Issue 15 – Getting a Declining Church Growing Again
Dear Ted
You asked me for some tips on getting your church growing again—and although you’re not leaving, you ask what I’d do if I came to your church as the new pastor with the church in its present situation.
Your church was running about 150 on Sunday mornings when you arrived several years ago—down from the 160 high of the previous year. This church was a big step up for you, so you spent the next couple of years adjusting to the challenge—and with the decline continuing, you then made a couple of attempts to get the church growing towards 300 by the end of 2010. But nothing came of them, and attendances have now slipped to 125. However, you’ve since done a survey and found that you have comparatively few younger ‘family’ type people who can lead the charge to grow the church again. So you ask what I’d do if I was the new pastor.
Here’s what I’d do—working closely with the leadership team throughout the process.
Starting Our Extreme Makeover
1. I’d begin with a quick read of the three website Leadership Letters on Strategic Planning (Letters 10, 11 and 13)—and I’d look particularly carefully at the graphic of the church aiming to get to 220 by the end of 2010. Having done that, I’d do these things—modifying the graphic as I went because of your special challenges.
2. With the ‘220’ graphic alongside me as a rough guide (or if ‘stuck’, the Strategic Plan Summary (DOC, 35KB) and graphic), I’d start sketching a new graphic for our 2010 journey (which I’d later turn into the PowerPoint slide I’d use in my preaching, etc)—putting our 125 present attendance at the bottom of the graphic.
3. I’d then put a very bold ‘Our Church Dream’ at the top of the page—and below it ‘250 Sunday A.M. Attendance by 31st December, 2010’ (you won’t get your projected 300 by then, so I’d lower the figure to 250).
4. While I wouldn’t put this on the graphic, I’d note for our information that the 250 would come from four main groups of people. Hopefully most of the present people would still be there; some would have transferred in because of the rising tempo of new life (which usually happens); quite a large group may be people who’ve returned to faith after being away from Jesus for a while; but the big group would be those who’ve come to faith through our new focus on reaching people for Jesus.
5. Having noted that (and this is a critical part of the equation), I’d then ask, ‘Given our very limited people resources, what are the four biggest things we can do to get us to our desired 250’. They will of course be Sunday Morning—to open the front door of the church; Spiritual Growth and Pastoral Care—to shut the back door; Family Ministries—and especially pre-school ministry which done properly has enormous converting power; and Key Community Ministries—which vary from church to church.
6. I’d now put these four things down on paper as the four tracks/roads to our 2010 destination because, under God, we’ll grow our church primarily through these ministries. If we had more people resources we could perhaps widen the focus; but we haven’t any more, so we’ll keep our focus very narrow. John Maxwell says that God sends people to us according to our vision—so we’ll focus on reaching the biggest number of people for Jesus.
7. Having decided on the four ministries we’ll prioritise, we then spread them across the page as four links in a chain – just above the 125-attendance figure. And although we’ll focus on four ministries, we actually draw six links, calling the fifth ‘Other Ministries’ and the sixth ‘Business’—for reasons I’ll explain later.
8. Having named the six tracks, and noted that Track 1 will open the front door and Track 2 shut the back door, we’re now ready to note the second pivotal thing (the first being to keep our focus very narrow because of the few available people)—we don’t need any tracks for evangelism, or even discipleship, because evangelism will happen automatically when we focus on our chosen ministries, and most discipling will happen in small groups.
It’s interesting to note that the Early Church didn’t have any evangelism programmes, but the Church has rarely grown as fast as it did in those first few hundred years. More recently, Win Arn, one of the early leaders of the Church Growth movement, found that 75-90% of people come to faith and into the life of the church through a friend or relative; but just 2-3% come through church programmes.
9. So with our few resources, we can delete the ‘Mission’ track from your present graphic and leadership paradigm—if necessary shifting any important ‘community’ things into the Key Community Ministries track; and we can then also dispense with the ‘Mission Director’ and use that obviously gifted person somewhere else.
