Many new found churches aspire to know the secrets of church growth. Studies, conferences and books are full with advice on effective church growth strategies that Christian leaders should consider to become mega churches. These recommendations usually come from churches that experienced significant growth and success stories. Christian churches believe that only God can make a church grow and that growth is defined not in numbers but in the quality of its members. However, this does not stop them from finding ways to better serve God and the congregation.
One of the conferences that taught effective church growth strategies was How to Grow a High Impact Church Conference. It aims to encourage and empower church leaders to grow a church with high impact. It emphasizes that having a high impact is not just about growing in number but is concerned with making a difference in the community, the result of which is giving glory to God for what He extraordinarily does through ordinary people. High impact churches have three salient characteristics: lost people come to Christ, found people begin to mature and the church influences the community. Churches are taught to understand the twelve laws of building a healthy growing church:
- The Law of Purpose– growing churches know the purpose of the church, which is to have a great commitment to the Great Commission and the Great Commandment.
- Te Law of Expectation- they believe in the natural, supernatural and imperative growth of the church.
- The Law of design- they empower leaders to equip members for service.
- The Law of Liberation- they train members to exercise their spiritual gifts.
- The Law of Dependency-they have members that spend regular times of prayer and fasting individually and corporately.
- The Law of Structure- they understand that there are God ordained roles and functions within the church and they understand their church structures
- The Law of Inspiration-they are devoted to develop and enhance worship service.
- The Law of Focus- they have an outward focus and emphasize evangelism in obedience to God’s commission.
- The Law of Community- they care and shepherd their flocks through small groups
- The Law of Intentionality- they proactively develop church plans and courses to take to fulfill their mission.
- The Law of Love- growing churches promotes a loving and caring fellowship among its members
- The Law of the Kingdom- they promote unity with likeminded churches through joint prayer, worship, interaction and support in times of need.
C. A. Schwarz conducted a study to determine the causes of church growth. The survey, which was attended by 4.2 million respondents in 32 countries, served as the basis of determining a number of distinguishing attributes of a healthy growing church. These are: an effective leadership, convenient outlets for spiritual gifts, passion and desire for service, ideal facilities and resources, exalting praise and worship, growth through discipleship and small groups, consistently reaching out to the lost, and healthy relationships between members. The study concludes that people can and should do effective church growth strategies. However, people should also understand what they could not do because it is in God’s domain.
