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Tuesday June 2, 2009 ~ 8 Comments
Mark Kelly summarizes the findings: Of these seven types of ministry expansion, the pastors surveyed indicated that adding an additional worship service or venue on site is most closely related to higher growth in attendance, followed by building new or additional ministry space at the same site where the church is located. Churches that expanded in those two ways experienced significantly higher levels of growth in average worship attendance over a five-year period, according to the pastors surveyed.
This study actually includes both opinion questions and the reporting of facts by pastors. The fact questions included asking pastors if their church had made any of the 7 changes in the last 5 years. We also asked their current average worship attendance and their attendance 5 years ago. The recollection of the church's attendance 5 years ago could be off slightly for some. After all, this was a phone survey, but it should be close in most cases. Overall, we do consider the number of growing churches reported in this study to be a little higher than when annually reported data is available for comparison. We ran statistical tests on these facts as reported and the first point in the story is related to these tests. The title we released the information with was stated in the negative, "Ministry expansion doesn't automatically lead to attendance growth." The fact is that causality is not something that we can test at all. However, since it is safe for us to rule out causality if there is not even a statistical relationship we felt comfortable stating this as we did in our release. The opinion questions show that more than two-thirds of Protestant pastors agree (strongly or somewhat) that 5 of the ministry changes we tested "lead to additional growth." Pastors whose churches have actual made that type of change are more likely to agree, and this was true of all 7 we tested. We wanted to see what the rest of the pastors believe. It is interesting to note that all pastors did not agree without hesitation. A look at the PowerPoint that is now up on the LifeWay Research website shows that more pastors somewhat agree than strongly agree in all cases. Also, keep in mind our questions did not ask whether the pastors believe this is the only thing that leads to growth. For example, I can understand why many pastors did not want to disagree that you get some visitors when you open a new building and that some stick around. The statistical tests we ran that showed a real relationship between two of the changes and growth also prove that only a small portion of the attendance growth is explained by the items we tested. There indeed are other things that lead to growth and some of the spiritual things related to growth would never be able to be tested through research. Jump into the comments below and share your thoughts and experiences. Has expansion of your church led to, or been a result of, growth. Posted on June 2, 2009 at 7:36 PM ~ 8 Comments Tagged with: church growth, expansion, research Subscribe via RSS or Follow us on Twitter
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How did Peter ever reach 3000 souls?
How did they ever manage without polls, surveys, spiritual gifts test?
Ahh, the poor early church only relying on preaching the Word of God and living by the Word.
Ed,
Remind me again which book of the Bible this verse comes from,
If you build it, they will come.
Oh.
Wait.
Isn't that 1 Kinsella? :-)
B
It's kind of a no-brainer that if you do almost anything marketing-related, (new service, new location, new building, etc.),you will have more attending. You basically will draw church members from other congregations to join your, "neater," church. Big deal. How do any of these methods effect spiritual growth?
The church I left last year built out the basement and added more space. They increased their long-term debt by $1 miillion, doubling the debt load. They drove off all those with any discernment who warned against their plan. This was all to, "reach 1000 children," (do a google on that one to see how people manipulate others by appealing to the need to reach children).
When it was all said and done, there are maybe 50 more people, because of a church split down the street. What was the cost of acquiring those new addendees? - $2.15 million divided by 50 equals $43,000 per person. That's just plain stupid.
Have any of these pastors considered teaching their people how to witness and lead others to the Lord? I believe your survey has nothing to do with church growth. It has to do with church member shuffling. The church is not the box you meet in, it is the collection of believers.
From a dollars and sense perspective, if you want true church growth, let's take the money we spend on buildings and fund organizations that are already doing the work of leading those to Christ, like Campus Crusade, Young Life, World Vision, etc.
Mark,
I think you are at the wrong blog if you don't think research matters. There are lots of others filled with people who think we don't need any such info. You might be more comfortable there.
Bill,
Very funny. I love that movie.
Michael,
Actually, it does have to do with church growth. Your complaint is that it does not measure conversion growth and that is true. The study looked at attendance which may or may not have been conversion growth.
Ed
Ed:
The church, as I stated in my comment before, is the body of believers at large. You're survey measures how many of those believers and unbelievers, (which do not make up the church), show up at a certain box to participate in that group's service, activities, etc. Your survey seems to identify what measures are useful in attracting new attendees. But it overlooks that these new attendees might be coming from down the street from a group that didn't build their building first. So, we are constantly upping the ante for all groups. But the net effect between several churches in the area might be zero. Is that church growth?
I appreciate that you are researching these things. It is useful and helpful. I just would like for us to keep our eye on the ball that really matters.
Honest question. How did the early church manage? Educate me. If you can show me in Scripture I can be moved. Who builds the church, man or Christ?
Mark,
It is not a bad question, but one we have discussed many times and can't do that each time I post statistical research.
Thanks for understanding.
Ed
I think most pastors, and even church members would agree with these findings. I know in our church we have experienced tremendous growth based on average attendance the past 9 months (1050 in Aug to 1330ish in May). I think the leadership must always ask,"where are the people coming from?" We are seeing people (adults and students) come to Christ and be baptized. We have done 60-70 baptisms in that same time.
Most church members focus on growth and enjoy that aspect. Leadership needs to ensure that the church body they oversee are seeking to reach lost people for Christ.
The first 4 actions and the last 2 are generally things done by strong churches, already seeing growth. That growth may be the preemptive cause for building or adding something new.
Video streaming could be done by churches that have platued or are stagnant in growth as a means to reach more.
To Mark i would say, I understand your point, but leadership needs to recognized the value of research. It was Jesus, who when He had sent out the disciples by twos, told them to go into the town and see if people were receptive to the gospel. If nobody was receptive, then they were to shake off the dust of their sandals and move on. The disciples were essentially taking a poll of the citizens' openess to the gospel by their conversations.
Thank again Ed for the work of you and your team!
Dany