Introduction
About a year ago, you asked me and Jan to move among you, to become a part of this spiritual family, to share our gifts and talents, to be ourselves in your midst, and this we have done. This has been an interesting year, for I determined to avoid the temptation to move in and try immediately to change everything.

We have established a benchmark--not due to a honeymoon period, not artificially stimulated, without special days and activities to inflate our averages.

Today we begin again, a second year, and I have several goals in mind. I want to (1) focus our attention on things that really matter in establishing priorities individually and collectively, (2) speak the language of God when we assemble together, (3) clearly describe our present state and present some strategies for moving beyond the present to begin growing again as God intends.

Today we have several parts to what we will share.

• 1. Prayer for our members who are involved in education, public and private schools, pre-school to collegiate. Randy Hughes will lead the prayer.
• 2. Prayer for our students.
• 3. Sermon. This may be longer than normal. Come tonight, and you get your time back. I gave you back 20 minutes last Sunday night. But some of you don't know you got time back, because you weren't here. But the sermons even out. But this one today will be longer than normal.

SERMON
How would you describe this church?

• Growing, plateaued, declining?
• Missional or maintenance?
• Do you have solid evaluation or just basic observation?

What makes a church grow?

• Simply holding right doctrine will not make a church grow.
• Location may help, but location does not make a church grow.
• Evangelistic thrust first and foremost assures growth.
• Churches grow when they give priority to making disciples and planning for growth.

Some frightening thoughts.

• There are about 400,000 congregations of various kinds in the US
• 75% of these have less than 150 members.
• Only 4% have 350-400 members.
• Among c/c, only 6% are larger than 300.
• 90-95% of churches in the US peak by their 15th anniversary, and unless there is some kind of purposeful intervention, they never exceed that level.
• Most churches grow for only 2-3 years after they begin.
• 85% of the congregations in the US have not gone up or down more than 3% in the last 5 years.
• 6,000 churches go out of business every year, about 1½%.

Evaluation is important.

• It gives us a baseline from which to measure.
• It helps us identify trends.
• It help us work smarter.

We must think about the history of this church. Why does this church exist. Not all churches start because they want to share the good news of the gospel. In fact, most churches start with much more selfish, internal motivations.

• A. Some begin because of splits.
• B. Some begin because there is a perceived need--we have a lot of members in that area of town. This is internally driven rather than externally driven.
• C. Some begin to maintain doctrinal purity.
• D. Some begin to defend the faith rather than advance it.
• E. Some begin to edify the church membership with little emphasis on growth.
• F. Some begin with a benevolent need in mind.
• G. Some begin with the goal of evangelizing.

Regardless of the reason churches begin, eventually most churches reach a survival state--the congregation is gathered, the building is secured, the budget solidified, and the general rule is business as usual. People are added from time to time, the building may be expanded, and the budget may be increased, but key phrase is business as usual. This will continue indefinitely with steady plateau or slow decline until the church ceases to exist unless there is some kind of intervention.

Additionally, the reputation of the church is important. In the history of the church, what important decisions have been made that were visible in the community? What are the historic strengths? Weaknesses? Do they still exist today?

The reputation of the individual members is important. This reputation is important internally. We watch one another, we are examples, we have influence. This reputation is important externally.

Generally, a church grows when its demographic reflects the demographic of the community-- within 3 years. A church grows when it is slightly above the community in social/economic level. A church grows when its educational level is slightly above that of the community. The more a church is like its community, the more likely it is to be a growing church.

When all else is in place, for a church to grow, there must be some kind of strategic intervention and plan to facilitate that growth. When we came last year, we began to have conversations about the nature of such an intervention and how one might initiate an intervention.

