The secret to church growth is so painfully obvious and simple that it’s almost always overlooked.
If you’ve ever read the comments on any of Barna’s research studies about the decline of church attendance across the United States, the simpletons are always telling readers that “If these wayward preachers would just preach the unadulterated Gospel of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, their churches would grow, but since they won’t, they’re churches are dying.” Or my favorite, “Even dying churches donate their organs.” Unlike the haters in the comments sections, I think that you’ve got the essentials covered. Your church is being faithful to preaching the Gospel according to the Bible. Each Sunday I’m confident that you and your congregation are worshiping the Triune God revealed in Scripture, conveyed in heritage, and made real in your individual and corporate experiences.
“Even dying churches donate their organs.”
Beyond the seismic cultural shifts that we are living through and that 500-years re-Reformation that we are experiencing, and what Brian McLaren calls “the great spiritual migration,” I’m still convinced that everything we needed to know about church growth we learned in Middle School. That awkward transition between childhood and adolescence fueled by equal parts excitement, anxiety, and Axe® body spray have a lot to teach us about how to grow our churches. Seriously, I want you to think back to your middle school experience or if you have children or grandchildren going through that life stage, I want you to hone in with empathetic observation.
“Everything you need to know about church growth you learned in Middle School.”
Just the year before, these new middle schoolers were 5th graders, the big fish in their small elementary schools. They had mastered their daily schedules and enjoyed a pretty consistent friend group with very little drama and standardized tests that were important but not that big of a deal. When, suddenly, several elementary schools feed into their one middle school. Now they’re changing classes, fighting with lockers that won’t open, raging against pubescent hormones, making sure they don’t speak to an 8th grader because they might get beat up or worse be tricked into buying a fake elevator pass. As if it wasn’t weird enough, let’s introduce them to an even bigger cafeteria and those dreaded school dances where the guys are glued to one side of the gym while the girls are velcroed to the other side and the DJ is doing their best to get the kids to dance, but the only time anyone makes it to the dance floor they’re really just taking the shortest distance between their wall and the nearest bathroom.
You see, in order to have high school friends, though, someone in middle school has to take the initiative and risk rejection to invite a stranger to sit with them at lunch, to be their partner in gym class, or to ask them to dance even if they don’t know how to dance. Thankfully, there’s always that one person who takes the initiative to have a good time because deep down they know that we were all strangers once. And, they know that life is better, immensely better, and abundantly better when we share it with others.
“In order to have high school friends, someone in middle school has to take the initiative and risk rejection.”
Since 2015, I’ve consulted with dozens of churches in between pastors. Providing search committees with perspective and fresh eyes is what I do best. As we build church profiles, community profiles, and pastor profiles, there are several go-to questions that help congregations determine who they are, where they are, and what values and skills they need in their next pastor.
My all-time favorite question to ask church members is, “Why did you start attending this church?” During consultations, table scribes will write down each person’s “why” as a qualitative metric. Then, I group those “whys” into similar categories and quantify them. Looking back on all those data sets, there was a clear pattern that has all but disappeared. Looking back on my entire ministerial career, it’s been the primary ingredient in my secret sauce to growing higher education enrollments, denominational engagements, and church ministries: personal invitation.
Churches grow or decline along that two-word fulcrum point of “personal invitation.” Layered on top of the qualitative data were the age groupings of the round table discussion’s participants and the particular church’s historical attendance records. Now, I told you that there was a clear pattern that disappeared. This is fascinating! In most instances, the oldest participants were personally invited to attend the church from a pastor or a church member. There were fewer middle-aged participants who received a personal invitation, and almost none of the young professionals found their way into the church from a personal invitation. The correlated historical attendance records decreased in proportion to those who indicated during the roundtable discussions that a personal invitation was why they started attending the church. Correlation is not causation, but in these cases, there’s something to it.
“Churches aren’t growing because no one’s inviting others to find a place to belong in their congregation.”
I don’t think the decline in your church’s attendance is out of our control. I also think spending any more breath, ink, or time blaming anyone - including yourself - is a waste of energy. I just think your church’s daily priorities suffer from well-meaning but unintended mission drift. Here’s what I mean: When was the last time you personally invited someone to your church? With a few anecdotal exceptions, I doubt you can remember. Next question: Why are you afraid to invite someone to your church? The answer to this question is both your breakthrough and the way you break the inertia.
