Baptisms: The Best Indicator of Church Growth

There’s an interesting article in this week’s issue of the Christian Standard, which is focused on the 113 megachurches within the nondenominational Christian Church movement. Megachurches have drawn an unusual amount of attention in recent years, both positive and negative.

Now, I’m not a critic of megachurches — far from it! (Some of my best friends and spiritual mentors are megachurch pastors.) But one thing that has always bothered me about the whole megachurch phenomenon is the focus on the wrong numbers. It’s not that measuring numbers is wrong, because every number represents a person, and every person is valuable to God. Take a quick read through the book of Acts and you’ll see all kinds of references to numbers, starting in Acts 2:41, where we read that 3000 people were baptized after Pentecost.

In his article, “The Best Indicator of Church Growth,” Kent Fillinger writes:

Typically when we measure success in the church, we count nickels and noses—how much money is given and what is the total attendance—but the best indicator of church growth and health is the baptism ratio. Baptisms are the best indicator of health because baptisms measure whether churches are reaching the lost versus just moving believers around. A U.S. Congregational Life Survey found that just 7 percent of new attendees are formally unchurched.

I was taught, through the influence of Dan Spader (formerly of Sonlife Ministries), that a “healthy” evangelistic ratio for the local church was a conversion growth rato of 1:10 (one baptism per year for every 10 members in attendance). That means a healthy, evangelistic church of 100 ought to see 10 baptisms per year; a healthy, evangelistic church of 1000 ought to see 100 baptisms per year. (Note: our movement has found that the easiest way to measure conversions is baptisms — others might choose a different model. The point is not the number baptized, but the number entering a life-giving relationship with Jesus.)

Back to the article — Fillinger figured out that the average baptism ratio among these megachurches is just 6.4 per 100 in attendance, and notes that number is a drop from the old ratio of 7.2 per 100. Not only are megachurches slowing down in their growth, but they are slowing down in their conversion growth, as well.

Again, this isn’t an indictment on megachurches. After all, the average American church has a ratio of just 1% — a hundred member church baptizing just one person per year on average. Megachurches are at least six times as effective as the average church — not bad!

But it’s interesting to compare those number to new churches. Research by Ed Stetzer indicates that the average new church has a conversion growth ratio of 30% in the first year; slightly over 20% in year two, just under 20% in year three, and about 17% in year four.

Here’s what that means:

• The typical new church in its first year is 30 times more effective in evangelism than the average church, and 5 times more effective than the average megachurch.
• Even after four years, the typical new church is still 17 times more effective in evangelism than the average church and 3 times more effective in evangelism than the average megachurch.

My church plant is not a megachurch — far from it! But we have seen real kingdom growth. My last church was not a megachurch either — but we consistently maintained a conversion growth ratio of 10% or more.

In the kingdom numbers do matter. But let’s keep our eyes on the right numbers — the number of unchurched people entering a life-giving relationship with Jesus.

The Baptisms: The Best Indicator of Church Growth by Church Planting Journey, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.