Church planting and church growth

Church planting and church growth

Growth means life…energy…new horizons…new freedoms…new attainments. Growth means the fulfillment of expectations (Towns, 1998, p.1).

First, to build a church through growth barriers, take advantage of all the spiritual dynamics available to all believers. Learn brokenness before the Lord so God can fill you with His Spirit. Know the Word of God; it gives you authority in ministry. Be a person of intercessory prayer. Minister from the calling you have from God. This calling will drive you to sacrifice, take up your cross daily, and follow Jesus Christ (Towns, 1998, p.5).

Rick Warren shares about Church growth “Since the Church is a living organism, it is natural for it to grow if it is healthy. The Church is a body, not a business. It is an organism, not an organization. It is alive. If a church is not growing, it is dying” (Towns, 1998, p.27).

“The church is the length and shadow of its pastor.” Therefore, you will grow a church out of your character and spirituality. A pastor will grow the type of Church that reflects his personal growth, not what he writes in a vision or ministry statement (Towns, 1998, p.6).

A church can grow to a certain point with programs, social ministries, and good organization. But long-standing conversion growth simply does not take place in churches that have a more liberal view of Scripture. Many liberal churches have found themselves at the middle-sized barrier due primarily to their beliefs about the bible (Rainer, 1998, p.90).

E-1 Evangelism is evangelism that overcomes the church-building barrier. The barrier includes such things as poor location, inadequate parking, and unkempt or poorly maintained facilities. The Church must have a dynamic that draws people to Jesus Christ. The Church must have warm services, and the pastor must preach with power (Wagner, 1998, pp. 8-9).

E-2 Evangelism, is a cultural and class barrier. This principle recognizes members of certain cultures who may not wish to attend a church that predominantly consists of members of another culture (Wagner, 1998, p.10).

E-3 Evangelism is a cultural language. People like to hear God in their heart language (the language in which they think), even when they also speak a second language (Wagner, 1998, p.10).

Expansion growth is a technical term describing the process of bringing new members into your local Church. It is different from “internal growth” (helping believers mature in their Christian life,) “extension growth” (planting new churches in one’s own culture), and “bridging growth” (planting churches in different cultures) (Wagner, 1998, p.24).

Breaking the 200-person and 400-person barriers for church growth:

Carl Dudley’s terminology, crossing the 200 barriers represents the transition from the single cell to a multi-celled church (Wagner, 1998, p.32).

If a church is going to grow numerically, it must be motivated to grow. Motivation for growth is the first step toward breaking the 200 barriers (Wagner, 1998, p.43).

Two targets are necessary for this motivation: the pastor and the people. Peter believes that the responsibility for growth is 50 percent the pastor and 50 percent the people.

He goes on to share that the motivation for church growth begins with God, ordinarily transmitted by the Holy Spirit through the pastor to the congregation. Motivation is generated by a combination of desire and commitment.

The desire, if it is produced by the Holy Spirit, takes biblical root in both the Great Commission and the Great Commandment, two of the most important directives Jesus Christ gave His followers, the Church (Wagner, 1998, pp.44-45).

A pastor who is a possibility thinker and whose dynamic leadership has been used to catalyze the entire Church into action for growth is the first vital sign and number one factor for growth. There are two things that a growth pastor cannot delegate: faith (or vision) and leadership (Wagner, 1998, p.46).

The Cost of commitment #1:

The pastor

• Assume the leadership of your Church.

• work hard – but also with God’s wisdom

• work smart – time management.

• Add staff – don’t be a lone-ranger.

• Mobilize lay ministry- equip and develop leaders.

• Switch from the shepherd mode of pastoring to the ranch mode – transition from single-cell the multi-cell Church

The Cost of commitment #2:

The people

• Make your pastor the “Apostolic Leader.”

• Learn to behave like sheep – allowing the leader to lead.

• Pay the money – tithing, seed, and first fruits.

• Do the work of the ministry – everyone is called.

• Accept newcomers – not feeling threatened.

• Develop new fellowship circles – groups for needs.

