How Can a Church Help Our Family Grow
Pastors experience deep frustration and confusion when their churches stop growing.
Churches are certainly not alone when it comes to decline.
Many organisations get stuck and refuse into maintenance mode and sadly even into impotence.
If that were not true we would never see new organisations starting up with the kind of frenzied activeness we see every day around the globe.
What causes this turn down?
Are there definitive reasons every bit to why churches stop growing?
What impedes us equally we seek to grow a good for you church.
What stops churches from growing?
vii Reasons Churches Stop Growing and Decline Into Impotence
1. Unhealthy Focus on Growth
When churches focus on growth every bit an end in itself they begin to obsess nigh numbers and focus on stats.
I've been in this unhealthy place.
It leads to comparing with other churches and leaders. The comparison game is most unhelpful when your church has stopped growing.
It is decease to your soul as you ride the inevitable roller coaster ride of strong or poor omnipresence and other indicators such as people leaving.
As a consultant and passenger vehicle, my focus is on church building health.
While I don't fail growth I don't see it as an stop. Making disciples of Christ is our finish goal.
I also refuse to fail or ignore the need to grow yet I recognise that every church has an optimum size. This optimum size is determined by a range of factors including demographics, leadership capacity, community connections and so on.
Karl Vaters has become the go-to modest church guy. His prolific writings have been influential around the globe
His infographic shows perception can be quite unlike from reality when information technology comes to the optimum size for a church building.
When churches run with the mantra of growth, growth, growth and more growth it breeds an unholy discontent with a relatively productive status. Notwithstanding, it'southward non being enjoyed considering of this wild chase after growth.
Solution
Bear a wellness cheque on your church building.
This will involve analysing key stats such every bit baptism numbers, omnipresence relative to membership, the percentage of adults serving and in modest groups.
As well, bank check on the spiritual vitality of your key leaders. Healthy leaders will atomic number 82 you to a healthy church.
A wise consultant or coach tin can help you conduct the analysis and bring fresh eyes to your church as it focuses less on growth and more than wellness.
ii. Neglect of the Primary Mission
The primary mission that Jesus has given united states of america is to make disciples in the context of communities of organized religion.
When leaders and pastors fail this principal mission their churches are destined for decline.
In that location are multiple reasons why this occurs.
ane. Leaders get distracted by other priorities.
2. Pastors get lazy and switch into a maintenance mode rather than pioneering once more.
iii. Fear of failure can rob pastors of backbone and cause them to retreat from their primary mission.
4. Leaders tin can likewise lose strength through no fault of their own by ill health, tragedy or trigger-happy opposition.
Whatever the reason, churches reject when they woefully neglect turning people into committed followers of Christ.
You may be busy and take squillions of programs happening. However, the hard question to enquire is, are we making disciples?
Solution
Adjustment yourself anew with your mission doesn't happen overnight.
Information technology takes careful and frequently methodical reflection of your electric current state and a willingness to lead change in both yourself and your team.
One style I used to keep myself aligned with our mission was personal reflection.
I would regularly step aside form from the solar day-to-day ministry building and spend time in reflection.
I found these personal times of reflection to be a key in realigning myself with core values and primary mission.
Allocating special time to rethink your mission will atomic number 82 to a healthier church.
Yous tin employ simple reflection questions to assist you refocus on your primal relationships and core values.
I know this process will guide y'all into a fresh focus on your principal mission.
3. Churches Finish Growing When Hospitality is Cleaved
This aspect of church life is an obsession for me.
I have written nearly the multitude of reasons visitors never come back for a second visit.
The Greek discussion used for hospitality in the New Testament is philoxenia which literally means beloved of strangers.
Dissimilar New Testament writers admonish u.s.a. to strengthen this aspect of Christian living still I likewise frequently see ambivalence towards it or worse all the same, lip service.
Comments on my weblog and Facebook posts about the care of church visitors often comprise a baroque (to me anyway!) mix of 'you're getting to business-like' and 'honey doesn't need to be organised' themes.
I think it'south naive to think that people don't demand to be trained and assisted in turning their heartfelt want to love people into practical realities.
Solution
Train your welcome team to use a elementary Visitor Connect Card to get visitor's contact details and follow them up in the near appropriate style for your civilization.
While some churches don't use visitor connect cards I think they are essential in growing a healthy church building.
When yous get a visiotr's details you are able to follow them up and connect them to your church. Otherwise you have a little influence on their decision to return for a seocnd visit.
Some leaders think all visitors want to be left alone and not asked questions about their reasons for visiting or their contact details.
While information technology is true about some visitors, others are on the opposite end of the spectrum. They have come to check out your church and want to make the connection.
Use a company'south connect card to help them start the journey of joining your church.
Download our free and elementary
Visitor Connect Card
Y'all can use this card this Lord's day
4. Irrelevance to Order
Today'southward traditions were once groundbreaking, scenic new initiatives.
The organ once reviled as the devil's instrument became the bastion of church building worship.
The now iconic Eiffel Tower was one time derided past Parisians.
We fiercely guard our traditions and remain trapped in a time warp that is increasingly marked by irrelevance and ultimately impotence.
