It may be the most common frustration among pastors today: “I’m doing everything I know, but I don’t see the church growing. What’s wrong?” Here a pastor explains his situation, then three respected observers offer their analysis.
I was a former pastor working a secular job when my wife and I sensed God’s call back into pastoral work. We moved to Faith Baptist (names have been changed), a traditional Southern Baptist church in Michigan, in a town of 40,000. Two decades before we arrived, a band of pioneering members from a church on the other side of town started a mission, meeting in a tent on what would become the front lawn of our property.
With evangelistic preaching and lots of follow-up visits to guests, the growing group graduated to a rented “trailer church” until the first building was constructed five years later. The church’s culture was strongly influenced by the southern “chicken and grits” subculture of transplanted auto workers who had moved north for the relatively high paying, blue-collar jobs.
Year 1: Sensing the sickness
Our small church culture was seasoned by rural America, complete with a strong-willed patriarchal deacon and a “we’ve always done it this way” mentality. After a year of heartfelt preaching and a couple hundred home visits, I concluded the church’s culture was largely responsible for inhibiting growth beyond the 80 regular attenders.
I listened, learned, loved the people, and increasingly sensed that loving confrontation would be necessary for some who were standing in the way of progress. My saying to newcomers, “You’re welcome here,” wasn’t convincing when some families looked offended if a newcomer sat in their pew.
A major conflict arose just after our first anniversary when the senior deacon, an outspoken auto worker approaching his retirement, decided it was time for another pastor. I would have been number five in a line of pastors who had come and gone.
As the deacon said, “There are plenty of other churches with that modern music and namby-pamby preaching. All these new people can go there if that’s what they want.”
My wife and I chose to surround ourselves with mature Christians, hunker down to pray in our living room, and hold on for dear life.
A few months later when the smoke had cleared, only two families had left the church, the leading deacon’s family and one other. We were left with 70 shaky saints to heal the wounds and write a kinder and gentler chapter in the congregation’s history.
Shortly afterward, groups in our church began studying Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God, by Henry Blackaby and Claude King. That changed the way we do church. Rather than dreaming huge dreams for God, we started listening for him to tell us what we were supposed to do. Instead of expecting every member to make evangelistic visits, we started looking for those who felt God was leading them to make those visits. God raised up three men with a heart for evangelism and the willingness to visit.
Not everyone appreciated the changes. They didn’t like giving up their favorite hymn in “the red book” or putting up with noisy children in church, as God was bringing in new young families. Our church had begun a radical transformation, however, and with a new mindset, we felt the anchor lifted. We sailed with the wind of the Spirit. Newcomers felt more welcomed, the services felt less harsh, more celebrative, and people smiled more.
Year 2: Agree on vision
One Sunday evening an older member described how God was working through two of our members in the prison ministry.
Wanting more people to hear stories of God at work, we turned several Sunday nights into “town meetings”—to hear what people sensed God wanted for our church. After teaching on the subject of hearing from God, we held a leadership retreat, where we listed and prioritized all that we felt God was leading us to do.
Our honest and prayerful evaluation of our program was like a dental check-up. Some programs appeared as decay. They weren’t terribly painful to our church, but they were sapping energy from those who could serve more effectively elsewhere.
Wednesday night missions classes fell in that category, yet for two years we ignored the cavity. I felt this program occupied key leaders who could’ve invested in evangelism or home Bible studies. But they seemed committed to missions, so I didn’t push change.
We struggled along with a traditional Sunday night program, reaching a dozen adults, with a half-dozen children. I felt we had too many programs that fed the faithful flock and not enough that reached out to lost sheep.
Nevertheless most felt the church was moving closer to God’s vision for us, which included an openness to change and a more contemporary style of worship.
That word style began to appear more often in our vision meetings, and I realized the problems people had with our church had more to do with style than substance. We agreed on most of the whys; it was the hows that caused consternation.