• If evangelistic thrust insures growth, we can learn much from studying growing, evangelistic congregations.
• Growing churches have adequate staff--approximately 1 ministry staff person for every 150-200 members.
• Growing churches spend at least 10% of their budget on local evangelism, not including salaries.
• Growing churches have at least 5% of their weekly attendance made up of local visitors.
• In growing churches, ½ of the members have identified their "extended family". Extended family is a way of speaking about the potential congregation. Most of us have 5-8 persons, friends, relatives, co-workers who are not in Christ, are within driving distance of the church, and are basically unchurched, including former members who are no longer faithful. Even considering overlap, this usually represents approximately 4-5 times current attendance. In a smaller community, the ratio may be smaller. This means that we collectively today know 600-1000 potential members of this congregation. But this does no good unless those people are identified. In a growing church, at least ½ of the members have identified this "potential congregation."
• Growing churches have 50-75% of their leaders with a great commission conscience. This means that of our 21 elders and deacons, at least 11-15 should have a burning desire to reach out with the gospel. Without that kind of commitment among the leaders, it is unlikely the church will grow.
• Growing churches have at least 1/3 of their members involved in evangelism training each year, and at least 10% of their members involved in evangelism at any given time (20-25 people).
• Growing churches assimilate new members by establishing new friendships, at least 7 friendships within 6 months for every new member.
• Growing churches have preachers who attend workshops and lectureships.
• Growing churches have preachers who read and study church growth, evangelism, and missions.
• Growing churches talk about evangelism, establish methods for making committed disciples of every member, and develop plans for growth.

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All of that is introduction, and if we do not get finished, we will finish next week. This is a two part sermon, but I do not know where the first part ends and the second part begins. This is our great need. This is our focus for fall, 2003.

The book of Acts makes abundantly clear that a true NT church is a growing church. We may not grow as rapidly as in the NT, but the faithful NT church always grows. Realistic growth may be as little as 25% per decade. That is not much. That is going from 240 to 300 in 10 years. But that is a realistic goal. In fact, it is excellent. About 2% net growth per year, but remember that most churches lose 6% each year, so that means an 8% gross increase. 50% growth in astounding, 240-360 in 10 years. 100% growth is extremely unusual--doubling in 10 years.

The church in Lansing went from 175 to almost 350 in 11+ years. We did not know what we were doing, but we were a missional church. We had a bus program, we learned about Fishers of Men evangelism and we did that. We reached out on the MSU campus. We reached out to three ethnic groups--whites, blacks, Hispanics. We encouraged the beginning of a Hispanic congregation. We did not know what we were doing, but we were growing because we thought that was what God wanted us to do. That church was only 20 years old when I arrived, and had been in their current building only 15 years. That was great growth. The church in Ft. Gibson went from 200 to 280 in 8 years. This was an old church. They had been in their current location for almost 30 years. The church traced its history to 1905. Nevertheless, we focused on evangelism and we grew. We had two ex-missionaries in the eldership. We had an ex-preacher in the eldership. We had leadership in favor of evangelism. The church reached 300+ within the 10 year period. That is 50% growth. I have only worked with two churches long enough to see the kind of things God makes possible. In my first work out of college, we buried more than we baptized. We were not very evangelistic, but I did not know better. My expectations were small, and I learned a lot. In my next work, we tried several things, but we were in the old part of Tulsa, we did not have bridges to the youth moving into our area, and we did not grow, despite our evangelistic thrust in foreign missions, supporting three missionaries. In the Detroit area, we grew in attendance, but it was primarily due to bus program. We increased about 50% in only 2-3 years, but that was artificial and did not stay. I was learning. I know God will bless the efforts of those who seek to be evangelistic and reach out with the message. I have seen growth rates all over the page. I do not believe there is a limit to what God can do among us if we will genuinely determine that we will be his, that he will be in charge, that we will follow him, that we will not be ashamed, that we will be bold and courageous, that we will not worry about what others think, that we will commit ourselves fully.