Are you afraid that people will think you’re a religious nut? Are you afraid that they will come and hate it and never speak to you again? Are you afraid that there’s nothing to keep them engaged when they show up? Honestly though, are you kind of embarrassed by your church? Either way, you have to know what’s driving your fear in order to face it and begin solving for it.
Churches aren’t growing because no one’s inviting others to find a place to belong in their congregation. Every church I’ve visited was a self-proclaimed “friendly church,” but if your church can’t be friendly for one hour one day a week, then you need to email me your resume right now (craig@greenfields.consulting). The problem is that people aren’t looking for a friendly church. They are looking to grow spiritually, to develop and deepen a relationship with God, and to make friends around whom they can trust to be their true self.
If they have children, they want them to be safe and to learn the language of faith while they get a much-needed breather. Human developmental needs are consistent: Teenagers need to identify their values as their brain’s frontal lobes are forming. College students need to test their values as they taste from life’s buffet. Young professionals need to establish healthy structures and learn to set reasonable boundaries within their value sets. Parents with adult children are sandwiched in between making sure their children have the proverbial sure footing and ensuring their aging parents have a literal sure footing. Senior adults are a mirror of the youth group: They love being together, they like playing games, and they enjoy taking trips. They’re always hungry, you have to keep a watchful eye on them, and you can’t leave them unattended very long. Personally inviting people across every age to belong in your congregation and to help them make sense of life as they grow spiritually is important.
“Churches grow or decline along the two-word fulcrum point of ‘personal invitation.’”
The truth is, if you aim at nothing you’ll hit it every time. I know very few pastors and denominational leaders who have key performance indicators (KPIs) or goals that they are focused on reaching. If you’d rather go to the dentist than sit for your annual review with the personnel committee or your senior pastor, you know I’m right! If you want to grow your church, you have to identify your most authentic personal invitation and set a goal for yourself. I’m not talking about deploying Facebook ads, or spamming people on Instagram, I’m talking about calling, texting, sending a DM, emailing, door knocking, and visiting with someone individually for the purpose of inviting them to visit your church. The more you do it, the better you get.
Do the math: If you decided to issue a personal invitation to 1 person every work day for the entire year. That’s 5 people per week. Let’s say, your church is generous with paid time off and you get 4 weeks of vacation a year (one week each quarter). There are 52 weeks in a year, minus 4 weeks of vacation, and minus at least 3 more weeks of sick, bereavement, and continuing education leave. That leaves us with 45 weeks multiplied by 5 days per week, which equals 225 personal invitations per year. Even if you get 10% of those people you invited to visit, that’s 22 people and a dog or cat per year, or nearly 2 new people every month. That’s HUGE, but I would guess that you will have a much higher visitation rate than 10%.
Now, if you design a follow-up schedule that includes an email to thank every new person for visiting on any given Sunday, a phone call to set up a time to visit with them one-on-one to hear their story and invite them back (I prefer ice cream, but coffee or tea is fine). I would also recommend that you ghost-write a letter from your chair of deacons / elders / church council on church letterhead to send them the next week, and have the church staff sign a note to give them, too. In addition to your pastoral emails, text messages, and personal introductions that help them find friends in your congregation and give them opportunities to serve others in the community, you are well on your way to making disciples and adding to the church daily as the apostles did in the book of Acts.
“Your daily actions must match your aspirations.”
Change only occurs with focus and investment. If your church wants to grow, then your daily actions must match your aspirations. Growth and diversity are among the most urgent needs of congregations today. If I were you, I would start listing people you want to invite and I would share this article with the key leaders in your church to inspire them to do the same.
The only time you need courage is when you are afraid. The best way to build your courage and your confidence is to issue your first invitation. Let it be thoughtful and authentic to who you are and who your congregation is. Whether you’re trying to grow your children’s choir or start an a capella group with your church’s teenagers who have a knack for beatboxing or you just think your church is a great place to be, giving a personal invitation is your first move.