I’ve spent more than 15 years studying church growth—and
church decline. I am frequently asked, especially by pastors in declining
churches, what keeps a church from growing—what causes a church to decline.
In my observation, talking to dozens of pastors who
struggle to get their church growing again, there are some common issues among
them, of which I think we can all learn.
Here are 5 words that can make or break a church:
ENTITLEMENT
When the body begins to think “this is my church,” it will
soon start operating outside the complete power and utter dependency of the
rightful owner. It will then lose the Spirit’s power.
ENERGY
A lack of energy stagnates a church. This is not referring
to worship. You can worship to your taste, but energy is a part of any movement
of God. The church is the body of Christ. Don’t forget—our God is not dead—he’s
alive!
A church is revived and reenergized when it renews its
vision. As a church grows closer to Christ, and introduces others to Christ, it
creates more energy for the body.
I know this in my personal life, also. If I ever lose
energy for ministry I have to get back to what God called me to do. I have to
hang out with lost people, with people who are hurting, with people who need to
better understand the grace of God. It energizes me.
EXCITEMENT
If you can’t get excited about the gospel, you’re not
looking at Christ closely enough. Anyone who can rise from the dead, forgive
sins and reconcile us to God—wow, talk about exciting! When the people who
regularly attend the church aren’t excited anymore, visitors aren’t likely to
be either.
When a body becomes comfortable it often becomes
complacent, and it loses the excitement it once had. It is then no longer
attractive to outsiders.
ENGAGEMENT
The body needs all its members. When a few people do all
the work burnout is soon to follow. The church shouldn’t depend on paid staff
to do all the work, nor should ministry be limited to those with a volunteer
title of some sort.
If people always have to wait for assignments to be made
before people are freed to do the work of the church, over time, the harvest is
plenty, but the workers are few.
In other words, getting more workers in the harvest means
casting a good vision, helping people know what the mission of the church is
and then releasing people to do the work of the church. Jesus did this and
called it discipleship. (And, told us to make disciples.)
EFFICIENCY
When programs are so structured even God couldn’t introduce
change, decline is imminent. Growing churches are always thinking how they can
improve. The cliché is true, the message never changes, but the hearers do.
Finding new ways to reach a changing culture with a gospel that never changes
is part of a growing church’s responsibility.
Obviously, there are many other reasons. These are just a
few I’ve observed. Whenever I work with a church in decline, I will first look
for one of these areas as a solution.
Source: Ron Edmondson is
CEO of Leadership Network, former pastor at Immanuel Baptist Church in
Lexington, Kentucky, and the planter of two churches.
This article originally appeared on RonEdmondson.com.
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