YES, SOME CHURCHES ARE STILL GROWING, EVEN IN 2025!

In my 63 years on the planet, I have belonged to and/or served as pastor to 20 congregations.  Sometimes, early in ministry, I had two churches at a time.  I was part of one church for 9 years, but I count it as two because the church planted a new campus in 1999 where I served as pastor.

Of the 20 churches, three lost ground and 17 grew during the time I was around.  Of the ones that were declining, two of the three were late life cycle with fewer than 15 attendees, and closed on my watch. But one, which bottomed out one Sunday with one in attendance (when I was the only one to show up that week) rebounded to about 30 a week.

The majority of Protestant congregations have been plateaued or declining all my life. So how is it that 17 of the my 20 grew?  That isn’t most people’s experience.

The first five grew due to factors beyond me because I was still a kid. Although in the mid 1970s, my friend and I captained a Sunday school bus route, hauling in 50-60 kids each Sunday after visiting each home on the Saturday before.  So I could share in some of the credit for the growth at that church.

Early in ministry, having learned the culture of growing churches, I simply applied principles and practices I had learned watching others lead. The culture was changing in the late twentieth century but at a pace slow enough that certain practices that worked in the 1970s still worked in the 1990s.

But then the speed of culture change increased rapidly.  Followed by the pandemic. Then a denominational split. And most United Methodist churches went into free fall. I have not pastored anything since 2009, as I moved full time into coaching and consulting. But in the last 16 years I chose two great churches with brilliant pastors and the growth just kept following me.

Last week, I received word that my present California congregation, where I serve ten hours a week on staff, grew from 130 to 161 in average worship attendance in the last year. The rate of new members has increased for three consecutive years.

I know amazing pastors and saintly laity whose churches are in decline even as they offer stellar leadership. And yet I keep wandering into ministry growth situations.  And I continue to consult with growing churches across the globe.  It is a bit mysterious.

But, as I look back across six decades where so much has changed about church, I see some common denominators among growing churches, even now. Here are seven:

1. A good pastoral fit for this church in this season.

2. Good preaching.

3. Good music.

4. Certain lay people on fire.

5. Significant deviation from certain ordinary practices and habits in response to the changing cultural context.

6. Enormous energy invested loving our neighbors, to the point that the church develops a reputation on the grapevine as a people who care.

7. Good habits welcoming and fully integrating new people into the life of the church.

Wherever it is that you call your church, how many of those seven principles are in play?  If all of them are clearly in play, I suspect your church too is growing!