Church Growth

I. A GLOBAL REALITY
It’s Sunday morning and it’s time to go to church! Reverend X is the pastor and
leader of the flock. It’s time to see his beloved congregation. He expects a glorious
service that day. His family is preparing to go with him to worship the Lord. Oh, it feels
great! Those thoughts made him jump out of bed. However, as he prepares and reviews
the last few notes of his sermon, other thoughts come to mind. Lately the church has
not been as full as it used to be. Sunday attendance has been declining, and some
families have moved and probably won’t be coming this Sunday. Unfortunately, Sunday
School attendance is also very low. Suddenly, his joy begins to fade away with these
thoughts. Pastor X rebukes them, but they keep coming back and all he can do is pray
to the Lord for strength and determination. Now, everyone is in the car and ready to go.
Joy immediately returns when he heads to church with his loved ones. As he begins to
approach the church building, the negative thoughts return. This, obviously, bothers
him. What happens if fewer people show up? As he enters the parking lot, he notices
that there are fewer cars parked in the parking lot than there were last week. He parks
his car, enters the sanctuary, and his negative thoughts become reality. Pastor X
sees a lot of empty seats. Something is wrong, and unfortunately, it’s out of his control.

II. DEFINITION OF THE PROBLEM
This simple story is repeated every Sunday morning in churches across the United
States. Pastors and leaders get frustrated; some want to quit. We are now seeing
larger buildings attended by smaller groups of people. It’s not a pretty picture. Some
churches survive on their past achievements, turning their buildings into museums of
history.

Why are church buildings emptying? Why are pastors resigning from their positions like
never before? Why aren’t churches growing? Why can’t members be retained? Why do we see beautiful congregations that accept defeat so easily and move to other churches
in the city? Tony Morgan writes, “There is a sad phenomenon that is occurring in many
large cities in America today; You’ll see churches with less attendance and other
churches increasing by the hundreds without any conversion!” How can that be?
Christians are simply changing their place of worship and others are abandoning the faith.

To illustrate this point, The Outreach Magazine shows the growth of 5 well-known
churches in 2011, without any aggressive evangelism commitments:

1. Richmond Outreach Center, Richmond, VA., Pastor, Geronimo Aguilar (83% +2,530)
2. Elevation Church, Charlotte, N.C., Pastor, Steven Furtick (48% +2,744)
3. Real Life Church, Valencia, CA., Pastor, Rusty George (111% +1,763)
4. Potter’s House Church of Denver, Denver, CO., Pastor, E. Christopher Hill
(51%+1,800)
5. Valley Church of Christ, Peoria, AZ., Pastor, Donald J. Wilson (29% +4,049)

This type of growth only occurs when members of small churches begin to leave their
churches to attend larger congregations. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the churches
mentioned above are bad, or that they are doing something wrong, it’s simply the reality
of what is happening in many big cities in America today.

It is sad to hear that the leaders and members of the beautiful churches of the past
struggle month after month, debating whether or not they should stay open or close
their doors forever.

In 2004, Pastor Andy McAdams, president and founder of Multiplication Ministries, a
website dedicated to helping pastors, cites 29 points that highlight the condition of
churches in the United States:

1. 1,400 pastors in the United States leave the ministry monthly.
2. Less than 20% of churches recognize or appreciate their pastor in some way
annually.
3. Only 15% of churches in the United States are growing and just under 5% of them
are growing by the growth of conversions.
4. 10,000 churches in the United States disappeared in a five-year period.
5. The number of people in the United States who do not attend church has doubled in
the last 15 years.
6. No more than 38% of the population attends church and that is in the Bible belt. The
next highest is the Midwest at 25%, the West at 21%, and the Northeast at 17%.
7. Although the Bible Belt still has the highest percentage of churchgoers, many of
those churches are filled with extreme legalism or liberalism.
8. The vast majority of churches have an attendance of less than 75 people.
9. In 70% of U.S. churches, the pastor is the only full-time staff member.
10. There are nearly 100 million Americans who don’t attend church, 11 to 20% of whom
claim to be born again. They have left the church or have never connected for some
reason.