Posted by Steve Lacy on June 26, 2011 ·
Could Southern Baptist’s, the last of the Strong Evangelical Denominations, be following others in decline?
A sign of this could be drop in baptisms this year.
Baptisms fell to their lowest number in 60 years among Southern Baptists, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
The new numbers are a sign that the denomination is in trouble, Baptist leaders say.
“This is not a blip,” said Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research. “This is a trend. And, the trend is one of decline.”
In 2010, Southern Baptists baptized 332,321 people, or 17,416 fewer than in 2009, according to a [...]
Posted by Steve Lacy on March 31, 2011 ·
Did you know that Google is looking for you?
Google has a product called Google Places. This is an online map directory, and if you searched Google for something local, you’ve seen it. If you put “plumber” and the name of your city in a Google search box and hit return, you will see not just plumbers popping up, but these little maps that will show you where plumbers are located. These are Google Places.
Google invested millions of dollars to create this, and they bought listings from White Pages and Yellow Pages to populate it. However, there are many churches that aren’t [...]
Posted by Steve Lacy on March 23, 2011 ·
Church Growth is measured each year by Outreach Magazine and is reported in their “Outreach 100 Special Issue.”
Outreach Marketing is looking for the 100th largest and 100th fasted growing churches in America, and they’d like your help.
Each year, Outreach Magazine in partner with Lifeway Research compiles the Outreach 100 Special Report highlighting America’s 100th largest and fasted growing churches. Should your church be included? Learn to apply the four “A’s” of Church Growth and your church may be there in the future.
Just for your reference, last year’s [...]
Posted by Steve Lacy on March 20, 2011 ·
Since one of the keys to church growth is attracting new people to your church, it helps if a church can find creative ways to get people to come for the first time.
Many times we assume the only way we can get someone to come to our church is to join us for a Sunday morning worship service; however, a great church growth strategy is to get people to visit your church for another event that may be less threatening but exposes them to the church. This allows them to see and get used to facilities which makes them more likely to return on a future Sunday.
One great idea for attracting new people [...]
Posted by Steve Lacy on March 17, 2011 ·
When I say the word, merger, you probably think of corporations coming together for a hostile takeover.
Yet church mergers are becoming a big thing. According to Leadership Network, 2 percent of all U.S. Protestant churches have been part of the merger in the last two years and another 8 percent say they will probably merge in the next two years. This is becoming a growing Church Growth Strategy.
Why is this a growing trend? There are churches in America that are growing rapidly. There are also churches that are plateaued, declining. Many times when a growing church is looking to [...]
Posted by Steve Lacy on March 14, 2011 ·
When it comes to growing your church there are only four things you do that will affect the size of your worship attendance.
Attraction. The total potential growth of your church is based on the number of guests who will come into your church in the future. You can get people to attend your church in many ways. One of the most often used is invitation. Having someone from your church invite a friend, a relative, a co?worker to church. Is the most used and is the most effective way to get a new person to attend your church. You can use me as sources, radio, TV, cable advertising, [...]
Posted by Steve Lacy on March 4, 2011 ·
There are four factors in growing your church
1. Attraction – Getting new people to attend.
2. Assimilation – Getting those that have attended to return and join.
3. Attendance Frequency – Getting those who attend you church to come more often.
4. Attrition – Getting less people leaving your Church.