We must shape our expectations with those of the NT, divorce our thinking from the limited growth models we have witnessed and experienced. We must renew our commitments as members. Leaders, we must renew our commitments. I am going to be specific, if you are not attending Bible classes on Sunday and Wednesday, you need to start. Your influence is a negative factor. You are part of the bottleneck that is keeping this church from growing. If your heart is not in the growth of the church, you are holding us back. If you are not eating, breathing, sleeping church, if you are not here regularly, others notice. They say, where are our deacons, where are our elders, where is my teacher. We teach with our lives more than with our mouths. If we are going to be a faithful church, we must be faithful members. If we are faithful, we are teaching the true nature of Christian commitment. If we are teaching commitment and teaching the good news, we are winning souls for Jesus. If we are winning souls for Jesus, we will grow.

How long has it been since you talked to someone about Jesus? How long since you invited someone to Bible class. Hard to do if you are not here. I can't invite someone to Bible class--I don't attend myself.

I am laying the premise for next week's lesson. My premise is that true NT Christianity demands growth. On Pentecost, we know, 3000. Six verses later, daily additions. In Acts 4:4b, 5000 only counting the men. Then multitudes, 5:12. Then disciples multiplied, 6:1. Then the word of God increased, disciples multiplied, great numbers were obedient, 6:7. And on it goes. We know 1000+ persons who could be here today. We do. We only need to get started. We need to make certain the foundations are in place.

We must be a fellowshiping congregation. We must have an excellent educational program to attract young families. We must provide support in small groups and special interest groups. We must have an excellent nursery, which is the handshake of the church. We must give attention to worship--we need to get rid of the hesitation when we don't know whether someone assigned to prayer is here or not. We need to get serious about our commitments, and make the call, and replace ourselves. It is embarrassing.

If you are visiting today, we welcome you, God bless you, but I am talking to us. We want you to be one of us, and I don't talk this way every Sunday. Come next week and get the positive side. We are trying to be like the church of the NT, and we are seeking a Christian commitment that can really make a difference in our lives. And so we need sometimes the physician to say, Lose weight, or start exercising, or change this, or change that. And so we are saying these things.

I am concerned about our growth rate. I am concerned about the inability of the churches of Christ by and large to grow in the US. I believe w are in a crisis of ineffectiveness, and Batsell Barrett Baxter said that a long time ago, but we have not fixed the problem.

Our growth rate as a fellowship is a matter of concern. It takes 80 members on average to make a new Christian. Only 1 Christian out of 200 is working on teaching the lost. We must ask ourselves if we want anyone to intervene, or if we are happy going on as we have been doing. We do not have to continue in a plateaued state, or eventual decline.

We can return to the harvest. We will talk about that next week, what we can do as a congregation. How we can understand and undertake the challenge.

But today is about individuals. We must start with individuals. Revival begins with me. I will be different. Revival begins with commitments individually. You can recommit. You do not have to fix everything today, but you can say, I want to, I by the grace of God, am going to try to. You can count on me. I will be different. I will be involved. I will be restored to my first love. You used to love Jesus. You used to be dependable. You used to attend Bible class. You used to teach. You used to do so much, and what happened.

What we call revival is simply a return to normal NT Christianity. I am asking for a revival, but I am challenging just to get serious at NT Christianity. Because so many of us have been so subnormal for so long that if we ever become normal, it will seem abnormal and other people will say, Look at that abnormal church.

You could begin a Christian walk in earnest today by responding for baptism. We would love to assist you. People are responding regularly. We have seen 25 responses this year in just over 30 weeks. Nine have been baptized to begin their Christian walk. Others have asked for prayers. Others have placed their membership with this church. This is a day of beginning again. This is our "back to school" sermon. This is back to Bible school. This is back to work.

I do not know how to say it any more plainly. I am going to take the lead. Jan and I are committed to you, to this community, to our world. We want to see people saved. We teach and preach and work toward that end. We are trying to facilitate this in the life of this church. Our elders, I am confident, will take a lead. They will come down here, and ask you to pray with them and for them. And you could come. We have already prayed for so many of us, but we could pray again, and we will pray, and we can be what God is calling us to be. Right now, as we stand and sing.