Church Growth

Church Growth explores how congregations can grow in healthy, gospel-centered ways—both spiritually and numerically. Find practical, Bible-based articles on outreach, evangelism, discipleship pathways, assimilation, small groups, leadership development, and building a strong church culture. You’ll also discover guidance on strengthening ministries, improving communication, engaging your community, and measuring progress with wisdom and humility. Whether you’re leading a church, serving on a ministry team, or helping a congregation move forward, these resources aim to support sustainable growth that honors Christ and forms disciples.

January 25, 2015

Christian Standard

What Makes a Church Healthy?

By Casey Tygrett If you go to Amazon”s website and type “church health” into the search field, I guarantee it will generate more results than you have time to explore. Church health is more than a topic; it is a market, because in many places churches are in crisis. Writing this article has required me to do some honest digging and soul-searching, because at the core of the question “What makes a church healthy?” is this reality: I am the church . . . you are the church . . . and we are unhealthy.  And I have a harsh

January 6, 2015

Mark A. Taylor

The First Answer

By Mark A. Taylor Is your church healthy? Unfortunately, our quest to answer that question may send us looking in the wrong direction. Our tendency is to consider symptoms, not causes, of church health. We analyze statistics about giving or growth or participation, externals that may indicate how we”re doing but don”t tell how to make it better. What can we do to make our church healthier? The best answer””certainly the first answer””is to look in (not out), to cast our gaze upon ourselves. The function of any individual part affects the health of the whole. A quick look at

November 1, 2014

Christian Standard

3 Funds Committed to Growth

By Darrel Rowland We like to tell people that our brotherhood is among the fastest growing in America and contains far more than its share of megachurches. But there”s a unique factor in how God has blessed the Christian churches/churches of Christ that often gets overlooked: a trio of loan funds that now have a combined $1 billion-plus in assets. “I think it”s just a testament to our movement that it has three strong, vibrant funds,” said Doug Crozier, CEO of the Solomon Foundation and former head of the Church Development Fund (CDF). “As far as I know, there”s not

September 15, 2014

Christian Standard

The Church of the Future

By Matt Smay One thing is certain as we contemplate all the changes the church is facing. Tomorrow”s church won”t look like the church we remember from days gone by. I try to keep things as simple as possible. When we overcomplicate things, we extend the time it takes to learn and become proficient at something new. It might explain why I”ve become enamored by one-room churches and schoolhouses that were established in small towns as people moved west across America, in a time when everything seemed so much simpler. (My ancestors helped establish one of those towns: Browns, Illinois.)

September 4, 2014

Christian Standard

Thinking Big

By Jennifer Johnson I looked forward to speaking with Robert Bess because of the similarities between his church and ours. (See Related Article.)  Like Robert”s church in Tennessee, Levittown (PA) Christian Church, where my husband, Matt, serves as pastor, has grown from just a few families to about 100 people. And like Robert, Matt is not content for LCC to stay so small when so many thousands in our community still need Jesus. He spent much of this summer meeting with other local pastors, casting vision with the influencers and leaders in our own congregation, and reading widely to see

September 4, 2014

Christian Standard

Love Repurposed

By Jennifer Johnson When Robert Bess began serving as senior minister at Love Chapel Christian Church (Erwin, TN) in 2008, average attendance had dwindled down to just a few dozen people. Earlier this year, the church averaged 90 people on a weekend. But as we go to press, Love Chapel is seeing almost 150 people each weekend and is getting ready to welcome many more. The church achieved this amazing growth in just four weeks by repurposing a building on its property that usually sat empty, turning it into “The Love Chapel Connection Café.” Lots of churches have coffee shops,

June 24, 2014

Mark A. Taylor

Size May Not Matter

By Mark A. Taylor We”ve been chronicling megachurch success for more than three decades at CHRISTIAN STANDARD. But in spite of encouraging growth, both in size and number of megachurches, an underbelly of suspicion toward them remains. Our Beyond the Standard conversation May 15 with Jud Wilhite, Dave Stone, and Don Wilson, showed this. These ministers with the three largest megachurches among the independent Christian churches shared practical ideas and thoughtful strategies””always with a spirit of humility. But too many questions from listeners contained veiled accusations of compromise to achieve numbers. So when I came across a report from Leadership

May 17, 2014

Christian Standard

How BIG Is Your Small Church?

By Ryland Brown I struggled with numbers for quite a while. But I”m serving more effectively now that I”ve gained a better perspective on size. I preach for a church that averages 65 people, and most days I like it. We are a small church with the typical small church problems. We struggle with getting the nursery staffed. If a couple of families are out of town on any given Sunday, we miss them. Until recently, we had no one to run the soundboard and would hope for the best during Sunday services. When someone comes to our congregation who

May 16, 2014

Christian Standard

The Measure of a Church

By Will Thomas All churches count “noses” and “nickels.” That”s a good thing. Most of the time, attendance and finances provide a helpful barometer of what”s happening. But other factors also matter. Churches count what they do because they can. The harder-to-measure goals may too often remain hidden beneath the surface. Some churches look beyond the obvious. All churches could. In fact, looking beyond the obvious is probably one of the common characteristics of larger, growing churches. They know numbers for the sake of numbers seldom lead anywhere. Their leaders know a big church needs a big foundation. Churches that

May 10, 2014

Christian Standard

Large Churches and Medium Churches: The 2013 List

Our annual megachurch chart is one of CHRISTIAN STANDARD”s most popular features. This year we are breaking the chart into two parts for our website postings; this particular chart lists 103 large churches (those averaging 500 to 999 in weekly attendance) and 109 medium-sized megachurches (those that averaged 250 to 499 during 2013). This is not an exhaustive listing; instead, it is a listing of churches that voluntarily participated in our survey. Click here to look at the chart of the 2013 Large Churches and Medium Churches.