Relevance in outward non-essentials (manner, music, style, furniture, colours) must be coupled with traditional biblical values if we are to remain relevant and continue to run into our churches grow.
I know that some people get quite upset with any focus on outward things that they see equally irrelevant to true worship and post-obit Christ. I know considering of blog and social media comments I receive from folks!
However, while God looks on the outside we are designed to notice outward things and when churches neglect outward things then information technology sends a bulletin of disconnect.
Solution
Inspect your building.
How quondam are the styles, colours and furniture in your facilities?
What do visitors see when they come up to your building?
Dated and worn out furniture sends a bulletin of neglect to visitors.
Is there any artwork to brighten upward the antechamber?
five. Comfy with the Condition Quo
The favour of God prospers us and prosperity makes us comfy.
Equally nosotros get comfy we realise we have more than to lose so nosotros're less likely to 'bet the farm.'
Minimizing risk becomes paramount.
The tillage of our state is a priority rather than explore uncharted territory.
We pave well worn roads rather than forge new paths.
We till our known soil rather than turn new fields.
One of the reasons we handed our church over to next-generation leaders was to stride out into new arenas of take chances. We've discovered that Christ is faithful and will honour our faith that gives Him immense pleasance.
Solution
Take a risk. Follow the voice of the Holy Spirit every bit He leads you into uncharted waters.
In Romans xvi Paul highlights the couple, Priscilla and Aquila, as those who risked their lives for his sake. Condom-offset dispositions don't build the church.
Risk is a modern give-and-take for faith and we are chosen to walk past faith, non by sight.
6. Are You Optimized for Growth?
Churches, like individuals, similar companies, can reach their optimum size.
Discovering the optimum size of your church is not an easy task because your church's size is determined past a circuitous range of factors.
In that location's the free energy of the pastor, the demographics of the surface area, the sovereignty of God, the capabilities of your congregation, the contempo history of your church then on.
Some leaders think that this thought of optimization leads to fatalistic notions inducing attitudes of 'what volition be, will be.'
Nonetheless, I find this concept empowers leaders to have a courageous heart and an inquiring mind as they discern their optimum size and maximise their capacity.
Solution
Discuss this indicate with your key leaders and consider how you lot can optimize your church.
Your call, context and chapters determine your optimum size.
The call your church has received is a sovereign assignment from the Lord. It is His church and there is not much you can practice about it other than discover and obey it.
Your context is your environment around the church building.
Is your demographic wealthy or poor. Is it loftier density or low-density living. What's the median historic period? What are the traffic flows?
Your capacity is the element you can control. You tin can overstate your capacity as you handle bug, grow in Christ and develop essential leadership skills.
7. Churches Stop Growing Because of Pastoral Leadership
Yep you read that correct.
Pastoral leadership tin can prevent a church from growing.
I think there's a reason Paul says God has placed in the church first of all apostles, ane Corinthians 12:28.
Apostles carry a sense of beingness sent.
The give-and-take means 'sent' and thus the apostolic gift tends to be a 'moving' gift, stimulating movement and refocussing the church on her tiptop priorities, namely evangelism and discipleship.
Pastoral and teaching styles of leadership tend to focus on shepherding and growth in wisdom.
While these two elements of the Christian life are vital I believe they should never hold get-go place in a church's priorities.
Our Outset Priority
The first priority of communities of religion must be the mission of reaching lost people and integrating them.
This is exceptionally difficult for pastors who take a shepherding or pedagogy gift. They naturally lean towards pastoral intendance and godly instruction.
My natural bent of instruction the Discussion and discipling leaders caused me to fail evangelism when I was pastoring my church building.
Therefore, I had to intentionally move towards evangelism to ensure our church was focused on bringing lost people to Christ and assimilating them into our community of faith.
I understand the struggle those with pastoral and pedagogy gifts have in focusing on evangelism but if a pastor does non model this to their congregation then they volition encounter their church decline.
I am a fan of all size churches. In fact, churches are similar t-shirts, nosotros need all sizes.
However, as Karl Vaters rightly notes, being minor is not a problem, virtue or excuse.
Minor churches can wrestle with inferiority and failure because of their size. They think being small is a trouble to be solved rather than an option to be optimized.
Minor churches tin can take unwarranted pride in existence small and accuse larger churches of being compromising and shallow.
Being small is not an excuse to refuse to change and maximise your situation. Jesus expects a return on the investment of his life and expiry on the cross. His has given this life so we can accelerate the Kingdom and build His church.
Solution
Find a pastor or leader who is gifted in an area in which yous lack conviction and become them to coach you into a stronger identify.
Personal coaching is one of the most potent methods of bringing change in a customised and relevant mode. Coaches bring fresh eyes to your church and assist y'all see more than what you are currently seeing.
They can assist you avoid pitfalls and encourage you to focus the things that grow a salubrious church.
These are my 7 reasons why churches end growing and decline into impotence.
Can you add to my list of why churches stop growing?
Download our free and simple
Visitor Connect Card
You tin utilise this card this Sunday
Source: https://growahealthychurch.com/churches-stop-growing/
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