Growth

Throughout all of Christendom there has been a universal theme:

The harvest is plenty but the workers are few.

We know we want our churches to be healthy and experience growth. Sustained growth means we are consistently reaching new hearts for Christ! But with roughly 80% of US churches experiencing decline, what is keeping our churches from growing?

In Western culture, we all but worship having choices. The more choices, the better! But what if we’re wrong? And what if it’s actually limiting spiritual growth and involvement?

Confession time: my husband and I have a favorite guest speaker at our church. In fact, attendance is consistently higher when this pastor visits to preach! So a couple of years ago, we decided to visit his home church as a part of our anniversary date. And boy, were we surprised!

Once you have guests visiting your church the goal is to get them to stick around.

If you were to ask ten people in your congregation what your churches vision is what would they say? How about ten random people in the community?  I always loved Andy Stanley’s definition of vision:

“Vision is a mental picture of what could be, fueled by a passion that it should be.”

Perhaps more than ever there are people analyzing the health of the Christian Church in real time.

Numerical growth is often on the mind of pastors and church leadership.

For many churches the natural path seems to be to add new ministries and initiatives each year with little consideration on the impact on the church as a whole. We need to stop and ask ourselves some questions before adding new programs, such as "How will these new ministries managed?" and "Will the leaders of our church have enough energy for the new ministries to be successful?"

Life is full of conflict. Good vs. Evil. Right vs. Wrong. Michigan vs. Ohio State. Conflict is a normal part of life that can't be avoided. Given that reality, you have a choice to make: What conflicts am I going to embrace, and what conflicts am I going to avoid?