So Ted, to get out of the bind you’re in, with so few resources, you must smarten your Strategic Plan for the 2006/07-year and simplify the resulting Leadership Structure. At present, your few key people are far too thinly spread—and it’s dissipating your focus, energy, and fruitfulness.
But back to our story.
Creating Our Strategic Plan
With our four ministry tracks in place (plus the two I mentioned), and with so few key people to turn the church around, we can now put down the 4-6 biggest things that will grow each ministry—and the key here is to keep it simple; with so few real leaders, we only want the few things that will give us our biggest wins. So I’d do this.
Sunday Mornings
1. I’d start morning tea after church immediately—because this is our best chance at building a relationship with first time visitors. Building on Win Arn’s foundational work, researchers say that 33% of first time visitors should return and 75% of these should be assimilated into the church within one year. So I’d start morning tea immediately—next Sunday!
2. I’d also seeker sensitise our services immediately—so they reach both our present attenders and the newer people who’re attending. Paul laid this principle down very strongly in 1 Cor 14.23-24, where the NIV text note correctly reads ‘inquirers’ or ‘seekers’ (as we now call them). So I’d also act on this immediately—next Sunday!
3. I’d prioritise special Sundays like Mothers Day, Fathers Day, and other occasions—because new people will gladly come to these if invited by friends, and that gets them started on the church-attending phase of their journey to Jesus. Of course, the key to doing this well is to ensure that your normal services are also seeker sensitive and encouraging—otherwise new people will get such a shock if they return the following Sunday that they’ll never come back! But the ‘special Sunday’s’ principle gives you huge leverage; and I’ve seen churches with limited resources double their normal attendance on special days, lifting their overall momentum hugely.
4. I’d lift the standard of our services greatly—because generally speaking, they’ve been letting our churches down for years and are the biggest barrier to getting new people attending church—and on into faith in Jesus.
In smaller and even reasonable sized churches, we tend to run our services with the informality and spontaneity of large home groups—and the bigger our services become the less this works.
So starting with the beginning of the services, we tend to see weak and unprepared openings where the leader doesn’t seem sure of what they want to say; songs are often difficult to sing and there isn’t any sense of the praise and worship journey; the main prayers tend to be unprepared and waffly – and don’t capture the large gathering dynamics which are so different from those of a small group; notices tend to be very long and detailed while things like birthdays and anniversaries can take up to 15 minutes; sermons aren’t clear and well thought out and don’t challenge at the finish; and services end as weakly as they start.
Clearly, we can’t grow churches with these dynamics, and Zig Ziglar’s comment on performance in general applies to services in particular—‘Efficiency is getting the job done right. Effectiveness is getting the right job done. Excellence is getting the right job done well.’
So working closely with my team, I’d put huge effort into lifting the standard of our services greatly—because more of the same will only produce more of the same. And that will never grow a church over the long haul.
5. I’d start evaluating our services immediately—getting several people to help me assess their excellence and relevance to believers and seekers.
6. I’d prioritise reaching the quarterly attendance goals we must reach—if we’re to get to our ‘dream 250’ by the end of 2010.
Pastors and leaders tend to shy away from focusing on the ‘Sunday numbers’ side of growing a church—and they give many reasons for this—and even when attendances continue falling sharply, they still won’t face the cold hard facts of what’s happening to their church over a year or two.
This is irresponsible stewardship. Businesses don’t do this; and we certainly shouldn’t do it in the church of God. Leaders are stewards, and if Sunday numbers are falling we need to know why they’re falling so we can correct the problems behind the trend. So I’d be quite up-front about the numbers, track them closely and talk about them at leaders meetings – because this is God’s church we’re talking about, not a club where anything may go.
Small Groups And Pastoral Care
While Sunday mornings open the front door, Small Groups and Pastoral Care shut the back door—and since your small groups aren’t strong, I’d put considerable focus and energy into them. Given the few leadership type people you’ve got, here’s what I’d do.
