Jesus said, "I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18)
1. Begin by assembling together local people who are committed to Christ, to the growth of His church and the great commission. Once you have a group of people who are committed to carrying out God’s three priorities, you have half of the battle won.
2. Schedule regular meetings for prayer and study of the scriptures with people who are committed to making applications to their three key commitments. Most church fellowships grow out of group of seed families that are consecrated to the Lord for the completion of His purposes.
3. Model your new church after the first century model found in Acts 2:41-47: "Those who accepted his message were baptized and about 3,000 were added to their number that day. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and good they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." (Acts 2:41-47)
4. Balance your efforts toward the qualitative and quantitative growth of your fellowship. Helping people grow in spirituality should precede efforts to grow numerically.
5. Study the lives, methods and results of great church planters throughout history. Ask the Spirit of God to teach you whatever is necessary to develop a movement not just a ministry. Seek fellowship with other like minded church planters, missionaries and mission leaders for stimulus.
6. Avoid the temptation of trying to plant and grow your church with human wisdom, strength and methods. Instead, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own insights. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths. (Proverbs 3:5,6)
7. Seek Godly counsel about the best ways to go about starting a church in your target area.Ask help from people who are experts in researching the demographics and spiritually ripeness of an area.
8. Prepare yourself for the ministry by cognitively studying the aspects of church planting and growth that you may be deficient in. Affectively prepare yourself through prayer and the solidification of your gifts, callings and convictions about planting and growing churches. Behaviorally, prepare yourself by serving internship training under successful church planters. Spiritually prepare yourself through a study of the scriptures, discipleship ministries and an effective cross cultural evangelism ministries.
9. Plan your strategies for planting and growing a church in your target area by setting out practical short, medium and long range goals for the new congregation.
10. Survey the area by doing field, library and inter-personal research of the people group you hope to start the church with. Be a learner and student of the culture, history and world views of the people. Approach them on their basis on their felt, perceived, real and spiritual needs.Prov.24:3,4
11. Find helpers who can assist you in planting the new church - especially seed family members. Screen them well as the quality of your co-laborers will greatly affect the quality of the new fellowship. Local insiders who are indigenous to the area are the best lay ministers.
12. Work through the assumption that the church will be planted and grown through local ownership. Give the founding members the sense that they are all on equal ground when it comes to cooperating together in a great work for Jesus Christ. Follow the motto of William Carey, the father of modern missions who said, "Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God."
13. Cooperate as much as possible with local authorities. Yet, remember as far as it is possible be at peace with all men. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Rom. 12:21)
The following tips are from Rick Warren and he solely deserves the credit for the ten points:
Ten common barriers to growing your church.
by Rick Warren
This article is adapted from the Purpose Driven Church Seminar, available through Pastors.com.
For over twenty years I’ve been a student of church growth, and I’ve noticed there are ten common obstacles to growing a healthy, vibrant church.
1. Not bringing friends to church
We pray, we ask, we pressure, we motivate, we emphasize, but members still don’t bring friends to church. Why? Often, the truth is they’re embarrassed. They instinctively know that the services are not designed for unbelievers, for seekers, for the people they know from work. They’re thinking, The weekend service meets my needs, but it doesn’t meet my neighbor’s needs, and so I won’t ask them to come.
The antidote to this is to offer at least one service on the weekends designed with unchurched friends in mind.
2. Fearing growth will ruin the fellowship
Even though your members may not say this, some of them will subtly fight growth because they fear that when the congregation gets bigger, they won’t know everybody anymore. So they say, “I like the way it is; I know everybody. If we get bigger, I’m afraid I’ll just become a number.”
The antidote to this fear is building affinity groups or small groups within your congregation. At Saddleback we say it this way; Our church must grow larger and smaller at the same time.
3. Clinging rigidly to tradition
Traditions are actually rooted in success. Something becomes a tradition because it works in the first place. And because it works, we repeat it over and over again.
Unfortunately, the tradition then begins to drive us. There are two dangers with traditionalism. The first danger is when we make the methods sacred. The second danger is when we forget why we do things.
The antidote: Become purpose-driven. Your purposes will never change; they are eternal. But your methodology will need to be ever-changing.
I suggest you periodically review – at least once a year - all your programs and then assign them to one of three options:
1. Reaffirm it – yes, it’s still working.
2. Refine it – we need to tweak it so it will become more effective.
3. Replace it - You can’t use yesterday’s tool in today’s ministry to meet tomorrow’s challenge.
4. Trying to appeal to everybody
You cannot appeal to everybody. It simply won’t work. If a radio station in your community played Bach, followed by the Beatles, followed by a Polka song, do you think it would please everybody or actually please no one? Radio stations niche because they understand people are attracted by different styles.
Now, I’m not talking about presenting a different Gospel; what I’m saying is that define your target (the antidote to this barrier) and then do everything you can to hit that target.
5. Being program-oriented rather than process-oriented
Having a lot of programs can look impressive, but unless you have a specific plan for helping your members grow, they can end up just attending a lot of classes. I believe this is part of why we have people in our churches who have been members for years, yet they show little fruit in their lives.
The antidote is to use a life development process, similar to the one we use at Saddleback. We use a baseball diamond to illustrate the process of our members growing deeper in faith, encouraging them to move around the bases as they move toward greater maturity. You don’t have to use Saddleback’s model, but it has proved successful for twenty years.
6. Emphasizing meetings rather than ministry
In my opinion, you’re making a mistake when your number one measurement for health is attendance. If the only thing you ever talk about is how many people you have in attendance, then, frankly, you’re a meeting-focused church. Yes, attendance is one of many measurements to use, but it should NEVER be the only one. For one thing, focusing on meetings tends to produce passive spectators who have little time for ministry.
The antidote: Turn every one of your members into a minister. We don’t need more meetings; we need to meet more needs!
7. Teaching without application
Preaching without application merely informs rather than transforms.
The antidote is what I call behavioral preaching. This is preaching that focuses on obedience. The Bible tells us to be doers of the word and not hearers only. In every weekend message, and in every Bible study group, and in every Sunday school session, moving people into doing ministry should be the bottom line – what are we going to do as a result of what we heard.
8. Not trusting the leaders
If people don’t trust your leadership, then you won’t accomplish much at all. You have to build credibility, and you have to earn the right to lead.
The antidote to this barrier is authentic leadership. This means leadership that is humble, vulnerable, persistent, willing to risk failure - and willing to believe God for great things.
9. Embracing Legalism
Legalism strangles the growth and the health of a lot of churches. Many churches are more interested in keeping rules than they are at winning people to Christ. This will inevitably kill any growth you’ve got.
The antidote to this barrier is a climate of acceptance, which meets people where they are and where you want them to be. By meeting them where they are, you can eventually lead them to where they need to be.
10. Being structured for control rather than for growth
Many churches today are over-programmed and over-structured, and the structure is strangling them to death.
The antidote here is to keep the structure simple, flexible, and ready to meet the all the challenges that the future may hold.
