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Five Myths of Growing Churches

Orginally published on Monday, November 06, 2006 at 8:06 AM
by Todd Rhoades

Tony Morgan from Granger Community Church recently wrote at his blog (TonyMorganLive.com) about his recent trip to NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC. Tony and some of his team from Granger spend some time with Perry Noble's team at Newspring. Here are Tony's thoughts on Five Myths of Growing Churches that he learned from his trip to SC. Tony writes...

The NewSpring story really blows five big myths out of the water:

Myth #1: You have to be in a big community to have a big church. NewSpring had almost 7,800 people in attendance this weekend. The church is located in a town of 25,000 people. There are only 175,000 in the entire county. They’re reaching about 1 out of every 22 people that live in their county. That’s a staggering percentage.

Myth #2: You have to water down God’s Word to reach a lot of people. Perry doesn’t water down anything. He’s probably the most “in your face” communicator I’ve ever heard. In the message I heard on Sunday, Perry hit tough issues like sex before marriage, cohabitation and pornography. And, on the flip side, he taught about sanctification. In all of this, he was jumping all over Scriptures to back up every point of his message. Perry doesn’t back away from the Truth.

Myth #3: It has to be boring to be church. There’s never a dull moment at NewSpring. The team uses lots of humor to help people connect with the message and each other. In one moment the teaching stretches your understanding of God. In the next moment the humor grabs your attention and prepares your heart to hear more truth.

Myth #4: Big churches are all about a big personality. NewSpring reminded me that growth usually happens when a team of people commits to fulfilling a mission from God. NewSpring has a great team. Their staff is incredibly talented and committed to helping people take their next steps toward Christ. And, there are 1,400 people who aren’t paid by NewSpring that are volunteering their time and gifts to reach people for Jesus. God isn’t working through one person at NewSpring--he’s working through about 1,500 people.

Myth #5: Growth is incremental. Many times that may be the case in ministry. But, there are some instances, when the Holy Spirit moves through a congregation and revival happens in a community. When God moves and the church cooperates with God’s agenda, amazing things can happen. Eight months ago, NewSpring was “only” averaging 4,000 people. Today, they’re almost twice that size. Yes, it’s a God thing. But it’s much more than that. And, if you’re interested in leading a growing ministry, you would be wise to study what’s happening at NewSpring.

FOR DISCUSSION: What do you think? What myths would you add to Tony’s list? Any you would question?

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There are 10 Comments:

Posted by

Monday, November 06, 2006 at 10:09 AM

Myth #1 hits close to home. By some people’s counts, our church has “saturated” our “market”, with a similar percentage of people within the 20 or 25-minute radius attending weekly. Yes, it is staggering… But we are very missional and driven to impact our community for Christ, and growth is just one way we measure that.
Posted by

Monday, November 06, 2006 at 11:17 AM

You forgot MYTH 6.

Because we are “baptizing people” or “getting people to pray the sinners prayer” we are justfied in our methods and are making a real impact for the kingdom.

:D
Posted by

Monday, November 06, 2006 at 11:18 AM

I almost forgot… AND myth 7.

Because people are going through our “base” classes and signing up to do stuff in the church, it means those “coversions” are true disciples of love.

(Really read MT 7 lately?)
Posted by Leonard

Monday, November 06, 2006 at 12:08 PM

I sure wish I knew what Keith is hinting at. His perspective is so hard to dicern. Loved the thoughts shared here. I think you could take one myth each week, write on it and have a great discussion.
Posted by

Monday, November 06, 2006 at 1:41 PM

I too am confused about what you are meaning Keith? Is it sarcasm, criticism . . . to you think these are really myths?

I appreciate #5. I think it was at the Leadership Summit 2004 that Bill Hybels talked about incrementalism. Primarily he was talking about improvement but his principles work in relation to growth too. When we’re satisfied with continuous incremental growth or improvement, it almost becomes impossible to notice or measure and complacency sets in. Hybels talked about the importance of catalytic mechanisms (from Jim Collins, Good to Great, but for a good summary see “The Power of Catalytic Mechanisms, HBR 1999). Catalytic mechanisms are activities or events or changes in structure that are intentionally infused into an organization to “jump start” something that becomes sustainable and part of the culture. I’ve seen this work in churches, where something “catalytic” triggered a period of significant and genuine growth. It’s worth occasionally being intentional about a catalytic mechanism.

