The Restart Churches website was started as part of a project for the D.Min. dissertation by Gary Taylor, working through Dallas Theological Seminary.  Gary has pastored for over 50 years and served his current church in Morrisville, PA for over 30 years.  He also served as a military chaplain with the Pennsylvania Army National Guard for 20 years and the US Reserves for another 6+ years. He was deployed twice overseas and currently retired in 2016 at the rank of Colonel (COL).  While ministering as pastor, he served nine years on his association’s Church Planting Committee, chairing it for six of those years.

Recently, a great deal of interest has been shown in restarting churches which would otherwise die. While a popular quote is “that it is easier to birth a baby than to raise the dead,” the success rate of church planting has not been as stellar as one might hope and resourcing these works is a challenge.

With so many small and declining churches (including some decade-old church plants) who still retain in many cases land, buildings, and some  resources (sometimes significant), restart churches may be a way to impact Christ’s kingdom in a significant way far beyond starting from scratch, as in church planting.

It is the hope that this website will be used to gather information which will expand the base of knowledge available to restart churches and pastors, and form a community of those in such circumstances who can draw from each other for the benefit of all.  Ideas and experiences posted will germinate new successes.  Those who are willing to take the survey eventually associated with this website, will allow Gary a chance to collate, analyze and publish additional information.

He has now turned this valuable research into a book in partnership with Dr. Gordon Penfold and it is now available (see the Restart Book tab).