May 8, 2014

Christian Standard

A Closer Look at the Numbers*

By Kent Fillinger   AVERAGE SIZE Megachurches: 4,810 Emerging Megachurches: 1,354 Combined average weekly attendance: 382,144 The three largest megachurches account for more than 20 percent of all megachurch attendees.   GROWTH RATES Megachurches: 5.6 percent (up from 3 percent in 2012); overall, 73 percent of megachurches grew. Emerging Megachurches: 2.4 percent (down from 4 percent in 2012); overall, 52 percent of emerging megachurches grew.   FASTEST-GROWING CHURCHES 2|42 Community Church, Brighton, MI, 112% Third City Christian Church, Grand Island, NE, 31.6% Eastside Christian Church, Anaheim, CA, 26.3% Current””A Christian Church, Katy, TX, 22.1% Ten Mile Christian Church, Meridian, ID,

May 7, 2014

Christian Standard

Megachurches Break New Ground

By Kent Fillinger The annual survey of attendance and trends in the fellowship of Christian churches and churches of Christ always yields interesting facts, but our study for calendar year 2013 also identified three notable “firsts”: “¢ For the first time, three churches averaged more than 20,000 in weekly worship attendance. Joining Southeast Christian Church, Louisville, Kentucky, and Central Christian Church, Henderson, Nevada, both of which surpassed 20,000 for the third consecutive year, was Christ”s Church of the Valley, Peoria, Arizona. “¢ For the first time in the 18-year history of this list, Southeast Christian did not have the highest

October 22, 2013

Mark A. Taylor

We”re Doing Well, but Not Well Enough

By Mark A. Taylor A generation ago, Dr. Steve Hancock made sure his graduate Christian education students understood the principles of Sunday school growth. One of the rules, which he learned at the Southern Baptist seminary he attended, went something like this: “New classes grow faster, win more people to Christ, and develop more workers than existing classes.” We don”t hear much about Sunday school growth nowadays. But church growth, especially growth through church planting, is on everyone”s radar. Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research, is a Southern Baptist church growth advocate for today”s generation. And he says “any movement

October 10, 2013

Christian Standard

What I Want to Tell Large Churches

By Steve Wyatt Church planters are quirky and extremely headstrong, loner types who plow into most every “church” conversation with a Mighty Mouse mind-set (“Here I come to save the day!”) They tend to have an overdeveloped sense for “the way things ought to be” and confidence they can make it happen. At least that”s the case before launch day. I can make such seemingly harsh statements because I am a church planter. Church planters, as a tribe, are seriously impaired. Consider Exhibit A: we viciously trash the current church “model”””especially megachurches””but then build our “new and improved” model by

October 7, 2013

Christian Standard

What Would Jabez Do?

By Jim Tune   “Let me not live,” quoth he, “After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses All but new things disdain; whose judgments are Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies Expire before their fashions.” “”William Shakespeare, All”s Well That Ends Well   In business marketing, companies are very interested in reaching the elusive consumer known as the early adopter. I suppose I fit into that category. My guess is a large majority of church planters are early adopters, or perhaps even innovators. It wouldn”t surprise me if someone discovered the

September 14, 2013

Christian Standard

City Growth, Church Growth?

By Darrel Rowland For decades Americans fled the city for suburbs, and their churches followed them. But the trend has reversed””at least for now””with more people moving into the city. Will churches return with them? That”s a key question because the statistics showing the new boom in city growth collide with findings on spiritual beliefs, such as those compiled by pollster George Barna. The country”s current demographic upheaval is stark. From 2001 to 2010 only five U.S. cities grew faster than their surrounding suburbs. Now most cities are outstripping the “burbs, which hasn”t happened since the 1920s. A U.S. Census

May 18, 2013

Christian Standard

New Home Brings New Growth

By Kent E. Fillinger What a difference a new home makes! Legacy Christian Church of Senoia, Georgia, started in March 2009 with a core group of 59 believers. Legacy met in an inconveniently located elementary school for three and one-half years. The church desired a permanent home and looked for an existing warehouse or storefront to meet its needs. The church”s leaders looked at 66 different properties but couldn”t find one with the right combination of space and parking. Eventually God opened the door to a great 20-acre property two counties away. The new location had excellent visibility from a

May 12, 2013

Christian Standard

“˜If You Build It . . .”

By Kent E. Fillinger “If you build it, they will come” is an adaptation of the famous line from the movie Field of Dreams. This adage doesn”t always apply to churches, but in the case of Academy Christian Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, its dreams did come true. Academy completed its fourth building expansion project on April 1, 2012, doubling its facility”s square footage and increasing the church”s visibility from the main road. Since then, the average number of weekly guests has increased from four to eight, and average attendance during 2012 increased from 415 to 529 (27 percent). Academy

May 10, 2013

Christian Standard

Growing Over the Long Haul

By Kent E. Fillinger John Scott is a longtimer. He started as youth minister of Community Christian Church in Hemet, California, in 1987, and became the lead pastor in 1990. In 2012, CCC grew to an average worship attendance of 1,126, a 22 percent increase over the previous year. “The momentum has been building, but we busted loose last year,” Scott said. “Our staff and elders are simply amazing,” he said. “Truly gifted and big-hearted servants who have totally bought into what we”re trying to do here. The cohesiveness of this team has allowed us to stretch and risk and

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