Some of you may remember the Church Growth Movement of the sixties and seventies. Great leaders such as Donald McGavran and Win Arn led the movement and soon every church in town was running programs like Bring a Friend Sunday and doing follow-up with visitors. Every time you turned around, there was a new […]
At my age I have a good bit of experience with love. I’ve been married a good long while, I have five children, and I have seven grandchildren … so far. And so I can say with a certainty that you can love your church to growth, and you can love your church to […]
Towns, Elmer, C. Peter Wagner & Thom S. Rainer
The Everychurch Guide to Growth
(Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1998), 205 pages, paperback, $12.99. Obtain from Broadman & Holman Publishers, Nashville, TN.
A more than excellent book describing the “How To’s” of moving beyond the traditional worship barriers of 200, 400, and 1,000. Although the language […]
Almost every church leader I’ve met tells me they want to grow their churches.
Be careful what you ask for.
A growing church brings problems. LOTS of problems. To be honest, a growing church is a pain in the neck, back, backside, and pretty much everywhere else.
Why?
Because a growing church demands change. Real change. Painful change.
Imagine […]
I saw a post on Facebook this week that reminded me of a very practical church growth principle. The image said, ’The best gift you can give your Mother for Mother’s Day is to sit with her in church.” Behind only Christmas and Easter, Mother’s Day brings the third highest attendance each year. People […]
Pastors
of churches all over our country continue to ask the question, “Where are all the men”? Women comprise more
than 60% of the adults in the typical worship service in America. Some overseas
congregations report ten women for every man in attendance. Volunteer ranks are
heavily female. No other religion suffers the enormous gender gaps that plague
Christianity. […]
Turn around or growth are usually the result of some action taken by the leadership.
Usually its not the little changes that kill a church, but the big changes that go untried. Either leadership is afraid of these BIG changes or they can’t even imagine them. Either way, nothing is deadlier than ignoring the BIG […]
Recently, I wrote a post about starting a turnaround effort in a small church that’s been in decline for years (Ten Things to Do to Lead a Turnaround). I immediately got requests from church leaders of declining mid-sized and large churches: “What about us? What should we do?”
So, here is a list of things […]
Established: ~1904
Tribe: Protestant Mainline
Worship Style: Rural traditional, family informal
Congregational Demographics:
AWA: 32
Trend: 20 years steep decline; 8 years slow decline; followed by 10 years slight decline
Median Age: 61
Adult Generations: 21 Builders+; 8 Boomers; 2 Gen-X; 1 Millennial
Children/Youth: 2–3
Ethnic Mix: Anglo
SES: Mixed, mostly blue collar; income similar to ministry area
Debt: $0
Available Resources: ~$100,000 in endowments
Ministry Area […]
I’ve never been more hopeful about church planting in the U.S. as I am today. I couldn’t say this a decade ago. What changed my attitude – the growing trend of small to medium sized churches that are planting multiple churches that are expected to plant multiple churches.
Some examples of my hope are:
City […]
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