Church Growth Plan

Church growth would seem to be much like any healthy organism that grows. There would need to be certain "things" that go into the make-up of a congregation in order for it to be healthy and effective. Keeping a constant high view of Scripture and the Spirit of God as essential, we would move on toward a goal that includes creating a culture where people that are church members feel compelled to evangelize, people that are un-churched feel welcomed, and the church body serves to be a place where both can grow and flourish.

I think the place to start would be on building up the importance of personal evangelism. From the beginning Jesus placed emphasis on those he called being "fishers of men." Building this foundational teaching the first year would include focusing on the passion of Jesus for reaching others

This would begin by creating an environment that is about others. I would encourage all of us in the church, during the first few months, to create a prayer list of friends and family. Teaching that first year on how to pray for others and for their salvation would be a way to make our minds start to care for others. I think during this time it would be important to emphasize the importance of knowing the gospel. I would want to convey the idea that sharing "our story" is not sharing the gospel. Just having an experience does not match up well with others who have experiences as well. The truth of Christ's coming, death, burial and resurrection would be an important theme during that first year. Maybe there would be an extra evangelism class that could be provided, where those who were unfamiliar with core doctrines could learn, ask questions, and sharpen their knowledge on essential truths.

I would share Mark Dever's book "The Gospel and Personal Evangelism" for further growth. This would take place in the first year to year and a half range. Building on the theology of evangelism, I feel, would give confidence to participate in it. Once a quarter, I would encourage public testimonies where evangelism could be celebrated. Having the family of God rejoicing over seeing someone come to know Christ through personal evangelism would possibly connect the dots. There would be consistent encouragement to evangelize during this time. For the complete 5 year span this would be a recurring theme.

In the middle of that span I would introduce public evangelism. This would begin by community service in order to establish the cause and compassion of Christ in our community. By the second year we would have an idea of the demographics or our city, and could use this to effectively reach out to people in those areas. If we knew a service was needed for immigrants, we could plan accordingly. By year two we would be focusing on raising funds for this cause. We would locate areas where there were single parent families and do our best to meet needs. We would be able to serve the elderly as well.

We would do our best to serve our community and share the gospel of Christ. Around the two-and-a-half year mark we would forecast doing some sermon series on topics that would create interest in the interested un-churched. Possibly on relationships, prophecy, or hard questions in the Bible. The goal would be to create an atmosphere where anyone who did not attend felt welcomed and loved.

I think it would be great, early in this process, to have a vision where we would plant a church in the five to seven year range, after this effort kicks off. The church could pray and the elders decide if a church plant locally, or missionaly, would be what God allowed us to do.

This would be a great cause and a reason to really give and work for the kingdom. There are areas in our town that could use a church presence