Developing a Church Growth Mindset

An insightful post by Shane Rayner at Wesley Blog:

If a church isn't growing, it's dying.
There is no in-between or maintenance mode for a church, no matter what the statistics might seem to suggest. This summer, central Texas experienced a longer-than-usual drought period. My lawn was so brown that I actually set up a portable sprinkler system to make the grass green again. The problem is, I hate mowing the lawn. But I discovered that if the grass was going to be green again, I was going to have to work to keep it looking nice. My friend Mark suggested that I water the lawn just enough to keep it green, but not enough to make it grow. But I quickly found out that lawns don't work that way. Neither do churches. If a congregation isn't growing, it's dying.

A healthy church must be multi-generational
.
Allow me to use my youth group as an example. We have worked hard building a culture where students invite their friends to our Wednesday event, but the tendency is for people to invite friends from their own grade level. This year I began encouraging our core group (mostly rising juniors) to invite freshmen and sophomores. The reason? In a ministry model with a four-year window (high school outreach), at least 25% of the students must be replaced every year just to maintain the group. If our group were to place its focus on inviting upperclassmen only, we would experience growth, but not over the long term. In fact, in a couple of years, we wouldn't have much of a youth group. Consider this on a larger scale. It's one reason why churches with mostly older people just can't seem to grow.

read the rest of the article here.

Comments

  1. Anonymous8:42 PM

    Let me start out by saying I know that outreach is a good thing and I think every Church should do so. However I do think that a lot of times we get so focused on outreach that we ignore the body as it is. I think there is something to be said about "inreach" if there is such a term. I just feel that the existing Church members need to be feed so they don't die. It seems that a Church can lose one of its members that has been going there for 30 years and the mentality can be that the Church is better of without them. There just seems like there should be a balance between wanting to get new people in the doors and making sure that the ones we have are being cared for.

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  2. Anonymous9:47 PM

    You have a good point, and it is, of course, important to love the faithful members of our flock.

    However, a major part of discipleship is to have the heart of Jesus -- and that would certainly mean a heart to reach out to others.

    If a person has been a part of a church for 30 years, and has not developed a heart for mission and outreach, then something went terribly wrong in the "discipleship" arena.

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  3. Anonymous11:10 AM

    If an individual leaves his/her church of 30 years and the attitude is "we are better off without them", then where is the outreach (Jesus attitude) to get the sheep back in the flock? Often times a longtime member finds himself/herself on the outside of the group in control. Maybe the problem is not with the one who left, but the attitude of the ones (including the pastor) who were GLAD to see them go.

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  4. Anonymous8:07 PM

    If the existing church members are not being feed, than how are the new ones got from outreach going to be feed when they become involved? We can outreach to foreign lands and neglect our family in the church adn comunity.

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