Church Growth

Church Growth
10 Questions More Important Than “What Was Your Sunday Attendance?”
Never let the excitement of higher attendance or the discouragement of lower attendance divert you from your church’s primary goal.

On any given Sunday, even the smallest, simplest church service juggles an amazing array of complex issues.

  • Set-up to tear-down
  • Relationships to administration
  • Spiritual to emotional
  • Planned events to unplanned interruptions
  • and more.

But too often we reduce the value of this beautiful, ...

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Church Growth
My Church Seems Healthy, But It’s Not Growing! What’s Wrong?
“All healthy things grow” is not a Bible verse or a command. We have to stop acting like it is.

All healthy things grow.”

There may be no phrase that has caused me more ministry angst than that one.

For years, I pastored a healthy church.

For many of those years, it was a numerically growing church.

Then it wasn’t.

But, as far as I could tell, it was still healthy.

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Church Growth
Why I’m Not Pushing For Church Growth Any More
For years I pushed for growth. And it nearly pushed me out of pastoral ministry.

Church growth is great.

But I’m done with pushing for it.

Done with making it the reason I wake up in the morning.

Done with obsessing over numerical increase or decrease.

Done with thinking that our church has to be bigger to be better.

Church Growth Is Not Enough

Years ago ...

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Church Growth
Breaking The 200 Barrier Is Good – Feeling Guilty If You Don’t Break It, Isn’t
Most churches don’t experience constant numerical increase, no matter how hard they work or what new strategies they learn.

If you want your church to break through the 200 barrier there’s a lot of help.

From the classic book, How To Break Growth Barriers, to newly-developed programs by great leaders like Carey Nieuwhof, Ed Stetzer and The Unstuck Group, there’s no shortage of top-notch ...

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Church Growth
Overcoming Confirmation Bias About Church Size, Health And Effectiveness
Confirmation bias causes us to see the successes of the big, fast-growing churches, but only the problems in the small, steady church.

Why do we equate size with health and effectiveness in the church?

One reason is our tendency toward confirmation bias.

When we want to know what church health is, we look at what’s happening in the biggest and fastest-growing churches.

On the other hand, when we look at ...

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Church Growth
Church Health And Growth: Are Pastors Responsible For Outcomes?
We are responsible for the tasks we have been given, but not for tasks we have not been given.

Who is responsible for the health and growth of a local church?

Is it all up to the pastoral leadership? As one former megachurch pastor used to say, “if it’s going to be, it’s up to me.”

Or is it all up to Jesus who said “I will build my church”? ...

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Church Growth
How To Avoid The Trap That "Just A Little More" Will Fix Your Church's Problems
If you want to be happy with where God takes you, be content with where God has placed you.

Almost every pastor wants their church to be bigger.

By at least 50 to 100 percent.

Got 50 people? 100 would be great.

100? Let’s shoot for 200.

There’s a lot about that drive that’s healthy. But there’s another side that’s unsettling, uncertain and ...

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Church Growth
Why You Can't Predict Church Growth, But You Can Predict Church Failure (And, Thankfully, Church Health)
Church growth is a mystery. Church failure is predictable. Church health is what really matters.

Everyone wants the sure thing.

If we just learn the right principles, follow the latest How To Grow Your Church list, or (my favorite) “do it like the early church”, then Boom! Our church is guaranteed numerical success.

I wish.

Here’s the reality behind church ...

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Church Growth
6 Takeaways From “The Church Growth Gap” LifeWay Research Survey
We seldom see the value of smaller congregations, even when the facts show them to us.

Last week, Aaron Earls wrote a very helpful article entitled The Church Growth Gap: The Big Get Bigger While the Small Get Smaller. In it, he outlined the results of a recent survey taken by LifeWay Research.

There’s a lot of data in the survey and the article, much of ...

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Church Growth
Why Is There An Increasing Pushback Against Church Growth Principles?
As the church growth movement enters middle age, it’s time to ask some tough, but fair and necessary questions.

Recently, I've had several conversations with friends who teach church growth principles. Several of them have asked me some version of the question in the title of this article.

“Why is there so much more pushback against church growth principles lately?”

I’m ...

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