Five observations from Bill Tenny-Brittian:
Number 5: Ineffective Attendance Tracking
Number 4: Lack of Guest Follow-up
Number 3: Lack of Hospitality
Number 2: Ineffective Assimilation/’Discipleship
Number 1: Worship Services that aren’t Worth Shouting About
Click here for the whole thing.
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6 comments:
This is the weirdest list of reasons churches do not grow I have ever read. Where are points on lack of God's prescence, gifts of Holy Spirit, prayer, and everyone having a part to play in the body. This mostly sounds like management speak for running an organisation or business.
That's an easy one to answer!
If you don't know who's coming to your church how are you going to help everyone play their part in the body?
If your guests aren't followed up and welcomed then even if there is a strong sense of God's presence in your meetings it is unlikely they will come back.
If there is no system for drawing people into church life and making disciples then your spiritual gifts are just going to be hot air.
If your worship services aren't worth shouting about then you probably need a great deal more of God's presence in the mix.
Failing to manage what God gives you is not being spiritual, but being a poor steward.
Fine,
But these should not be priorities above my list and even below other such as breaking bread and revelation and grace. I don't see this list as a picture of the church in Acts. If a church starts treating these as prioities I worry that in the end loss of gifts of Holy Spirit and God's prescence will follow. This is a concern I have about New Frontiers churches.
The largest growth I have seen in churches I was part of was a radical church where God's presence came first in every meeting including when anyone met with any one else. Then God will speak and show us how to build instead of following programmes or patterns from other churches that we think might be the model that will work but lead to legalistic structures.
Who said they're priorities above your list? Certainly not for me - but I don't think they're mutually exclusive.
Sorry I may be confused but if these are the top 5 reasons that churches do not grow it has to be your prioity to do the opposite to see growth.
A quote pinched from Life on Wings blog(sorry I don't know how to do a link)
"Experts in the law don't enter into the miraculous or grace or the supernatural. They hold slick, well-oiled and well run effective services with a lot of loud music and sophisticated music that is impressive but you have an encounter with music and not an encounter with anointing! I have been in meetings where the music is so good that even the world can't do it that good but I come out crying and saying; "I didn't feel Your Presence at all - You weren't there. There was a lot of sweat and dancing and sophisticated music (which I love) but when I go to church, I don't want to encounter good music. I want to encounter God!".
Rob Rufus - "Established in Righteousness
This is my concern for New Frontiers especially as there is a lot of talk about pinning down what we believe and following the way CJ or Mark Driscoll do things.
A quick example from history...
The 1904 Welsh revival - loads of power, loads of 'presence', loads of conversions. And the result? It very soon petered out - there was a lack of organization and follow through; or to use the dirty 'P' word, a lack of pragmatism.
Compare that with the Great Awakening under men like Whitefield and Wesley - loads of power, loads of 'presence', loads of conversions. And the result? As well as being men of power they were church growth pragmatists! They organized things - they started the 'class system' and planted churches, they got things done and made things stick and gave birth to a movement that had a huge impact upon wider society.
I think you are trying to force a false dichotomy - so I'll say it again: pragmatic organization and an experience of the presence of God are not necessarily mutually exclusive. You need both.
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