Prayer:

Although humans play key roles, church growth is not a human enterprise; it is a divine initiative. Jack Haywood puts it in his book; Prayer is Invading the Impossible: “If we don’t. He won’t.” Let’s not begin to move toward the 200 barrier without a solid foundation of prayer (Wagner, 1998, p.57). I feel prayer is always vital as we move forward for the Lord, and this supernatural manifestation of God’s hand will need unity of prayer and fasting to see a breakthrough.

Goals:

Every goal is a statement of faith “without faith; it is impossible to please Him” (Heb 11:6 NKJV.) That is why setting goals has built-in spiritual power – unlimited church growth – is to set goals (Wagner, 1998, p.59).

Peter also shares, “Even though the new Church may have only 50 or 100 members, it does not need to be a small church or have a small church mindset. For starters, it must never allow itself to be a single cell. Peter instructs his church planters to plan on breaking the 200 barriers in the first year. If they do not break it in the second year, the possibility of ever breaking it decreases very rapidly. But, if they do a good enough job on site selection in order to trigger positive con-textual factors, any church with adequate leadership should be able to do it in two years (Wagner, 1998, p.61).

Overcoming Middle-sized Church Growth Barriers of 400 People:

Thom Rainer shares in overcoming middle-sized church growth barriers of 400 people in the book, every church guide to Growth, “The Loyalty Factor: A recent study I led on assimilation opened my eyes to the intense loyalty present in many middle0sized congregations. Such loyalty was present in the small churches, but it was typically limited to just a few people. In the larger churches, the loyalty factor was not nearly as pervasive (Rainer, 1998, p.84). He went on to share, “While the members of large churches indicated some degree of loyalty, their dedication typically was not as intense as that of the participants in middle-sized churches. “Belonging” was a word often used to describe the experience of the middle-sized church participants in contrast to the members of the large churches. The Church was not so large that members felt as if they were not needed or wanted. But the

Church was not so small that they sensed all decision-making authority resided in a

As he addresses the churches with an average attendance of between 200 and 700, there is a ten-point checkup on growth barriers:

1. The preaching phenomenon: the pastors of the nongrowing churches averaged slightly over two hours of preparation time per sermon. The pastors in the high-conversion growth churches averaged ten hours per sermon each week.

2. A praying people: One major factor that affected the growth of the churches was that the praying people became changed people.

3. Focusing outward: The members stopped talking about “my needs” and “what I like” and started developing a Great Commission mindset. They began to realize that reaching out is part of the mission and purpose of the Church.

4. The Mission / Purpose Mindset: Churches that are experiencing and retaining conversion growth have a common denominator: the people of the churches understand the biblical purposes or mission of the Church.

5. The eyes of the outside: They found that churches that intentionally and repetitively sought to have the eyes of the outsider were among the middle-sized churches that most often overcame barriers.

6. The Acts 6 solution: Pastors of growing churches devoted five times as many hours to sermon preparation than the pastors of nongrowing churches. But, if the pastor spends that much more time in the ministry of the Word, the ministry of the Church must not suffer. The laity must answer their God-given call to do the work of ministry.

7. The High-expectation church: the churches communicated clearly that membership was equivalent to ministry rather than being a name on a roll. And they communicated that people in the body of Christ should be faithful in their ministries, gifts, and activities in the Church.

8. The Dinosaur Factor: A healthy Sunday School will overcome the barrier of ministry misplacement. This organization affords more people more opportunities for ministry than any other avenue in the churches we studied. The Sunday School helps the Church to overcome the mission/purpose barrier because most of the Church’s purposes can be carried out here.

9. Eating the Elephant: Pastoral tenure in evangelism and high-assimilation churches was four times higher than the tenure in non-evangelistic and nongrowing churches. Pastors whose churches had successfully overcome the barriers related to control and fear of change demonstrated two characteristics: tenacity and a long-term outlook.

10. The principal of priority: The pastor in an evangelistic-priority church will soon discover that he cannot lead in evangelism and do all the pastoral ministries that are often expected or demanded (Rainer, 1998, pp. 97-116).

few people (Rainer, 1998, p.84). I found this very powerful!

Writing this paper and studying and reading the material have helped me personally to have a greater revelation on the pros and cons these materials bring up regarding our personal experience in the church body throughout my life.

Reference:

E. Towns. Wagner, Rainer (1998). The every church guide to growth. How any plateaued church can grow. Broadman & Holman Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee.

Author Dr Jonni Yeomans