Mark Driscoll pastors the Mars Hill Church in Seattle, which is quite a large and effective congregation. Here’s his advice on church growth —
1. Begin with the end in mind and know how large you want to be.
… Lyle Schaller, considered one of the best church consultants in the world, states in his book, The Very Large Church, that the two most comfortable church sizes are under 45 people and under 150 people, likely making them two of the hardest thresholds to pass through, in addition to the 800 mark.
In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell states that 150 is also the maximum number of people someone can purposefully connect with, which explains why some people do not like bigger churches. It may also explain why John Wesley divided people into groups of about 150, the average hunter-gatherer village is about 150 people, most military units are under 200, and the Hutterites allow their communities to grow no larger than 150. ..
2. The larger the church, the more different it is from other churches of the same theology and tradition.
… Size affects the number of lines of communication, how an organization stacks or does not stack leadership, access to the senior leader and family, etc. Simply put, church size does matter for how a church is run, much like a married couple who some years later find themselves with a dozen children cannot simply organize their life as they did with their first child—everything must change.
For those wanting to learn more about the dynamics of church size, Tim Keller has a helpful paper, and Larry Osborne has a helpful book called Sticky Teams.
3. Change is inevitable.
… For a church to grow, it must change. It does not need to change in theology, but it will need to change in methodology. If a church is unwilling to change their methodology to reach and care for more people, then it is guilty of method-idolatry, which is where we confuse unchanging biblical principles with what are supposed to be changing cultural methods.
4. Don’t assign moral judgments to size and change.
People tend to wrongly attach a moral value to church size, which is unholy, unhealthy, and unhelpful. This explains why big churches are accused of being uncaring and small churches are accused of not reaching people or being well led or organized. …
5. If you want to grow, you need to prepare for common changes now.
Here are few of the changes you’ll face as you grow:
- You move from managing workers, to leading managers, to leading leaders.
- Focus shifts from a survival-in-the-present mode to a success-in-the-future mode.
- Expectations move from informal to formal (elders, deacons, and members).
- You have to grow from making decisions by general consensus to a handful of people making decisions.
- Communications becomes formal and written rather than informal and oral.
- People’s roles move from general responsibility to specialized responsibility.
- The church moves from being one community to being many communities (e.g. multiple services, community groups, etc.).
- The senior leaders shift their focus from being primarily caregivers to making sure people are being cared for by raising up leaders.
- The senior leader shifts from working in the organization to working on the organization.
- The members move from being connected to the pastor to being connected to other leaders.
- Focus shifts from drawing people through relationship to drawing them through events and dynamic Sunday services.
6. Be humble as a leader to seek the counsel of pastors ahead of you and receive their counsel.
… No man is an island, and it’s crucial to seek godly counsel and humbly receive it.
7. Discern between guilt and conviction in seasons of transition.
Developing this discernment is key, as you cannot do what everyone wants you to do and also do exactly what God calls you to do. As the old adage goes, if you try to please everyone, you please no one. …
Strive to be faithful to Jesus, not to the demands of people.
8. Pray and plan for people to meet Jesus.
As you often get what you pray for, and you need to prepare for it. ..
The good news is that seeing many people meet Jesus, while demanding work, is the best kind of work there is.
What do you think?
This is probably all good advise … especially, if your goal is to build a big organization. However, that’s a goal which I fear is more worldly than spiritual. The only point that really matters is no. 8: Pray and plan for people to meet Jesus.
Yep David, I kinda felt that should be #1 on any list myself.
I wonder about #1: “Begin with the end in mind and know how large you want to be.”
Whatever number I may put on “how large you want to be” may be putting a limit on how God can bless the work. Why not start with a vision of multiplying the number of disciples – and also multiplying the number of congregations? If we begin with the idea of building a mega-church, is there an element of “control” and “personal glory” involved? On the other hand, if our goal is to build a church that will plant churches, are we not showing willingness to relinquish control and give God the glory?
Those may not follow, but that is what I wonder.
That’s just worldy marketing strategic rhethoric. There is no BCV, there is a human focus on numbers and size and on what is “managable”. That’s an unfitting approach and perspective.
To #1: God said to Paul, He had a great number of people in Corinth. Paul did not know how many precisely, didn’t he? And was his work in Athens without succes although he left only a small number of believers there?
Christ called His disciples a little flock that needs not be afraid, because God has chosen to give us the Kingdom.
Let’s focus on the Kingdom, not on numbers! On faithfulness and obedience, not in “structures” and “strategy”. Yes: Prayer should be at the center of our actions.
Alexander
I have no problem focusing on numbers, because each number represents a soul we want to help mold in the image of Jesus. Thus, the larger a church, the more souls that have been touched, and the more souls that can now potentially be touched. Though it’s not always the case, I did say not always the case, it is often the case (as has been my observation) that smaller churches bash (or at least criticize in some area or another) larger churches and those who have large aspirations, in an attempt to justify, or make themselves feel better, for not growing and being a part of a smaller church.
Now, this is strategic information that I’m sure Paul, Peter, and the rest of the apostles must have sat around discussing. “Whoa, 3000 souls? Yikes, I don’t know if we can handle that. Let’s not do go to places where there are sinners anymore, let’s just speak from within the church and tell people to invite their friends. That ought to slow growth down a bit.” 😉
Another grand idea from the people who brought you, “I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones…”
One serious question has been left out here. “Why do you want to gather so many people under your own personal influence and leadership?”
It seems to me that a healthy parent rears his children so that he can release them into a healthy adulthood. An unhealthy one raises his children to stay under his wing their whole lives. So what is it when a parent gathers someone Else’s children under his own wing with the intent that they will remain under his own wing their entire lives?
Alexander, I agree, but unfortunately we have developed a whole Christendom full of little kingdoms; and their kings, whether kind and noble or shrewd and despotic, are ALL interested in enlarging their own fiefs. It is not “church growth” which is sought, but growth of my own sphere of influence.
Sadly, I think “church growth” is generally so desired by –and easily sold to– church leaders because of an unspoken belief by individual leaders: “The world at large (and the church in specific) would be better off if I were running a larger portion of it.”
A recent article on the “Christian Staandard” website concerning ICC megachurches included a statistic that I had never seen or even thought of before. It was dollars/convert and was calculated by taking the annual church budget and dividing it by the number of baptisms during the year. At first glimpse, it seems a little crass but then… we are supposed to be good stewards. But on the other hand, there’s the parable of the lost sheep and/or the lost coin and it’s illustrative of the worth of one soul. So what do you all think? Is the dollars per convert worthwhile as a measure of church efffectiveness? Incidently, the figures shown were in the $20,000/convert range. So how does your church compare to that number? I think the cost at my church is considerably higher…