needed someone to help turn things around. The congregation decided Jobe was that person.

“There’s an enormous number of churches in the city that pretty much have the same story. Churches that in the ’40s and ’50s were vibrant, thriving congregations found themselves in larger auditoriums with real small congregations and an inability to know how to turn things around and reach the neighborhood around them,” says Jobe.

What was birthed at that small church was the first of many restarts, taking existing churches, with great buildings in growing neighborhoods, that have landed on hard times and breathing new life into them. They have a desire to reach their communities, but they just don’t have the ability.

Pastor Jobe led that first church into a new season of restructuring and growth, eventually becoming New Life Community Church.

“Maybe instead of planting new churches,” Jobe says, “what if we helped relaunch, restart, revive existing congregations?”

And that’s just what they did. Jobe and his staff led other dying churches through restarts, bringing them under the umbrella of New Life.

“When we redeem sacred spaces, it pleases the heart of God.” — Mark Jobe

Members of these congregations were hesitant at first. These churches were where members came to salvation, got married and raised kids. But now that the churches have made fresh starts, they’ve become beacons to their communities again. It’s really about restoring the memory of what made them great and bringing it into a new reality.

“We don’t erase the history of the church we work with,” Jobe says.

Instead, they lean into what makes the church special — its place in the city.

“The mission field has come to the cities of America, and unless we do something about the city, we are neglecting a vast mission field,” says Jobe.

That means Jobe’s vision is specific to an urban setting. Reaching diverse neighborhoods requires a different model.

“We’re not looking to build a megachurch in the city,” Jobe says. “Our vision is to be a church distributed.”

A church distributed can accomplish so much more than a church divided. Restarting is just one part of it, but it’s a vital component. Of New Life’s existing 26 campuses in Chicago, half of them are restarts.

To pastors facing struggles who may think a restart is for them, Mark Jobe has some words of wisdom: “Some people think ‘I have to do it all myself.’ But the truth is you may be the liaison to handing off the baton to the next generation.”

Though it may feel like an ending, it’s actually the beginning of a beautiful, powerful redemption story God wants to tell.

“When we redeem sacred spaces,” Jobe says, “it pleases the heart of God.”

And that’s the heart of New Life as well.

This article originally appeared in the January/February 2018 edition of Influence magazine.