Five Great Insights on Growing Churches

Great food and prayer for thought here from the latest issue of Thrivent Magazine:


Spring 2012 | Volume 110 | Number 663

Live, Give, Grow: Faith

Growing Congregations

Interested in growing your church? You may find some ideas in a recent study of American congregations done by Faith Communities Today, an ongoing multi-faith research effort based at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research in Connecticut. Here's what growing congregations are doing:

1. Using four or five technologies (Twitter, Facebook, blogs, email and more) to serve existing members and connect with new ones (57%).
2. Offering parenting events, which they consider a "specialty" of the congregation (64%).
3. Holding special events once a month or more to attract people from outside the congregation (44%).
4. Always having children or youth read, speak or perform during worship (45%).
5. Emphasizing prayer groups, which they consider a "specialty" of the congregation (47%).

Source: FACTs on Growth (faithcommunitiestoday.org)