What Part Do Pastors Play in Growing Congregations?

A Growing Pastor: A Growing Church

After 12 years, Franklin Downtown Church continues to grow under Pastor Chris’s leadership. His preaching improved dramatically in his first year. In fact, his rapid progress led one church member to claim her prayers made Pastor Chris into a great preacher! Chris engaged in intentional practices to sharpen his sermon preparation and worship leadership. He received feedback on sermon topics and learned about helpful sermon resources from a weekly pastors’ Bible study group. In addition, Chris invited a small group of thoughtful members to meet with him twice a month. In these intimate conversations, Chris discussed his sermon idea, listened as members described their spiritual questions or needs, and took note of how they saw God working in their daily lives. Often Chris was able to use these insights to prepare his sermons. Worshipers began to comment favorably on the relevance of his sermons to their own spiritual struggles. Chris poured his energy into raising the bar on worship service quality. Through his wife, he became friends with the dean of the local university’s music school. Chris recruited the school’s graduate students to assist with music leadership during services. The church and music school formed a creative partnership to provide instrumental music lessons to neighborhood children. These efforts paid off. In his first eight years there, worship attendance climbed from 225 to almost 400, maxing out the sanctuary seating. Church leaders responded by organizing a second worship service with a more relaxed format. More than 100 people attended the first new service.

Who Gets the Credit for Church Growth?

Pastor Chris cast a vision of what the church could and should be—not merely a good church, but an exceptionally great church. Despite the remarkable history of Franklin Downtown Church, Pastor Chris believed that the best years for the church lay ahead. He consistently sought ways to convince lay leaders and members that those best years included them. He helped them clarify their core values as a church: a place where people grow spiritually, love their neighbors and the world, and offer Christ to everyone. For Franklin Downtown Church, growing the church meant growing disciples. Because fo the influx of people who had never been affiliated with a church, the congregation began to regularly offer a new member class. In it, newcomers learned what is expected of members: giving a percentage of their income to church ministries, seeking spiritual growth through a small group, and participating in a ministry team that serves others. The change was not without sacrifice. Committed members showed a remarkable willingness to move beyond their own comfort zones. Often giving up personal preferences, they made it possible for the church to offer Christ to the community and a new generation.

NOTES

(1) Cynthia Woolever and Deborah Bruch, A Field Guide to U.S. Congregations, 2d. ed. (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 33.

(2) The change in worship attendance was measured by subtracting the reported average worship attendance in 2003 from the reported average worship attendance figure for 2008 then dividing that number by 2003 attendance to calculate the percentage change. Congregations in the growing, stable, and declining categories include only those whose worshipers participated in the U.S. Congregational Life Survey in 2008 or 2009. Not all leaders described in this book were serving such congregations.

(3) The results reported in this chapter are based on multiple regression analysis. Regression modeling allows us to examine simultaneously the impact of a number of independent variables (predictors) on a dependent variable (in this chapter, church growth). The simultaneous entry of predictors helps us understand how church growth changes when any one of the independent variables is varied, while the values of other independent variables are fixed or held constant

(4) Mark Chaves, American Religion: Contemporary Trends (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 111, 58.

(5) L.R. Iannaccone, “Why Strict Churches Are Growing,” American Journal of Sociology 35 (1994): 1180-211; Michael McBride, “Why Churches Need Free-Riders: Religious Capital Formation and Religious Group Survival,” University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics working paper, August 21, 2007.

(6) Scott Thumma and Warren Bird, The Other 80 Percent: Turning Your Church’s Spectators into Active Participants (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011), 23-24.

(7) Iannaccone, “Strict Churches.”

(8) Ian Markham and Martyn Percy, eds., Why Liberatl Churches Are Growing (London: T and T Clark International, 2006).

(9) Cynthia Woolever and Deborah Bruce, Places of Promise (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2008), 90.

This excerpt is taken from Leadership That Fits Your Church: What Kind of Pastor for What Kind of Congregation by Cynthia Woolever and Deborah Bruce. Copyright © 2012 Cynthia Woolever and Deborah Bruce. Published by Chalice Press. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

Cynthia Woolever is research director of the U.S. Congregational Life Survey. Deborah Bruce, who passed away in 2012, was associate research manager in the research services office of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and project manager of the U.S. Congregational Life Survey.

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Cynthia Woolever
Cynthia Wooleverhttp://USCongregations.org

Cynthia Woolever is research director of the U.S. Congregational Life Survey, co-editor of “The Parish Paper” with Herb Miller and Lyle Schaller, and formerly a professor of sociology of religious organizations at the Harford Institute for Religion Research, Hartford Seminary.

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