What Makes Church Plants Grow Fast?
A couple weeks ago I was reading some of Stephen Gray’s research on what factors cause church plants to grow fast, as opposed to growing slowly or dying a slow death due to the forces of attrition. Now Steve Addison has a list of 21 church planting factors derived from Gray’s book. Following up on the “plant” language, you could think of these as optimal “sun and shade” conditions. Some of these are really pertinent to our situation in Kansas City…
Here are the first five.
Here’s a list of the 21 differences between church plants that grow fast and those that struggle.
- Assessment: Using the Ridley Assessment is a must! The higher the score the better.
- Finances: Adequate financial support is a necessity. There is a delicate balance between too much and too little support.
- Full-time Planters: A majority of fast-growing church plants were led by full-time planters.
- Shorter Support Period: An extended period of support is not good for a new church – recommend less than two years.
- Give Additional Funding: A higher percentage of fast-growing churches received additional funding beyond the initial salary given.
Additional perspective and analysis can be found at The Missional Challenge.
HT: Jason Allen.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Alls about the mun’ee…at least the three-fifths of those shown. An interesting parallel: What would be the 21 highlights of the Acts Church Plant? Would it be the same?
Not sure what the Ridley system is, but I know number #3 was also on the list with #4 somewhere along the way.
Thanks for the heads up. I’ll check out the other 16.
May 20th, 2008 at 10:08 am
You’re right, Benjamin, most of these factors point to money and people, often with a numerical focus, although qualitative issues come into play as well…too much outside funding can doom a church plant…as can too many of the “wrong kind” of people.
Probably a caveat worth mentioning is that the 21 factors Gray writes about are primarily geared for plants that intend to have a “big launch” service and major in attractional outreach, i.e., make the service an attractive place for outsiders to visit.