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NEW this month!
- Church Growth Factoids: Two New Church Growth Factoids and analysis
- Blog:
- “Church Growth & Assimilation - four-part series -- ending on May 17th, 2009
- “Angels & Demons” Review -- May 19th, 2009
- “The Preaching Proposition” - two-part series -- May 31st & June 15th, 2009
- “I Wish I Had SermonBase” -- June 16th, 2009
- “Why I need Shepherd Care” -- June 25th, 2009
- “Leadership Development: A Four-Part Process” -- started the series in June 2009
- Coaching: Coaching: “Personal Growth Coaching Plan”
- Sermons: “Get Rid of the Spiritual Junk” - Colossians 3:5-11
- Software -- Software News & Updates
CHURCH GROWTH FACTOIDS:
Take a look at these two Factoids about Church Growth:
Mega-church Stats
Check out these 2008 mega-church stats from Outreach magazine's annual survey:
Attendance of the largest 103: 1,128,451
(average size= 10, 956)
Growth from 2007 to 2008: 111,525 (9.9%)
Greatest percentage gain: 72% (Church of The Highlands, Birmingham)
Smallest church of the top 100: 7000
Average number of sites per church: 2.42
(Oureach Magazine, 2008 Annual Survey)
10% Attrition Rate
I keep reminding pastors that the normal attrition rate for most churches is about 10 percent each year. ... because of elderly people dying, career transitions, and people moving to new neighborhoods alone, you’ll lose ten out of every 100 attenders each year.
(Hybels, Bill. Axiom. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008., p. 57.)
In the first Factoid above, what I think is interesting is that ...The typical definition in the past of a ‘mega-church’ is a church of over 2,000. But these days that won’t even get you into the top 100 churches in the country. A church of 2,000 is not so noteworthy anymore. To even get into the top 100 of churches, you must have 7,000 people in your church.
Also noteworthy is the fact that most of these churches, have multi-campuses. Because of the scalability factor of using just one campus, many churches have found that it is much easier to go multiple campuses and spread their ‘brand’ out farther than people would be normally willing to drive. Where people are driving from to get to your church is a pretty good clue that whatever your church is offering, is not being offered by anybody else in that geographic area - even if there are other churches there which seem similar. People vote by their feet, and the fact that they are willing to drive to your church shows that something is missing in their geographic area.
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Hybels makes a good point about the attrition rate. This is just a normal part of doing life. Even if you do everything right as a church, and only lose people for the ‘good’ reasons above, of natural changes in life, but don’t add any new people, your church is going to die by 10% a year.
But what this means is that your church is going to have to do a really good job at assimilation to overcome the effects of attrition. If you have a 10% attrition rate, because of the reasons cited above, then you are going to need to have at least a 15% or 20% assimilation rate to keep growing. I go into more detail about this in my blog on “Church Growth Math”.
These and other Factoids can be found at ChurchGrowth Factoids
HighPower Thoughts Blog
(What I'm learning right now in the areas of Ministry Coaching, Simple Church, Church Growth & Church Health.)
Recent Posts:
- “Church Growth & Assimilation - four-part series -- ending on May 17th, 2009
- “Angels & Demons” Review -- May 19th, 2009
- “The Preaching Proposition” - two-part series -- May 31st & June 15th, 2009
- “I Wish I Had SermonBase” -- June 16th, 2009
- “Why I need Shepherd Care” -- June 25th, 2009
- “Leadership Development: A Four-Part Process” -- started the series in June 2009
Check out the Blog here.
Coaching Resources
- “Personal Growth Coaching Plan” --NEW! -- A five-part discovery process for personal growth. This is based on the process taught by Daniel Goleman in “Primal Leadership”.
- Also upgraded the “Annual Goal Setting worksheet” found in HighPower Coaching under the “Strategic Planning” section. The annual tool is also best used with the “MidCourse Evaluation” tool also found in the same section. It helps you take a look at progress half-way through and decide what needs to be bolstered or dropped.
Other HighPower Coaching Resources can be found here.
Software
- SermonBase Message Planning Software
We have been working on an update to SermonBase. It won’t be long and we will be releasing version 1.2. Version 1.2 will contain expanded Search and Find capabilities. The Calendar Tab will now display not only Sundays, but any day of the week for which you have a Message created. The Print Matrix has been improved, as well as various other minor bug fixes.
- Shepherd Care Group Software
We are beta-testing this new software which will allow you to track small groups and classes, and all the people that are in your church. We recently added the capacity to let each person be placed into two classes at the same time.
- Family Faces Church Directory Software
We
have added a new report, so that the total number of types of church directories available are four: three with photos and one without.
- HighPower Library
The free resource in our collection is being used by pastors and churches all over the world. Every week we get another notice of another pastor somewhere in the world using this helpful little library software.
Click on www.HighPowerResources.com/Software to download your new Demo today.
Seminars
For a list of both our on-site seminars and our “Do-It-Yourself” (DIY) Seminars, click on www.HighPowerResources.com/Seminars to learn more.
Sermons
This message deals with the topic of sin. It helps people to take a good look at sin in their lives and then helps them to dump the junk in a trash can forever.
These messages and othersare available from HighPower Sermons
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