Church Growth:

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Church Growth

• Its not about the Programs

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The State of the ChurchWhat is Church
Attendance?

• According to George Barna, 47 of Americans
  attend every weekend
• Unfortunately, people lie about their worship
  patterns
• According to Dr. David Olson, the real number is
  17.5

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What Churches are Growing?

• Churches with less than 50 people are growing
• Churches with more than 1000 are growing

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What Churches are Growing? (cont.)

• New starts are growing
• Congregations over 25 years of age are not
  growing

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Where is the church doing well?

• The only family of Christians that are growing,
  when adjusted for population growth, are
  Pentecostals
• Yet, their growth is fueled by sheep stealing,
  not kingdom growth.

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Where is the church doing well? (cont.)

• The only state in which the church is growing is
  Hawaii
• Unfortunately, Lutherans are in a decades long
  slide

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Programs do NOT grow the Church

• The 1990s were the Decade of Evangelism in the
  ELCA
• Millions of dollars were invested into evangelism
  programs for ELCA churches
• Nearly 300 resources, programs, conferences,
  books, manuals, etc, were produced.
• Very few in the pews knew about it!
• Both membership and weekly attendance dropped by
  over 100,000

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The Results of ELCA Evangelism Programs

• Congregations that used an evangelism program
  initially showed some growth
• When the program ended, the increases leveled off
  and decline generally happened
• At the 5 year point, congregations which did an
  evangelism program were smaller than when they
  started
• Congregations that did nothing performed better
  than those that used the ELCA evangelism programs
• Programs do not grow the church! (In other words,
  we cant say Well, if we just did the right
  program wed grow!)

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Growing Shrinking Congregations do the exact
same things

• Great liturgical worship services
• Great contemporary worship services
• Youth Groups
• Childrens ministries
• No youth Groups
• No childrens ministries
• Small groups
• Dynamic preachers
• Boring preachers

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There are no magic bullets or best practices
that will help us grow the church

• Nothing is more numbing to the Church than the
  fact that it is mired in a rut of unfathomable
  depths. The various creative approaches
  attempted over the course of this decade have
  drawn much attention, but produced little, if any
  transformational impact. (State of the Church
  2005)

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Money does NOT grow the Church

• In 1994 the ELCA awarded 160 outreach grants to
  existing ministries ( 2.3 million)
• After 5 years 16 had closed (10)
• After 5 years worship attendance had declined by
  1950 worshippers per week in those 160
  congregations
• It cost the ELCA 1200/ worshipper lost!

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Money does not grow the church!

• Many churches that are financially stable are
  shrinking
• Many churches that are financially troubled are
  growing

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We cant say Well, if we just had more money
wed grow!

• It is quite astounding that although
  Protestant and Catholic churches have raised
  and spent close to one trillion dollars on
  domestic ministry during the past two decades,
  there has been no measurable increase in one of
  the expressed purposes of the church to lead
  people to Christ and have them commit their lives
  to him. (State of the Church 2002)

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What does it take to grow the church?
?
?
?
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1. Purpose

• a. We have a collective sense of what God wants
  us to do.
• b. We contextualize Gods mission and point
  ourselves outwards to the world

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Purpose (cont.)What are we offering

• Jesus Church growth is growing the kingdom of
  God by reaching out to those who do not have a
  relationship with Christ and offering Jesus to
  them
• Not our congregation Congregational growth wants
  to grow our congregation in order to fill our
  pews and coffers and assure our institutional
  survival. Congregational growth focuses its
  efforts on sheep stealing and reaching those
  who are already churched, or have a proclivity to
  church

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Purpose (cont.)God is on a Mission

• God is up to something much bigger than our
  congregation
• God is on a mission to bless the whole world
• God is on the loose out there!
• We are invited to be part of Gods mission

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What does it take to grow the church?
?
?
?
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2. A Willingness to Change

• We need to be SO committed to Gods purpose that
  we will change HOW WE ARE (state of being) what
  we do to carry out Gods purpose for us!
• What is non-negotiable within the life of the
  church?
• What are we willing to change?
• Growth doesnt require adding programs, but
  transforming our attitudes, which is much harder.

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Jesus said 16 "No one sews a patch of unshrunk
cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull
away from the garment, making the tear worse. 17
Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins.
If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will
run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No,
they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both
are preserved." Matthew 916-17 (NIV)
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What does it take to grow the church?
?
?
?
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3. Leadership

• Growing churches have laity and clergy who work
  together
• No pastor can save our congregation

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Leadership (cont.)Asset based ministry

• We need to stop planning programs and hope to
  fill the open slots with warm bodies
• Everyone serves in the area of his/her gifts
• We plan programs around our gifts

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A difficult truth (something we dont want to
hear)

• We have everything we need to accomplish Gods
  purposes for us
• If we dont have it, we dont need it
• If we need it, God will provide it according to
  Gods timetable and plan