Observations: What Grows A Church?

Observations: What Grows a Church?

I puzzled: What are the characteristics of a growing church? I have a master’s degree, a research degree that taught me how to conduct qualitative studies and I have experience doing just that. I designed a study. to find the characteristics of a growing church. I then visited church after church, a different one each Sunday, interviewed members and pastors, gathered information on facilities, attendance, and rated individual churches as growing, stable or declining. I then concentrated my research on the growing and stable churches.

Now, after nearly a year of Sunday church visits, I have observed characterizes that seemed to attract and hold members. In the following, I list those characterizes, I quote sermons, quote pastors and church members I have interviewed. I also reference related scriptures and site John Wesley quotes that bring to mind what I observed. With that, I present my conclusions:

1 – Growing and stable churches preach, “Come to Jesus.” The sermons include Old Testament and New Testament scriptures, but the sermons ultimately ask, “Are you saved.” There is always an alter call with people publicly confessing. Further, these pastors not only preach heaven; they preach hell. A line from one pastor’s sermon, “At death, it is but a second before you fall into hell. You cannot escape it. It is eternal.”

2 – Most of this same group of churches preach and practice the inerrancy of the Bible. “If the Bible settles it, it is settled.” “If the Bible says it’s wrong, it is wrong.” I found testimony to the accuracy of what the Bible lists as wrong particularly strong among people who had their life pulled down into the gutter by sin but finally, they accepted Christ. “I have been to hell, Lee. It can be right here on earth.” People told me that they want nothing to do with churches that quote scripture and then find reason to practice something else. They view lack of certainty as to the authority of the Bible as one of the reasons for church decline. “People want certainty, a rock, what is the right way to live.”

That rock is the Word of God. John Wesley, “On all cases, the Church is to be judged by the Scripture, not the Scripture by the Church.” Yet, people think that they are smarter than God is. Even if one thinks correctly, one can reach false conclusions because he or she does not have all of the facts. God always thinks correctly and always knows all of the facts. He never reaches an incorrect conclusion. The Bible identifies and explains what the Father says is best for His children and the society in which we live.

3 – I must start this next section with another quote from John Wesley because it says what people told me, “Before I can preach love, mercy, and grace, I must preach sin, Law and judgment. Preach 90% Law and 10% grace.” Paul said, “I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law.” Jesus said, “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law.” The churches that I rated the highest had sermons filled with Old Testament lessons and the Law. The sermon titles illustrate this: “A True Christian Lives by the Law”, “Hell”, “Will I get to Heaven?”, and “Go on, Live like Hell”. These preachers’ sermons emphasized living by the Law. Grace came at the end of the sermons just before alter call.

4 –At the filled altar rails of the most successful of the churches I heard amazing confessions. More than half of the people there would blurt out what their primary sin or sins were. “I have committed incest. I have asked my family for forgiveness and now I am coming to you and to God.” As pain, anguish and tears poured out of that man humbly prostrate at the altar, members of the congregation ran to him, hugged him, prayed over him, loved him, and said they would walk with him. I saw the same thing time and again. “I am a damned drunk, help me God.” After discussions with pastors, I understood that they had established compassionate environments that produced open and honest communications, a sin sharing and sin fighting environment.

5 – When asking pastors about their background and training, I was surprised. The pastors of the fastest growing churches had little formal training. The pastor of the largest church and fastest growing church I visited graduated high school, worked in local industries, became a drunk, accepted Christ, and sought to be pastor. To become ordained in his denomination, he took correspondence courses on various books of the Bible. He took no courses on ethics, homiletics, church administration and the like; he studied only the Bible. At the end of these courses, he was ordained. A wise leader gave him a chance granting him a small rundown church. He uses horrible grammar. A visitor to his church, high school English teacher, offered to teach him how to speak correct English; he thanked her but said that that was a part of his witness. She still attends and is very active, and he still butchers our language.