1. I’d do 40 Days of Purpose as soon as we could organise it, because doing 40 Days is the fastest way to get small group momentum – provided you have a good ‘flow-on’ small group focus when 40 Days is finished. Some churches with little small group momentum, put 40 Days off to do less important things. This is most unwise!
2. I’d set a realistic but challenging small group target—to move from your 15-20% of attending adults in small groups, to 60% in small groups by the end of 2010, with yearly goals between now and then.
3. I’d make small groups a critical part of our church life—appointing a small group ‘champion’ to keep the small group challenge before the church and drive any new small group initiatives.
4. I’d develop a comprehensive pastoral care strategy—to ensure the pastoral care of everyone connected with the church, particularly those who aren’t yet in small groups.
5. And I may add something else—like doing Network, etc.
Shutting the back door of the church, through effective small groups and pastoral care, is a major step towards growing your church again.
Family Ministries
Family Ministries focus on reaching children, parents, and young people who’re still at home—because however families may be constituted, the ‘family factor’ is a powerful evangelism dynamic. So with our very limited people resources, here’s what I’d do with Family Ministries.
1. I’d prioritise pre-school ministry—because the family evangelism dynamic is most powerful when the children are most dependent on their parents (this is a fundamental evangelism principle).
One church I worked with had 20+ on Sundays and 120 mid-week Teeny Boppers from 53 families; but the church only ran at 20+, and not 15, because the parents of four young boys had come to faith through Teeny Boppers and later onto the leadership team. Mainly Music, and similar ministries, have the same impact and are feeding new converts into more and more churches. So I’d prioritise your well-established Mainly Music ministry and get the leader talking to Mainly Music leaders in churches where it brings people to faith—so she learns from their experience. With so few resources, I’d make this ministry our primary evangelistic programme for the next year or two, and aim to bring five ‘Mainly Music’ people to Jesus in the 2006/07 year.
2. I’d run a special Mainly Music morning service—either linked to Mothers Day or Fathers Day, or at another time of the year and even perhaps as a Christmas break-up event.
3. I’d work towards having a brilliant children’s church-time programme that children love and bring their friends to—knowing that when children enjoy it, they sometimes persuade their non-attending parents to start attending church too.
A fairly new couple shared their story with a pastor I know over coffee time after the Sunday service—and being a church of some size, the three of them hadn’t talked till this point. The couple said their daughter first started attending this church with their neighbour’s daughter, and she liked Children’s Church so much that she begged them to ‘come to this church’ too. Not belonging to a church, they did; and once they got there, they enjoyed it so much that they kept coming (yet another illustration of how this whole church/family dynamic works).
With our very limited people resources, I’d put our ‘family’ focus and energy into the two ‘big win’ areas of weekday pre-school ministry and Sunday Children’s Church—against the larger backdrop of winning on Sundays, and in small groups and pastoral care.
4. And I may perhaps do something with youth—but in a limited way at the moment because of our few people resources. When it comes to growing a church, it’s better to do a few key things well, than do more things poorly.
Indeed, researcher Thom Rainer, found after major North American research, that ‘Simple churches are more effective in both evangelism and discipleship; busy, activity-filled churches are less effective in these areas.’
Key Community Ministries
Key Community Ministries tend to focus on people as individuals when we first contact them—and these ministries vary greatly from church to church. But to give just one example, if a church had a Family Store, I might do this in our first year at that church.
1. I’d greatly strengthen the relationship between the Family Store and the church—putting on a Family Store service for the staff, volunteers, and shoppers; and as with our other ‘Sunday specials’, I’d design this service especially for the visitors and encourage our people to connect with them over morning tea.
2. I’d consider developing a Drop in Centre at the Family Store—as some have done, to connect with those who tend to come to the Store fairly often looking for friendship.
3. I’d aim to bring at least one ‘Family Store’ person to Jesus in the 2006/07 year—because one of my greatest joys is meeting people who come to Him that way. With all its community connections, The Family Store, and ministries like it, is a vast untapped area just waiting for churches to develop.
