PLANTING FAST-GROWING CHURCHES


Planting Fast-growing Churches is the title of a book written by Stephen Gray. He is the Director of National Missions for General Baptists. He is also a former church planter. Dr. Gray sent questionnaires to 336 recent church plants in 5 denominations. The criteria for churches in this study: 1. At least 3 years old, but no older than 6 years; 2. Had to be led by a first-time church planter; 3. The new church must have been started in a city of at least 30,000 people. He separated the churches into two categories: Fast-growing and Struggling. A fast-growing church reached an average attendance of at least 200 and was financially self-supporting by 3 years from its public launch. Only 7% of the 2285 churches that qualified for this study were fast-growing. All other church plants were labeled struggling.

Here are some of the conclusions that the author reached from this study:

FINANCES

· Churches that received no additional startup money didn’t grow as fast as those that could get some help. But churches that received over $50,000 in additional funds (after salary) did worse than churches that received less than $50,000. Dr. Gray was concerned that new churches that received too much money or received support for too long could develop a welfare mentality.
· A significantly higher percentage of fast-growing churches taught financial stewardship within the first 6 months.
· Churches that gave a greater percentage of their income to outside causes did better.

LAUNCH

· The new church should have between 25 and 50 adults prior to launch.
· Both small groups and preview services should be used to build the core group.
· Many fast-growing churches had preview services every other week instead of once a month.

MINISTRIES

· 97% of fast-growing churches had a children’s ministry, while only 42% of struggling churches did.
· 92% of fast-growing churches offered 3 or more ministries at their opening. The most common ministries were worship, children, and teen.

This book was interesting to me. But that doesn’t mean that I have to agree with every conclusion. I would like to know more about the fast-growing churches. In what region of the country were they located? Did they have significant number of other members of their denomination or a mother church help them? Were some of these statistics the cause or the result?

However, this book can help us think about what we need to do to have faster-growing churches. It would especially be good for new church planters who haven’t had their first service.

I’ll end this with a quote from chapter 1:
“Church planting will make you feel alive, and it can push you to the brink of insanity. It will give you a new sense of God’s presence and convince you that Satan is alive and well. You will celebrate the birth of a new church will unearthly joy, and experience betrayal from friends and family in ways you never thought possible. As a church planter, you will experience high highs and low lows. It’s dangerous and dramatic. As they say on television – kids, don’t try this at home.”