Brian Dodd, a leadership consultant, offers a list of 17 signs of a fast-growing church. Among them —
1. Fast Growing Churches Are Unashamed To Preach Jesus – It is a common misconception that large churches water down the gospel.
5. Fast Growing Churches Have A Volunteer Culture – The ability to integrate, equip, resource, and cheer on volunteers is critical to church health.
8. Fast Growing Churches Have Ministry Needs That Outpace Ministry Resources – Another common false belief is that churches only want your money. Many young families come to a church with a house note that stretches them, two car payments, and credit card debt.
9. Fast Growing Churches Are Clear On Vision and Strongly Defend It – Clarity on why we exist and what we are about is critical for creating ownership.
10. Fast Growing Churches Connect Every Ministry Activity Back To The Overall Vision – Successful ministries tie everything back to the big picture for their people. Mistakes can be made when the various elements of ministry seem disconnected and autonomous.
11. Fast Growing Churches Struggle With Connecting People Into Community – Growth is happening so fast that making sure everyone is in a small group is extremely difficult.
17. Fast Growing Churches Serve The Poor, Marginalized, and Under-Resourced – Young people especially are passionate about joining movements and faith communities that address social justice issues.
Read the entire list and let us know whether you agree. And, more importantly, are these the signs that should characterize a church, fast-growing or not?
Thanks for the post Jay. I must confess that the list is one of my pet peeves. It is one of the subjects of my blog – http://www.christianconversationsnow.com/ To your question: “are these the signs that should characterize a church, fast-growing or not? It depends:
Is the church being built by Jesus or men?
Is the power of the gospel found in its content or manner of presentation?
Is the church the household of God or a consumer interest group?
Do we find the “secrets” of church growth from the Bible or the most successful ad agencies?
Is the church a fellowship or an institution? My post – http://www.christianconversationsnow.com/2010/12/… speaks more to the question. “Christianity started out in Palestine as a fellowship; it moved to Greece and became a philosophy; it moved to Italy and became an institution; it moved to Europe and became a culture; it came to America and became an enterprise.”
I think this is wishful thinking. The key to sustained growth over a period of decades is not merely being really nice to the community around you, but rather holding to distinctive morals and standards. Historically, the churches that grow are the ones that have a "high cost" of membership — high expectations for morality and other-worldliness. The more the church adopts the values of the community around it, the more irrelevant it becomes. A few years ago I reviewed an excellent book on the topic:
https://christianunityblog.wordpress.com/2007/05/…
Indicators, common threads, this article does not claim that all churches should have certain signs – it merely observes that many large or thriving churches have some common characteristics. Since I am not pushing a blog of my own I will try to respond to the question that Jay raises. I see little wrong with this article. A church that preaches Jesus' teachings, that ties his teachings into our everyday life (through personal stewardship and money issues), a church that celebrates volunteers and the priesthood of all believers, invests in it's young families, is committed to ministering to the unchurched, poor and marginalized, has a clear identity in Christ and invests in youth and children – this sounds like the kind of church we would all like our church to be. Some may be uncomfortable with the Lead Pastor terminology but show me an eldership that does not want a stable, long term, excellent senior minister and… wait, that eldership probably does not exist. These items are a great place to start if a church wants to know why it is not growing. The only one that struck me as novel was the developing wealthy members. I have never heard that stated so blatantly. How do churches go about this?
Good comments, both. Thank you.
Jay, what is the assumptive definition of "fast growing church?" "Fast growing" with respect to what? "Fast" is a qualitative term. But we usually think we must use quantitative measures in the physical realm to define "fast."
So we measure; we count. Then we have to compare our measures with someone else's to define what qualifies as "fast." Faster than the church across the street? Fast as on the day of Pentecost and the next 4 chapters or so?
Does just the term "fast growing" already imply competition?
What is the quantitative assessment tool to measure whatever we have defined as being important enough to measure?
Usually it is something quick and easy. Bodies and dollars.
The formula from Acts seems to be, "You take care of preaching Jesus and the power to save, which comes from the spiritual realm, and God will take care of your "fast growing church" in the physical realm."
In this country, are our "fast growing" eyes on Jesus or more on the contribution plate?
Where is that taking us?
"…….. became an enterprise." great comment.
Surely we aren't going to measure the success or failure of a church by how quickly it is adding members, are we?
How about fast growing in love, in hope, in knowledge, in worship, in evangelism, in service, in sacrifice, in giving, etc? Shouldn't the numbers of members be about the last thing that we care about?
I would add that fast growing churches do a lot of talking about investing in future generations. This keeps them from being hung up on traditions that may have become irrelevant in reaching today's society.
And actually looking at the list those very things seem to predominate. Folks who focus on the basics grow. Folks who focus on growth will actually never be stable enough to grow for the long term. Most of the large churches around now didn't start out with the goal of becoming a megachurch. They set out to do Church right (looking a lot like this list) and God added to what was working. You know, kinda like He did in Acts…
I understand the temptation to undervalue numbers when we discuss the work of the church. It seems "unspiritual" to focus on something as crass as numbers. However, the mission of the church as a whole is to MAKE disciples and this entails adding numbers to the body of Christ. If a church grows in love, hope knowledge, worship and service but does not make disciples from the world than that church is not fulfilling the Great Commission. On the other hand, if a church is adding numbers but not engaging in spiritual formation resulting in the above list than that church is also failing the Great Commission. This list does not seem to suggest things that are counter to the mission of the church. Perhaps people take offense because they realize that their church is not engaged in these practices.