4. And I may do something else—depending on the particular church and community.
Other Ministries
With your limited resources, there are some less strategic and productive things you’re doing now that are best closed, downsized, merged with something else, or put aside for a season—so you can put your few key people into growing the church again.
Following their extensive research, Thom Rainer says, ‘The beginning of the simple church revolution is to decide what your church really needs to reach people for Christ and to move people to become more devoted followers of him. The tough task is to eliminate everything else that makes no difference in this process.’
‘Eliminating everything else’ is one of the tough calls of leadership—but it’s an absolute requirement if you’re to grow your church again, because your few available people are spread too thinly at present.
I’d shift some things you’re doing now into the ‘Other Ministries’ track—even if they’re just there for a season.
Business
With major building redevelopment coming up, and our other business responsibilities, I’d appoint a business champion to drive Track 6 for us.
Completing Our Extreme Makeover
With our new Strategic Plan and consequent Leadership Structure in place, I’d appoint ‘champions’ for our Business and four main Ministry tracks—and get someone to keep an eye on any continuing activity in the Other Ministries track (but it wouldn’t be a high priority). Once appointed, I’d empower the champions to grow teams around them so I could concentrate on my primary responsibilities of preaching and leading—all of which may be very different from the way you’ve run the church till now.
Finally, to maximise the impact of all this on our whole church family, over the following weeks I’d produce several versions of our strategic planning work—to fire up the church with our new dream.
First, I’d produce the Strategic Plan Summary (DOC, 35KB) – ‘PowerPointing’ it for preaching, church notices, and champions featuring their ministries in services. Second, I’d give the Strategic Plan Summary, with its graphic, to all our leaders and members—putting our Core Values (and perhaps Road Rules) on side two (see Letter 11). And third, with smaller churches, I’d do an additional ‘leaders’ version with names, dates, and any further significant steps against each bullet point of the Summary—sticking ruthlessly to two sides of an A4 sheet.
With larger churches, I’d get each champion and team to create their own ‘team’ Strategic Plan and Summary before we did the ‘church’ Strategic Plan, so they could bring the 4-6 biggest things they’re prioritising to the larger church plan—with its consequent Strategic Plan Summary like the one at the end of this Letter. So the main church Strategic Plan, although fuller, would still fit on two sides of an A4 sheet.
And to ensure we focus on both church health and growth, through many people coming to Jesus, I’d see all leaders versions recorded our intention to do an NCD Survey at the same time each year.
Then, working very closely with our restructured leadership team, I’d set to work to grow the church—absolutely confident that with God’s help we’d win—and win well!
Getting Your Church Growing Again
Ted, that’s how I’d grow your church again—if I was in your situation.
Years ago, in a life changing encounter, the late Peter Drucker taught John Maxwell that, ‘Effective executives [pastors, leadership champions, etc.] concentrate on the few major areas where superior performance will produce outstanding results. They force themselves to set priorities and stay with their priority decisions.’ And that’s what we’ve prioritised in this extreme makeover, because nowhere is that principle more true than in the local church—and especially in churches like yours!
The good news is it’s all very achievable, especially with the coaching your friend is giving you. So go forward with confidence—and may all your dreams for your church come true.
We’re praying for you.
Goodbye.
Gordon Miller
Church Growth & Development Consultant
To discuss at leaders meetings
- Are you getting the conversion growth you could reasonably expect in a church like yours—i.e., are significant numbers of people coming to Jesus and becoming dynamic disciples?
- If they aren’t, and in light of this letter to Ted, what extreme makeover steps will you now take to get your church growing again—i.e., not tinkering-around-the-edges steps, but new-direction steps? (List them—and record the dates by which you’ll take them)
- What leadership changes will you also now make so you have champions leading the few tracks that will take you to your new dream? (List them, and set the dates by which you’ll make them)
- And are there any other things you also now need to do to complete this extreme makeover exercise? (List them, and set the dates by which you’ll do them)
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