How do you re-grow a church after it has declined in life, membership, demographics?

I was with a particular church as an associate pastor some 22 years ago, and helped them find a new place to build and the means to do it. Yes, I once was a productive citizen.

And this was a very vital church with a lot of life, families, children, youth, seniors, etc etc,

It seems they had a pastor leave / retire some 3 or 4 years ago. They have been unable to find a new pastor, and asked for my resume. I am not sure I will even be who they want.

The strange thing is, they are a mostly older congregation (60s through 80s)—and seemed to fairly recently have a good balance of ages—they once had plenty of regular adults and families who no longer attend.

The thing that scares me about an older congregation is, they become shut-in, unable to attend, and start dying off. Or coming to evening services and activities.

This church is in a vital area and ought to have a lot of growth potential. They still do a lot of vital ministries and services to people in the town and in nearby disaster areas. But its hard to get older people involved.

This isn’t a typical Fluther question, but this church was recently thriving and vital with about 150 active members. Now, it seems to have fewer than 50.

But how does a church recoup after a recent decline?