Wendi
Posted by

Monday, November 06, 2006 at 4:33 PM

Has anyone considered how being fixated on local church growth can actually deminish Kingdom growth in a city? Is it possible to grow a large local church in a city and to see the overall Christianity in that city deminish? I believe the answer is “yes” and I beleive it is because we have our eyes on the wrong ball. I am not opposed to local church growth, but I think our fixation on how to grow our local church can easily be counter-productive for broader Kingdom growth. It seems to me that the question we need to be asking ourselves is how can we participate in seeing the Kingdom of God grow in our city, region and world. This is not merely done by us all focusing on how to grow our local churches. We need to move from a macro view (the broader Body of Christ) to a micro view (our local church) if we want our churches to be aligned with the Kingdom and to grow as God would have them grow. In this way our local church growth will not be counter-productive to Kingdom growth. Selah.
Posted by Chazzdaddy

Monday, November 06, 2006 at 9:58 PM

People so often seem to get caught up in seeing the “church growth” model as evil or focused on numbers. In Acts 2, the church grew DAILY, not just weekly or monthly. When we are reaching and teaching (focus and balance of the great commission) growth will happen. Jesus told us how to achieve His kingdom. REACH those in spiritual and physical need, and then TEACH them what He has commanded us. Not hard stuff. If your church isn’t accomplishing this, then excuses and nit-picking set in, as I think is the tone of the first comments in this series.

The early church was a mega-church in less than 30 minutes (or how ever long it took PEter to preach)…

Blessings in the mission.
Posted by

Monday, November 13, 2006 at 10:12 AM

I am grateful for all that God is doing at Granger and New Spring. But it seems like a lot of what we hear about on MMI is about these two churches. Surely, there must be other churches where God is working that we can learn from.
Posted by steve

Monday, November 13, 2006 at 11:19 PM

Anonymous is really no way to live! i am still waiting to hear from Keith as to what was behind his post. i think having people pray to turn their lives over to Christ and then follow in baptism is a pretty good start. Keith you cant disciple lost people, it just doesnt happen, you have to intro them to Christ and have them take a few initial steps in following first. cant we then trust that they have the Holy Spirit and if they go around the bases, follow the five G’s or what ever you call a maturation process at your place then we are all good. man at some point you have to trust God with the folks he calls to himself, why are you so upset?
Gregg, dude, what are you talking about? i am glad your “all for church growth and all” what is this christianity in the city thing, help us or at least me out and speak into this a little? if it doesnt start at the church where do you see it starting? if there is a church in the town where i live that is helping people follow christ for the first time and on fire, my first thought is not this must mean christianity in town is on the down turn. did i miss something here? we got to find it in us to celebrate and help others celebrate churches taking off in growth. unless of course it hurts our argument against churches like that, what a small way to live that would be!
Posted by

Tuesday, November 14, 2006 at 2:40 PM

I agree with Keith. I don’t presume to interpret the point that Keith was making, however I agree on the premise that Jesus’ marching orders to us to spread the “good news” is more than making sure people accept Jesus Christ as their LORD and Savior and now they have their fire insurance policy are baptized and now it is time to find more souls to save and to baptize. To then ask them to take a couple of classes of introduction to Christianity 101 and for sure a “required?” class for pre-membership into the local body of believers.

Is that event/process which occurs on Saturday night and/or Sundays supposed to be geared to the salvation of the seeker whom we bought to church with us or a time of corporate celebration, worship, edifying of the body of believers, and partaking in God’s commanded ordinances of Communion and Baptism?

It is my understanding that the “Church” (body of Christ Jesus believers and followers) in Acts
Practiced the latter as stated above in their service of corporate worship (daily/weekly) and that the sharing of the “Good News” to unbelievers was done in two ways.
1-by reflecting Gods love 24-7 and sharing the “Truth” individually or in groups as they functioned day to day.

If the first premise is true, are we fulfilling the spirit of Gods charge to go and spread the good news to the rest of the world? It so were does the edifying and spiritual growth of the body of believers occurs? Whose responsibility it is to train the saints to know how to spread the good news?

The JW’s have a unique way. They come to your evangelistic services and note those that have accepted Jesus Christ and after the service they will approach the new convert and shower them with attention and ask them if they would like to join their Bible study so they can learn how to be a “good Christian”

What is the process we have in place in our local bodies of coming along side a new believer and holding their hands while they just try to understand what they need to do to live a Christian life and grow and mature in love and truth?

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