Five Steps in Growing Congregations

In a previous post, I outlined five factors that congregations that wish to grow, spiritually and numerically, must reckon with. These factors are largely related to the shifts that have taken place in our society over the last sixty years, resulting in our present reality of living in an increasingly, post-Christian world (the United States is the furthest behind in this process for different reasons and can learn from countries like Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand who are further along). These five factors must be considered when looking to take any of the five steps described below.  Let these five steps be conversation starters in your congregation regarding church growth and evangelism.   

1.     Stepping Up Prayer 

Often people will nod to this step and then say, “Yeah, but, what are we really going to do?” If we are not willing to make a concerted effort in becoming more prayerful congregations and to pray more regularly and intently for the spread of the Gospel in our communities, then we should put our spiritual car into park and not attempt to hit the highway of evangelism until our parish and ourselves as individuals have had a major spiritual tune up. Avoid this step at your peril.

2.     Stepping Up Discipleship 

Remember, the target goal is not simply to increase attendance and add to the membership rolls of your congregation. These are inadequate motivators in the work of evangelism. Our mission is to proclaim the Gospel, make disciples and love our communities in Jesus name. Disciples attend church regularly, but being a disciple and being a member of a congregation are not necessarily the same thing. If you do not know the difference between a church member and a disciple, find out. We will have to re-learn about discipleship, Christianity as a way of life, and how to offer preaching, teaching, and resources in our churches oriented to helping people with these goals in mind. 

3.     Stepping Up Welcome

Almost every church thinks of itself as friendly. The challenge is that research and anecdotal evidence suggest that many small churches are indeed friendly, with each other, but less so with new comers. For many, the prospect of showing up to a new place, much less a church, is an anxiety producing one. Have you thought through the entire experience of a first time guest from how they find you (for increasing numbers of people today they will start looking for you online…), get to you, park their car, find the right door to enter, find the worship space, know where to sit, and what to do, how to get to coffee hour (if you have one) and how you will follow up with them once they have left? This is just for starters. If you want a real eye-opener, ask a couple of people who have never been to your church to walk around the facility with you and give you their honest impressions!  

4.     Stepping Up Worship

This doesn’t necessarily mean bringing in a band and big lights and attractive lead vocalists. Small churches will not likely to draw individuals who are looking for a “big” church experience and vice versus. Most churches are small and such churches need to be seeking those who are looking for or who will better respond to a smaller, more family like experience of church. This is not an excuse for poor quality, however. Is the service well-planned and executed? Does the congregation participate strongly and devotionally? Is the worship space clean, well lit, and attractive? Are you sitting in an immense space with just a few people? Can you find ways to block off some of the space to give it a better feel? What can you do to improve your music? There are good pre-recorded options, find the best options you can. Piano and organ aren’t the only options for live accompaniment of congregational singing. Are there musicians in your congregation, what about your community? Is the preaching solid, clear, and oriented toward discipleship and Christianity as a way of life?  

5.     Stepping Up Invitation  

The best news you might read in this post is that drawing new people into a relationship with Christ and His Church (evangelism) does not require expensive programs, super talented preachers or state of the art facilities. Study after study, across denominations, continues to reveal that the number one reason people join a church or come to Christ is because someone they know invited them to church. That’s it. Yes, there is a place for marketing, web presence, dynamic preaching, stellar music and more. However, without an invitation to worship by a stranger, acquaintance, co-worker, friend, or family member, most people will never come to church anyway. We have to learn how to invite. There are ways of making that easier for many church folks who are often shy about these things. If you invite 10 people will all 10 people come? No. It will be a smaller yield and sometimes you will have to invite someone several times over a several month (or longer period) before they will come. But with God’s help we can do it. The future of our congregations depends upon it.

Five Factors in Growing Congregations

Before congregations and leaders can set their minds on growth, we have to soberly look around us and come to terms with the landscape of our communities and society at large. This confronts us with five factors that all congregations that wish to grow must wrestle and prayerfully respond to:     

Post-Christian Society

There was a time where the values of society and church were more in alignment. That time is over. There was a time when the definition of being a good person included going to church. That is no longer the case. Society use to support church going. It doesn’t now. In fact, in some circles, going to church carries a negative social stigma. Society will carry on with its activities, including on Sunday mornings, regardless of how we would like things to be. Do we find ways to challenge people to a high commitment in order to forgo these activities on Sunday morning or do we offer worship services at other times or both? These sorts of questions will need to be wrestled with and various experiments tried in response (for more on post-modernism click here).

Franchise System:  

For a long time churches merely needed to run their franchise (e.g. Anglican, Lutheran, etc.) and people of that denomination would show up and take their children through the system (baptism, Sunday school, etc.) and it would sustain itself. This system is now broken. We cannot expect Christians to simply show up to our churches. Increasingly, those who show up to your church and are your denomination and ready to participate in congregational life should be welcomed as unusual and a blessing. Congregations and leaders will need to focus on reaching all sorts of people: unchurched, and dechurched, regardless if they have your denominational tribal background or not.  In other words, we cannot simply wait for people to come to us. We must go to them.

Mission vs. Maintenance

There was a time where to keep a church going you mostly had to maintain the system. Now, if churches simply do what they have always done, the result is that, they decline.  Churches that are growing are committed to mission. They focus outward to their communities and the world. This outward orientation is key. Yet, it can be overwhelming for small congregations because the core volunteers are often already maxed out (sometimes burnt out) in terms of time and energy. Yet, efforts at reaching out to the community are essential not only for growing a congregation numerical and spiritually, but also in terms of being faithful to Jesus’ Great Commandment to Love God and neighbor (Matthew 22:34-40).

Image Problem

Older generations – even those who didn’t or don’t attend church- often have a respectable view of the church. This is not the case with younger generations.  The majority perceptions among younger generations of the church are negative, hostile, or indifferent. With much of the population, we are not starting from a neutral position in terms of their perceptions of us. Instead, with most, we are fighting against a negative position and several unfortunate stereotypes that people have about Christians in general and the Church in particular. Part of our evangelistic witness needs to be visibly living out our faith in ways that counters these stereotypes; also, we will have to name our belief and defend it ideologically in winsome and respectful ways. This has big implications for preaching and teaching in our churches. 

               

         Church-Goer vs. Disciple 

The Franchise system didn’t have to focus on making disciples because society and other factors motivated people into churches. Increasingly, it will be disciples who attend church as one part of a larger lifestyle commitment to Christianity. Disciple making was also Jesus’ focus. A church goer is someone who’s committment to Christianity largely consists in attending church (maybe regularly, maybe once in a while) and being a good person and good citizen. A disciple strives to follow Jesus in every aspect of their lives (more on church goers and disciples here). They are not perfect, but they acknowledge that following Christ should flavor all that they do, not just an hour on Sunday. A disciple will be willing to buck social expectations and live a Christian life; it will become more difficult for church goers in an increasingly secular society to do so. Part of our challenge is that we are often not so good at making disciples and will have to learn to become disciples ourselves as we are reaching out to other prospective disciples.