We were doing many things poorly rather than a few things well.
Many people expressed relief that we were listening more intently to what God wanted rather than just “doing church.” We were working free from program expectations, and we were growing in our awareness that relationships matter more than ritual.
By the end of year two, most of the families who had been the backbone of the former culture had left. For years they had fostered an attitude that church growth was the pastor’s job. Unfortunately, even with their departure, that attitude lingered. Folks didn’t mind showing their support on Sunday morning, but I failed to see many willing to take responsibility for others’ spiritual growth.
I wrote a prescription for year three: Develop a new backbone, a new core of leadership.
Year 3: Backbone exercises
Our congregation’s culture was now quite different from when we arrived. People trusted each other more, and our business meetings, now quarterly instead of monthly—and much less stressful—focused more on vision and outreach than on maintaining programs and who was spending money. Our services blended styles of music, accommodating many tastes.
Our offerings had increased. We paid off our building debt, and our members seemed excited about future plans for growth, including an expanded parking lot, a new wing for classrooms, and eventually a new sanctuary. Then we diligently developed a team of lay ministers, each taking different aspects of pastoral ministry and outreach.
It seemed as though someone poked a hole in our balloon and all the energy leaked out. Attendance at our monthly lay ministry meetings diminished; enthusiasm for new tasks waned. We had lived through several ups and downs, but as the offerings diminished and attendance shrank, and as two more key families moved (this time for new jobs), I began asking myself a nagging question: What if I am the one holding these people back from accomplishing God’s plan?
I knew I wasn’t the most capable administrator, yet I had worked hard to compensate for this by developing my skills and surrounding myself with the administratively talented. I pushed the question aside.
We inventoried our current ministries. Assessing where we saw God at work, we realized we were doing quite a bit for a small church, including Bible studies for all ages, missions education, a women’s group, a food pantry, ministries to two nearby prisons and a nursing home, ongoing discipleship courses, and a creative worship team.
Still, we didn’t see lasting numerical growth. We had tried to prune excess programs and meetings and to focus on those tasks where we felt God was working. But we still seemed to be inching along, watching new members hop on at the same rate the old ones jumped off. We reached new people for Christ, but others became dissatisfied and moved on.
Year 4: Flat-out but inching along
Early in our fourth year I spent two weeks putting our vision on paper. I had involved as many in our congregation as possible beforehand, getting their input, asking, “Where do you see God at work in our church? Where do you believe he is leading us?”
I knew I had to take the lead in communicating the vision, but I purposely avoided making the vision my vision. I trusted that God would reveal his plan to all of us, speaking just as strongly through other members as he did through me.
We agreed on most of the whys; it was the hows that caused consternation.
We continued to see personal growth in our leaders, including two young couples who began an upbeat evangelism and an introductory Bible study on Sunday nights.
Year 5: Tighten the vision focus
Last year was our best. We added four families to the congregation, two of them being baby Christians. My confidence grew, both in my preaching and leadership.
Administration still nagged me like a weak ankle. Each time I took my eyes off the call, I began to feel inadequate, wondering if I was holding the church back.
We were doing all the right things, I thought. Our Sunday school was well organized. Marriages were being saved and strengthened. People with serious emotional scars were finding healing. We weren’t growing, but it was obvious God was at work.
Year 6: What’s next?
This is year six. We’re still plodding along with the same eight to ten baptisms per year, the same 70 or so in Bible studies, the same 100 on Easter and Christmas.
Though we’ve seen some people grow tremendously, we haven’t seen a net gain in attendance, membership, or overall giving. We are still raising funds for the expanded parking lot, and are no closer to realizing our dream for a new sanctuary. The revolving door keeps turning with folks looking for a church with a bigger this or a better that.
Looking back at all the strategies we’ve implemented, the vision meetings we’ve held, the conferences our leaders have attended, it still appears that in size, we are just about where we were when I arrived.
1998 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or contact us.
