August 22, 2010 – 6:32 pm
1. Teach your members the difference between “having friends at church” and “being genuinely friendly to guests.” • People come to church looking for a friend not looking for a friendly church. • Churches are friendly but it is usually to each other, not to new people. • We have one chance to connect with [...]
These series of blogs will help you keep the people you reach and help you discern if your church is more like Teflon or Velcro? We have a twofold challenge…getting new people to attend and getting people to stick after they join and not slide off. So is your church currently more like Velcro, people [...]
These series of blogs will help you keep the people you reach. One of the challenges churches face today is not only getting new people to attend but getting people to stick after they join and not slide off. Would you say your church is more like Velcro (people stick) or teflon (people join and [...]
Religion News Service reports that a new Gallup Poll found that Americans’ self-reported church attendance has increased slightly since 2008. When asked “How often do you attend church, synagogue, or mosque?” 43.1 percent of Americans in 2010 said they attended church “at least once a week” or “almost every week.” That’s up from 42.8 percent [...]
November 10, 2009 – 9:00 am
Aubrey Malphurs lists ten major barriers that churches are facing as they strive to make disciples. This series of blogs examines these ten components. Here’s the list again. (1) Lack of vision; (2) Lack of outreach and passion; (3) Congregations not willing to change; (4) Lack of leadership-intentional leader training; (5) Lack of prayer; (6) [...]
One of the most important things a church does is to follow up on guests who visit the church or any activity sponsored by the church. It is a key to church growth. Each church must customize what works best in their particular setting. Churches today are rethinking the follow up components with guests. Part [...]
On May 11, Baptist Press quoted Henry Blackaby on his thoughts about the Great Commission Resurgence. His answers are very insightful to churches on why we are not growing and reaching this culture with the Gospel. I am not going to be the color commentator on his comments, or put it in the “spin zone” [...]
Romans 12:13 says, “Practice hospitality.” Churches need to be places that are hospitable, friendly, loving, and welcoming. They should be places where people smile and one can easily see the love of Jesus. This is part three in this series on making guests feel welcome, but to be honest we will re-visit this subject [...]
Getting ready for company is an important element to growing churches. Growing churches expect guest each Sunday and spend much energy and time getting ready for their arrival. When the James Gang have company coming to our house I usually do the vacuuming and I must tell you, I am good! We also do a [...]
Churches spend lots of energy, money, and time enhancing the worship experience. We spend some really big bucks on sound, video projecting, lighting, banners, worship music, etc. That is a good thing, but is it enough? For that matter if a pastor spends 20 hours preparing for his message on Sunday, is that enough? Does the [...]