I’m attending the Southern California Coalition of Community-Based Christian Churches at Hope International University, a conference for churches less than 300 in weekly attendance. Our church planting organization, Stadia, is co-sponsoring the conference.

Speaker Ben Merold is the lead minister at Harvester Christian Church in Saint Charles, Missouri, and was pastor at Eastside Christian Church in Fullerton, California for many years. Ben’s topic for today is evangelism that results in church growth. The theme verse was Ephesians 1:18 — which reminds us that the same power which raised Jesus from the dead is available in our churches today.

Ben presented questions to ask, challenges to overcome, and

Questions to Ask

1. Do you really want your church to grow?
   • Most everyone will answer “Yes” to this question, but the real issue is whether people are willing to make the changes needed to grow.
2. Are you willing to take some risks?
   • Every missionary has to get out of his or her comfort zone.
   • Set goals. A goal is “something you intend to do for God with His help.” A goal needs to be big enough that it can only be accomplished with God’s help.
   • You must allow leadership the freedom to fail.
3. Is you leadership leading? Or trying to control?
   • A study of church leadership meetings:
     • In declining churches, the leaders talked about “things” — a mindset of control.
     • In growing churches, the leaders talked about “people” — a mindset of service.
   • A study by Howard Hendricks found that:
     • 84% of people in churches were willing to change in order to grow.
     • 16% were unwilling to make such changes.
     • 70% of the formal leadership of the churches studied came out of the 16% who were unwilling to change!
4. Are you willing to broaden the base of your church?
   • Purdue University study:
     • Group #1: Went home and started one new class in each department. Within one year, each new class was as large as the average class, without taking anything away from the existing classes.
     • Group #2: Went home and merged classes any time lost a teacher. Within one year, the merged class was no larger than the larger of the two classes prior to the merger, resulting in a net attendance loss.
   • You have to broaden the base with new ministries, new groups, new classes, etc.
5. Will you teach stewardship?
6. Will you pray for the power of God?

More on the topic of Attractional and Incarnational Church Planting track at the Exponential Conference in Orlando, Florida.

The Question:

At the same time that church attendance is increasing overall, the number of megachurches is growing and the size of those churches is growing. What does that mean?

The Answers:

Neil Cole: "Walmart has come to town and the mom-and-pop businesses are closing down because they can’t compete."

Greg Hawkins: "Our research revealed that…the number one thing people said is that they wanted to be challenged to grow spiritually and take my next step, to know the Bible in greater depth, and to have a deep personal relationship with Jesus Christ…not dumbing it down….People are hungry for a relationship with God, and some churches are getting it right."

Alan Hirsch: "We cannot miss the issue of consumerism and the church…You can’t consume your way to discipleship."

The Discussion:

Whether your church is attractional or incarnational, are you seeing this deeper hunger for God and a relationship with Jesus in your context?

Defining Attractional

Alan Hirsch: “It’s not that you shouldn’t be attractive — all Christianity ought to be attractive. Instead it’s about a missionary stance towards culture.”

Neil Cole: “We live in a capitalistic culture with a consumeristic church… the idea is that the church and the people of God are sent into the world to bring the message of God.” Attractional is “trying to draw people to the church ministry by trying to impress people that Christians are strong.”

Sally Morgenthaler: “Is it image-based?”

Neil Cole: “The approach is symptomatic. We’re driven and led more by our definition of church — a event which takes place on Sunday morning…the whole premise [of attractional approach] is built on a faulty understanding of church.”

Darrin Patrick: “You see things as buildings and technology as things in culture which can be used, and that people like to come and corporately worship, both Christian and non-Christians…and that those who have gifts of teaching, that God can use those in large groups. You see that in church history….[What is incarnational?] Christians live out the gospel in their context. Just as Jesus tabernacled among us.”

Greg Hawkins: “If you’re just trying to attract to get big, that’s nasty — that’s weird to me.”