Ten ways to grow your church in 2015
We’re all familiar with statistics that decry the declining UK Church, but many local churches are bucking the trend. Justin Brierley investigates what has made the difference for those whose churches are bursting at the seams.
Let’s be clear: there is no miracle formula for growing your church. If the magic ingredients could be bottled and sold, someone somewhere would be very rich by now. Nor is numerical growth the only mark of success. Discipleship, local engagement and longevity of commitment are also important. Megachurches in the US account for more than half of all church attendance, but critics point out that such congregations can often be a ‘mile wide and an inch deep’.
Equally, popular new churches that see ‘transfer growth’ from other local congregations (aka ‘sheep stealing’) could be accused of simply rearranging the deckchairs while the Titanic sinks. Planted in ‘hard soil’, some churches may be doing well to simply maintain their present numbers.
Even churches growing at a healthy rate have no cause to be complacent. Congregations that increase to a certain size and then 'plateau', failing to break a glass ceiling of 200 to 300 attendees, are a frequent phenomenon.
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