7 Church Growth Myths – but you think they work
Church Growth Myths
There are 7 Church growth myths that more than likely you’ve invested a lot of time and effort in, but they probably aren’t really adding any people to your church. This is not meant to be critical of any of them or to try and do away with any of them. My goal here is to make you think, evaluate, and assess what it is that will help grow your church. So, here we go.
7 church growth myths; things that don’t necessarily produce dynamic church growth, but you think they do
- Great Facilities – the churches that have experienced great growth have done it in the most unlikely, inconvenient, dysfunctional places. Most often large churches build their large facilities after they have experienced dynamic growth. When they experience their greatest levels of growth they are often in temporary or make shift buildings. Spending a lot of money and energy on design and “cool stuff” often is wasted time and money. Pay attention to functionality and cleanliness and leave the rest for later.
- Written Vision – there are thousands of churches that can’t break 100 who have well written and developed mission and vision statements. Just having a vision that’s been written out does not produce growth. Obviously you need to know where your going and why. If you’re a leader you do and you will.
- Powerful Prayer – I’ve been in a number of very small churches that have leaders with a strong focus on prayer and are faithfully committed to prayer. If prayer were the cause of church growth we would have overflowing churches in every city. Prayer is very important and it will be a major focal point for any growing church, however that is not what causes your church to grow.
- Good preaching – In my opinion, I have been in several smaller churches where the pastor has had a much greater ability to preach than some of the larger churches I’ve been in. Just because you’re a dynamic preacher does not assure you of a growing church.
- Love for people – this is the one thing I always hear about small churches verses large churches – “small churches care for and love the people more than big churches”. If that’s the case and loving people is the key for church growth then why are big churches big and small churches small? Loving and caring for people does not always equate to growing a church. We should and need to care for and love people – it’s what we do, just don’t think that alone will grow your church.
- Excellent Marketing – I call this the “If you build it they will come” pitfall. We all want to believe if we start a church everybody is going to want to come. However, if all you had to do was find a great building, in a great location, have a web site, put up a sign, place some billboards around town, hand out some flyers, and run some ads on radio, internet, and tv to have people flock to your church every church would be large. Churches do not grow just because you have a place to meet, make it look cool, and do some advertising.
- Vibrant Guest Services – Again, if all you had to do to build a large church was have a dynamic parking lot team, friendly greeters, hospitable welcome center, etc. every church would be huge. Some of the best organized, trained, and staffed guest service ministries I have seen have been in churches of less than 500. This just isn’t what makes churches grow.
I’m not saying these 7 church growth myths aren’t needed or important, they just don’t always equate to church growth. I know these are often listed as the “must dos” if you want to grow a church. There are hundreds of church growth seminars and tons of books that have been written detailing how to do each of these effectively in order to grow your church. They can be helpful, so don’t ignore them, just don’t spend all your time, energy, and resources on these areas and think this will result in dynamic church growth. In most cases these things have far less impact on growing a church than most realize and then the pastor and lead team who feel like they’ve did everything possible to have a vibrant church are disappointed and often become disillusioned and frustrated. There are several other things that have much greater impact on producing growth. If churches would focus more on them, they would see greater growth. You can find out what they are in my article titled, “7 Key Factors for Church Growth” – CLICK HERE
