16 Apr Increasing Decisions for Christ Amidst Church Decline by Jim Graff
In a popular podcast by Carey Nieuwhof, I learned that, according to recent surveys, 15% of pastors were confident in their church’s ability to reach the unchurched in 2015. That percentage has dropped to only 1% today. Can you believe that? One percent!
In 2023, about 25% of churches had more members than in 2022. In fact, many churches have seen growth since the pandemic. I know the people in our church now aren’t the same people who were in it pre-COVID. In 2023, we baptized 500 people, and this year we’re on track to baptize 600 people. But I believe we can see even greater growth by simply encouraging outreach in our churches.
The bottom line is that if a church is going to grow, it has to start reaching, serving, and helping people in the community who aren’t currently a part of the church.
Today, I want to share with you three action steps that come from our experience as pastors, in working with pastors and growing churches through the Significant Church Network, and from churches I’ve researched outside our network.
- Stay curious and keep ministry life-giving. I know that sounds simple, but again, for a church to grow, a segment of people outside your church who want help has to start coming to your church. In the 70s and 80s, we saw traditional Christians transferring to nondenominational churches to learn the Bible. Then nondenominational churches became more attractional, offering things for children and youth, and we kind of became community center churches. Honestly, at Faith Family Church, transfer growth has never been our primary source of growth. We determined to build a church for the broken and the hurting. That focus came from a time of prayer and fasting, during which Jesus spoke clearly to Tamara and me and drew my attention to Luke 14, where people are invited to the banquet.
After Jesus gave me that scripture, I began doing neighborhood prayer walks and asking God to let me feel the broken, let me feel the hurting, let me think about the people living in spiritual blindness, and let me make sure that my messages are geared towards them. That marked a change for our church, and the moment we changed, people started coming to the altar to get right with God. We saw 365 people come to Christ that first year!
I just want to encourage you. You think, Can it really happen for me? Yes, it can. It was simple because God’s Word works.
- Speak to mature believers about meaningful things in simple ways. We’ve all heard mature believers say about larger churches, “I just couldn’t go there because it’s Chinese food, man. It’s not meaty enough for me.” I understand that because, honestly, I’ve felt that way when I’ve visited churches. I deeply admire pastors who can speak in a way that brings biblical answers to life’s very perplexing challenges, the kinds that are wearing people out. I love how they do it so the mature grow and the simple can still understand it at the same time. Whether someone’s getting their doctorate in spirituality or whether they’re in kindergarten, they can go home knowing there was something for them in the message.
It’s like speaking to the front row and the back row at the same time. Tamara and I took over a 10-year-old church of 200 people who liked the deeper teachings, but God led us to mature the saints through simple, life-giving language that helped everyone see their need for Jesus and for truth. Even though we were young when we started, I worked hard to feed people the deeper things. For the most part, they learned to care for the lost, and that’s what really made our intention work.
Over the last 35 years, we’ve had to revitalize our church several times. If you’re a new leader, I hope reading this is helpful. If you want to see an increase in decisions for Christ at a time when the church is in decline across our country, you can… if you can learn to speak to the mature and keep them growing while bringing truth down to the shelf where everybody can reach it. This is hard work. I mean, half of my week is nothing but preparing my Sunday morning message, working hard to accomplish that. If I can’t minister to both mature and new believers, the church probably won’t grow.
This is really interesting. It’s a well-documented reality. Wherever you live, whether in a poor African village or the richest county in America:
2.5% of people are innovators. This very small group thinks about how to make things better every time they wake up.
13.5% are early adopters. These are high achievers, always looking around at what’s going on, identifying what’s working, and trying to adopt it into their lives.
34% are the early majority. Once they’re sure something is working, they’ll jump on board.
34% are the late majority. These people are sentimental about the past and wish things were the way they used to be.
16% are laggards. They are really hard to influence to change.
I bring these statistics up because if you’re going to start reaching people in your church, it’s good to remember that some will be on board with the new, others will resist it, and still others will leave because of it. That’s just the price of progress.
I think it’s important we recognize that God made everybody the way He did for a reason. There’s no right temperament or wrong temperament. The innovator may invent the airplane, but if there isn’t a lagger to remember to put parachutes on the plane, he might have died before the airplane was ready to be shared with society.
- Start nurturing an inviting culture. If knowledge alone could change the world, the internet would have done it by now. We can Google anything. So why aren’t lives changing because people have access to all this great knowledge? Well, it’s really simple: life is relational.
There are people out there who are so depressed and hurting that if somebody doesn’t believe in their potential and speak to it, they will never believe it themselves. There are people out there who hear knowledge, but the way they’re wired, they’re not able to turn that knowledge into wisdom. They need help applying it. Knowledge needs someone to coach it. People need a cohort around them to keep them encouraged and their eyes on the prize. Invite your community to your church. Invite them in regularly!
As pastors, we can be too isolated. We need people around us who will keep us strong in the faith and walking in wisdom and knowledge so that we can reach out and draw others out of their isolation. That’s one of the reasons we founded the Significant Church Network. It’s a way for ministers to break free from doing the same things the same way and to make a commitment to attending webinars, Xchanges, and more, where they can develop friendships and learn practical ways to grow their churches and strengthen their personal walks with Christ.
So, Pastor, remember this: We reach people by getting curious about those around us and deciding to offer life-giving truths to their unique circumstances and spiritual maturity. And we never stop inviting them in.
Jesus didn’t give His disciples church growth strategies; He said, “Peace be with you.” In essence, “I’m the One building the church, so quit stressing over it.” A seasoned pastor once said, “Let the Word of God build your church. Quit trying so hard. Just teach the Word of God, and let it build your church.” That’s so true. I see so many ministers overdoing it with their personalities and programs, but the Word is ultimately what is doing the work. It’s the Holy Spirit doing the work.
Let this settle on your soul. If you help the poor see the rich life they can have through Jesus, if you help the lame find strength to walk in new dreams, if you help the broken experience healing, if you point people who don’t see the value of the gospel to see it finally, God will fill your church. God is faithful.
This blog was created using content from the webinar Increasing Decisions for Christ Amidst Church Decline.