Adam, as far as churches investing in future generations perhaps more churches should be willing to walk away from traditions that could be a barrier between the gospel and the culture the church exists in.
My concern is not with what is on the list. Those are generally good things. My concern is for what is missing: taking a stand for anything that runs counter to the culture. There are some kinds of deeds Christians must put to death. You know, those inconvenient moral values that mean someone cannot pratice greed, or envy, or sexual immorality, or drunkenness, or slander, etc (1 Cor 5:11-13) and still call themselves a Christian, or be considered a member of the church.
Alan, I see what you are saying but it seems that you are setting up a straw man. I agree that one cannot practice those things unrepentantly and be considered a follower of Christ. Nowhere did this article condone sinfulness among members of the churches that it surveyed. It merely pointed out common characteristics of churches that were growing. There was no evidence of moral laxity or unholy practice in the list that we were asked to discuss.
In fact the first item was "preaching Jesus." You can't preach Jesus and condone sin. In fact if you preach Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount you lay down standards that many would think are quite radical.
To clarify my earlier comment: If the church is an institution (a business franchise – think McDonald’s and we are in competition with other flavors of Christianity) all of the items on the list would be helpful. It would just be a choice of which ones to emphasize as market forces demand, demographics change, to answer how to get the most production from labor and to keep the corporate“vision” relevant to the public – anythingthing necessary to maintain and grow market share. If the church is a fellowship (think family) we will have a different list of priorities.
I think it is good business sense to allow the market to setthe value of consumer goods and adapt to give the customer what he wants. But it is a huge mistake to depend upon a worldly culture to judge the churches’ faithfulness to the gospel. As Alan said, “The more the church adopts the values of the community around it, the more irrelevant it becomes.” Irrelevant sometimes equals worldly success (did anyone watch the Grammys last night?). Sometimes the most important question is whether to be “successful” or faithful. Or, is success the only measure of our faithfulness?
Jay, when I made my 1st comment I checked the box to get updates on all comments. It didn’t happen. What did I do wrong? Thanks.
This is an example of a fast- Growing Church, but unfortanately is a denomination!
by brother V.E. Howard,
It is know that some years ago in an East Texas oil field community, a denominational church closed its doors for membership. The reason for this unusual action was the fact that oil was discovered on the church property, which meant considerable royalty for the members of that church. Therefore, instead of putting money into the collection plate, they took money out of the treasury. They divided the oil money among themselves. As you might imagine, they began to get many new members. In view of the situation, they decided to “close the doors of the church” – no more new members with whom to divide the “oil money.” I suppose that would be one denomination that a person could not “join” unless he had an oil well. Just too bad if a man didn’t have an oil well! Imagine that being a New Testament church! I tell you, the church of Christ is not a denomination, and denominations are no part of the church. (1)
1).- V.E. Howard. Is the church of Christ a denomination? 1970. P. 4-5.
What a hoot! I wonder if the pastor got a raise or if they fired him?
GuestForTruth:
Exactly what truth are you arriving at from that anecdote? Because that happened at a church in Texas, only people in the Church of Christ denomination are going to heaven?
The majority of the members of the church that belong to Christ Mt.16:18, Rom. 16:16 of Course!!
But, like our Lord Jesus said in Matt. 7:13-14;21-23 "13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." why are few? because not all person who proclaim be a Christian is a genuine New Testament Christian as the bible describe.
There is the possibility to lost salvation and ended in the lake of fire just because the member believe " Once in grace always in grace" if a member of the body of Christ does not make the effort to being faithful to Jesus and his teachings leaving behind the old man and living a godly life (2 Peter 1:3, 1 Peter 2:21) as God wants in this world, (Hebrews 2:1-3) those members are going to be dissapointed during the judgement day. This teaching apply to denominations and also to members of the church of Christ. Our head Jesus said in Matt. 15:13 "…. ..“Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted" and “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Where is the will of our heavenly father? (John 6:30-40; Romans 12:2, Galatians 1:3-5) 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
The New Testament church learnd from the master Jesus and keep all his teachings faithfully. We as New Testament Christian not just by name but in truth also learn from the example of the Old Testament Rom. 15:4 we learn a lot from the Old Testament as mention in 1 Cor. 10:5-7. .” The examples of the Scriptures make us think about focus the whole counsel of God Acts 20:27. we learn from Jesus our Lord as the case here in Luke 11:42. " “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. and we remain faithfully to Christ our head (Acts. 4:11-12, 1 Cor. 3:9-11) 2 John 1:8-9 "8 Look to yourselves, that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward.
9 Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. we everyday self evaluate if we are in the faith (Jesus teachings the whole N.T) 2 Cor. 13:5 "Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified."
"You can't preach Jesus and condone sin."
True statement, but very sad that it's done in churches all the time. I left a church that preached Jesus, but when the youth minister had a real "hands on" approach to ministry, the leadership lied and told half truths to a specific group of the congregation and wouldn't discuss it with the whole of the congregation (who the youth minister routinely preached to). They decided to "restore" the guy, but did nothing for the the young women that he "sexually harrassed".
All I have is anecdotal evidence, but look at Joel Olsteen and you'll see Jesus preached and and sin not condoned, but not condemned either.