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Learning the Power of Stickiness

Orginally published on Tuesday, August 18, 2009 at 9:06 AM
by Todd Rhoades


In his new book, Sticky Church, Larry Osborne tells about the day that he killed his dream. Larry kept a journal that held all of his personal and life goals. One of his goals was to pastor a church of 1,000 people. After his first three years of pasturing a church of 150 people, the attendance of his church had grown to 151. Larry jokes that that was an increase of 1/3 person a year! He knew that at this pace we would never reach a church of 1,000. So… one day, he opened his goal journal and ripped out that page. He killed the dream.

What surprised Larry was that freedom that ‘killing that dream’ gave him. Now, instead of looking only for people to come in the ‘front door’ of the church, he now took more time to minister to the people God had already given him. In fact, he found that doing so allowed him to effectively close the ‘back door’ of his church. More people were staying than leaving. He was able to build into the lay leaders he already had. And he began to see organic growth begin to happen.

Larry says that closing the back door really brought about three big changes for him and his church...

1. It changed the way he related to his lay leadership team.  Larry says, “When most of my focus was on getting more people through the front door, the inner workings and interpersonal relationships of the board seemed more like a nuisance than an important part of our ministry.

2. It changed the way he taught and led his church.  According to Larry, “Focusing on the front door aimed everything at two kinds of people:  the not-yet Christian or the super saint who was ready to help me charge the hill.  There wasn’t much room for people who came to Christ but didn’t grow at a fast enough pace or carried lots of baggage.

3. It caused Larry to start a small group ministry focused primarily on building significant relationships rather than growing the church.

The end result:  “We became a noticeably stickier and healthier church.  The back door slammed shut, and to my surprise more people than ever began coming through the front door?

What’s your ministry strategy?  Are you opening up your front door wide while allowing your back door to remain wide open?  You’ll find that by closing the back door, it will allow your front door to better reach and assimilate new people.  That’s what Sticky Church is all about.  I hope you’ll pick up a copy today… it’s a great read!

For more on Sticky Church, check this out!


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