09 Oct The 15% Rule

Well, I just finished reading the book The Habits of Highly Effective Churches by George Barna. He did a good job making a distinction between churches that just exist, and churches that are in fact highly effective. In this book he gives 9 different habits that help in making churches become highly effective so I would definitely recommend you heading over to ministrylibrary.com and checking that video summary out. However for this blog post, I want to talk about an interesting thought that he brought out in this book. In talking about structuring your church for maximum impact, George Barna says that highly effective churches plan out their annual growth and attempt to keep it around 15%. Now when I first read it, I was a little thrown off guard. How could a church want to stop their growth if it was more than 15%? Well, here are the couple of reasons Mr. Barna gives.

-You can’t absorb more than 15% into your church and connect them all into healthy relationships.

-You can’t train and place more than 15% into meaningful ministry positions.

-After 15% you begin to create an environment where you grow spectator Christians.

-And you can’t really effectively evaluate the spiritual growth of more than the 15%.

Next, he gives a couple of ways that churches can slow their growth to 15%.

-Preach messages periodically that are hard truths to deal with

-Set high standards of quality for ministries

-Limit church programs

-Modify your marketing efforts based upon your growth projections throughout the year

-Introduce people to other churches that can better meet their needs.

Okay, so after reading those couple of things, my mind started racing. The author has some valid points, but I can’t still justify limiting my church’s growth. If we truly believe that it is God who draws people to Himself, how can we possible place a number on that? In addition to that, churches who do try to grow by only 15%…guess what…most likely only grow by 15% or less. Because that’s all that they were prepared for. God isn’t going to bring people to your church if you are not prepared for them. Also, in the book of Acts the church grew to 3,000 which was well more than 15%. Now let me say, the concerns that the author has about big growth are true concerns. When your church is growing by more than 15%, it is hard to get everyone connected. It can also lead to everyone thinking your church is the cool church and you attract a bunch of spectator Christians. But I don’t think the answer is try to limit the church’s growth. I think the answer is stepping up the systems that you have in place to bring people along with you. When you have more people, your vision must be extremely clear and communicated often! Your assimilation and discipleship processes need to be solid as well. This doesn’t mean you won’t have difficulty, but can we really think that the early church did not face these same challenges? I believe that every church has the responsibility to be ready for growth. But this is an active role, not a passive role. These Highly Effective churches make the most of every opportunity for evangelism and for service in their community. They exist to make tangible differences that lead to life transformation and people becoming more like Jesus. What would happen if your church grew by 15%? How about 30%? 50%? Are you ready?

For more on how to make your church more effective, check out our summary of The Habits of Highly Effective Churches.