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Factoids

March Focus – Three Factoids on Your Church Size

1)  Churches of 100 people or less = 50% of all American Churches

“... about half of all churches in America are made up of fewer than 100 people...” quoting Barna Research Group in Evangelical Press News Service on March 1, 1991.  (Anderson, Leith. A Church for the 21st Century. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1992, p. 180.)

This factoid has been around for years and is apparently standing the test of time.  These small churches may burn through pastors like firewood, but you sure can’t kill them.  Like herding a bunch of cats, they just keep on doing what they do, and somehow, we hope the Spirit of God is doing some good work in people’s lives. 

2)  Churches of 250 people or less = 85% of all American Churches

“... 95% of America’s churches have 250 or less at worship on Sunday morning.”  (Anderson, Leith. A Church for the 21st Century. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1992, p. 177.)

[Editor’s Note:  This is a great book by Anderson, but this stat may be a little dated now, as more popular  consensus is that if your church is 250, you are in the 85 percentile in terms of church size.  But it is a useful stat as it shows where we have been and are going in terms of American Christianity.]

The reason for this is very simple if you consider the reality that the typical church pastured by one Solo Pastor can grow up to about 150 w/o help.  Then you add in a youth pastor, and you attract a few more people, and there you have it – 200-250 people in the church.  If your church has between 150 and 250 people, you are in the 85th percentile of church sizes.

3)  Churches of 620 people or less = 97% of all American Churches

“In fact, something less than 3 percent of all churches ever grow to 620.”  (Wagner, C. Peter. Spreading the Fire. The Acts of the Holy Spirit Series, Vol. 1. Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1994, p. 17.  )

Why do such a small percentage of churches make it this far?  Carl George explains all of this very well in his great books from many years ago, but it comes down to the matter of how the pastor (& the church leadership focus their time).  They have to move from "shepherding" to "ranching" to make the switch from 250 up to the 600 level.  This has implications for small groups, pastoral care, “visitation”, how you handle newcomers, and how the pastor spends his remaining hours of the week after sermon prep time. 

The other factor which works against a church making it beyond the 200 (250) barrier up to the 600 is that to get this far, you have to add additional paid staff.  That, then, brings in an additional complexity to the whole church system.  Now the pastor, instead of spending all of his spare time calling and connecting with newcomers, must spend an increasing percentage of his time dealing with staff – recruiting, training, dealing w/ problems, etc.  So the growth engine is seriously slowed down as you seek to move from 250 to 600 people.  There are many factors working against you, and only 3% of the churches make the swim upstream. 

So, how do you make it past the 200 (250) barrier?  Many, many books have been written about this, and we will not go into it here, but I will say that I believe if you are really serious about breaking beyond this barrier, considering all the factors working against you, you would be wise to get a ministry coach to help you think through the issues in your unique situation.  Until you get an unbiased partner or team working for you, where you don’t have to measure your words, and be afraid of church-politics hot potatoes, you will be hard-pressed to break through the barrier.

These and other Factoids can be found at ChurchGrowth Factoids

Coaching

SIX ESSENTIAL AREAS OF CHARACTER

An important aspect of staff oversight and coaching relates to character evaluation.  This is an issue in the Christian church world which is of greater concern to us than to those serving in the secular world.  Most performance evaluations in the secular world are simply related to numbers: did he make the sales quota, achieve the manufacturing goals, etc.  The issue of character is sometimes perceived as secondary to performance of one’s duties.  Indeed, the great debate of the 1990’s was whether or not the President of the United States could still do a good job while philandering around.

But in the Christian world, character is paramount.   We cannot imagine being satisfied with a staff person’s performance without bringing in the important matter of personal character.

But, when evaluating staff in the sometimes vague and nebulous area of character, how do you develop measurable standards by which to encourage excellence?  After all, character is one of those make or break issues which affect every area of ministry, because who a staff person IS, is as important as what they do for your church.  But how do you measure it?  It can quickly become quite personal, and in worst case scenarios become little more than a likeability factor.   This would, of course, be doing a disservice to those whom we are called to evaluate and coach.

So, here are six aspects of character which Henry Cloud has outlined.  These will give you a much more concrete system to evaluate staff character issues:

A person of character…
1.  Creates and maintains trust
2.  Is able to see and face reality
3.  Works in a way that brings results
4.  Embraces negative realities and solves them
5.  Causes growth and increase
6.  Achieves transcendence and meaning in life

(Taken from Henry Cloud’s book, Integrity, as quoted in “Christian Management Report”, December 2006.)

Now, these become measurable traits which can actually result in some real coaching effectiveness during performance evaluations.  In fact, check out the new tool from the HighPower Coaching Resources section on evaluating character issues in your staff.

For free coaching resources, try here.

Software

Phodobase™ is an easy to use software that does one thing very well - It helps you to create & maintain a great looking photo church directory.

Are you tired of all the hassle involved in bringing in an outside organization to create a photo directory for your church? How do your people enjoy the high-pressure sales to buy a whole suite of family photos? Probably not too much.

Phodobase™ lets you easily create your own Church Photo Directory!

• Computer-based Family Photo Directory (Mac or PC)
  No expensive printing of paper manuals
  No high-pressures sales people trying to squeeze your families and little-old-ladies for more dollars for photos
  No more outdated directories - updates can be immediately distributed
  
  
• THREE DESIGN OPTIONS:
  1. FULL Directory - Photo + Family Description + Contact Information
  2. PHOTO Directory - Photo + Contact Information
  3. SIMPLE Directory - just Contact Information
     ADMIN & GUEST MODE - You can distribute your Directory in “Guest (locked mode, or you can allow your congregation to change and update contact and other information (“Admin” mode).
     
     
• EASY DISTRIBUTION to your Church -- When you have populated your Phodobase Directory with family photos, descriptions, and contact information (or any combination of those three), then you simply distribute your Phodobase Directory to your church family.
  You can email Phodobase™ , or burn it to a CD, or place it on your website.

want a free copy?

This software is currently in beta, and we are looking for people who will test it in their church situation for a couple months.

More info Here

SERMONS

SERMONBASE SPECIAL - Receive a Free Sermon with Purchase

From now through the end of April, we are offering a free HighPower Sermon with each purchase of SermonBase Message Planning Software.  Buy SermonBase, and you will receive instructions on downloading your free sermon.  You can choose any sermon from HighPower Sermons as your free gift.

SEMINARS

NEW SEMINAR:  COACHING FOR SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT

We have been working and learning a lot about Coaching in our ministry context.  We are taking a team of leaders through leadership and coaching training.  You can download a set of mini-seminars on Coaching.  The goal of our coaching focus is to promote spiritual growth.  Take a look at the free Student Notes here, and find out more about this seminar.

Blog:  Simple Church - Clarity

Simple Church by Eric Geiger has made a tremendous impact on our church.  Take a look at some thougths I have about the very first principle of the "Simple Church" model, called "CLARITY"

Simple Church: Clarity

Useful weblinks

Church consultant Brian Frye found a quick, easy and free way to understand the denominational make-up of a metro area in terms of number of churches and membership.

Simply go to The National Religion Data Archives Website at www.thenrda.com. From their homepage click on Maps & Reports and scroll down to Metro Areas. Then just select a metro area from the list. Click on this link to see a sample report for the Agusta, GA market.