The Exciting & Uncomfortable Side of Growing Churches.
“Hey there friends, have any of you figured out how to……?”
If you are involved in any gathering of leaders, either in a physical or digital space, you’re likely to hear a question like this one. Within hours, sometimes minutes, a host of peers are reaching out with clarity questions, and many viable solutions to the issue at hand. Church leaders are no different.
Good church leaders, laser focused on mission, are always looking for help and resources. They are always growing in their leadership, their capacity, their ability to bring others around them to lead, and to stay laser focused an On Mission. One key to helping the church go through the growth process is to allow discomfort to become an expected and natural feeling for them and their members. People are usually willing to be a little uncomfortable if the mission is getting accomplished.
The Annual edition of Outreach 100 was recently released. The Sept/Oct 2024 issue contains a plethora of ideas, and examples of churches that are knocking it out of the park (I believe God is a baseball guy!). The Editor, Ed Stetzer, in his opening message for the issues theme – The Story of America’s Growing Church – holds out two very positive statements:
- “One of my hopes for the future is that we might hold our church models loosely and our gospel clarity firmly.”
- “A church with mission-shaped people living together for the gospel makes all the difference.”
In this age, the church cannot make comfort a value that supersedes “Gospel Clarity” and being “On Mission.” Nor should any other distraction, personal or corporate, move us off the path to complacency and shiny objects. We need an ever-growing sense of urgency about proclaiming the Gospel and reaching the Lost!
Gospel Urgency + Growth = Innovative (and maybe uncomfortable) Solutions to Capacity Issues.
Initially, a growing church’s answer to capacity issues could include:
- Adding more seats
- Adding more services (multiservice)
- Adding more venues at the same facility (Multivenue)
These are the easiest solutions until they just aren’t anymore. God is always faithful to getting you to the NEXT place with the NEXT Solution you need. A part of growing in capacity is to intentionally get uncomfortable for the sake of the Gospel. The first uncomfortable steps might include squeezing every person possible in a crowded room. Or battling for a parking place….or exhausting leaders, staff, and volunteers….or noticing your digital attendance going up because they can’t get in the room.
The next “uncomfortable” steps a growing church must face is sending some of its own out ON MISSION. Congratulations!!! By getting uncomfortable in your faithfulness to Gods desire to reach the lost, you have somehow gained His favor and trust to participate in His NEXT Kingdom expanding idea for your church!
The next steps in a growing church’s life will require a growing vision and leadership with capacity. Because the next two adventures God has for you, will indeed be exciting and painful all at the same time:
- Sending a “momentum of the faithful” to another part of your region as a plant.
- Sending a “momentum of the faithful” to be an extension of your very own capacity (Multisite)
We at Portable Church Industries looked at both the list of Fastest Growing and Largest Churches in the Outreach top 100 lists to learn how these “successful” churches are growing. PCI’s research of these lists determined that 60% of the fastest growing, and 85% of the largest churches have more than one physical location. And many of these churches are both multisiting AND planting.
Mind you, planting and multisiting is not a strategy reserved only for The Mega Church that is going to be noticed by Outreach Magazine. There are thousands of churches of all sizes, that are learning the dynamics of launching new locations. Certainly, the mega churches have learned, and many of the mid and large churches have learned how to launch new locations strongly:
- The stronger the vision the better chance of staying ON MISSSION.
- The higher the capacity of leadership/leadership teams the smarter the launch
- Stronger the funding the Stronger the Launch
- The larger the Launch Team the more forceful the sustaining momentum
The relatively recent strategy of churches launching new locations is in stark contrast to a time when the go-to solution to a capacity issue was building bigger and bigger buildings, either new or expanded remodels. The enormous expense of new and bigger facilities has been crippled by the cost of real estate, the economy, and the cost and time involved in vast amounts of money.
Launching Strong is an intentional act of leadership. A worn statistic in church-circles is that after 4 years, 68% of new churches are still open. The urgency of launching new locations comes from of churches knowing that 32% of new location launches fail within 4 years. PCI is thrilled to be a part of many strong launches over the years. We have determined that more than 90% of churches launching new locations with a Portable Church Solution are still open after 5 years. Many of those churches have excelled well into a permanent presence in their community.
