The Secret of Church Growth
Want to see your church grow both spiritually and physically? So often we do this with secular and rational logic - look for what works and copy that. It is called stereotyping. You see a church growing using a seeker model, copy that. One leader in church consulting told me that only 2% of the churches that copy that model are successful.
I like a story Graham Cooke tells in that in which he was led by God to plant a church where six churches had already failed. He spent time before God in agonizing prayer - he didn’t want to repeat that failure again. Ritzy, upscan neighborhood. They had turned their back on spiritual values. God told Graham what he wanted was a church for 8-12 year olds. A church for kids. They started with a small group - 40 or so. Soon they had 400. They prayed for the kids, won them to the Lord, baptized them, taught ‘em about spiritual gifts. Soon the Holy Spirit was poured out on the kids and they experienced miraculous healings through their prayers. Soon the adults were showing up to see what was going on. Before long they had a cross-generational church going.
Basically, if you are a pastor you should read a good book on this kind of growth strategy. The book is Natural Church Development: A Guide to Eight Essential Qualities for Healthy Churches. The basic premise is that you don’t have to beat on a church, set goals, and implement a lot of programs that may or may not be relevant. Growth is a natural process. You plant a seed and it grows if you have the right soil, water, food, and sunshine. The basic job of the church leaders is to insure that the church has good conditions for growth. The growth, after that, is a natural process.
The writer of the book has developed survey to evaluate the eight essential qualities he names in the book. Most leaders in church growth can give the survey and interpret it (interpretation requires training). The survey doesn’t say a church is good or bad, but rather how the qualities compare with a database of thousands of churches. It is a comparative analysis, and rather than giving definite answers opens various issues for dialog in the church.