Modern Church Growth

The modern church growth movement began in the late 1970s and early 1980s when Christian researchers and scholars (prominently with the Fuller Seminary School) began to study the apparent numerical decline in mainline dominations and the beginnings of decline in evangelical churches. The result was a scientific approach to what made some churches grow and other churches decline. The results of numerous studies and subsequent how-to-books led to the explosion of church plants, contemporary churches, and the rise of the megachurch in the late eighties and through the late nineties. The results of this was (in my opinion) a tremendous church revival and refocus on the cultural execution of the church. Hence, we began to see seeker-sensitive services, contemporary worship services, topical preaching, multiple services, the proliferation of ministry programs, emphases on entertainment/recreation, corporate/business models, marketing, and the extreme focus on numerical growth. These techniques were adopted by many Boomer generation and a few Gen X pastors.

The tide began to turn away from such approaches in the late 90s and through today. Many of the megachurches that pioneered these earlier methods began to find that while their attendance grew numerically, the spiritual growth of their members had not grown. Other contemporary pastors also began to react against the focus on numbers, programs, and perceived shallow teaching. We then began to see the growth of the Emergent Church, which is a both an extension of the contemporary church movement and a reaction against it, and the focus on more authentic religious experiences. At the same time, later born Gen Xers and Millennials began to similarly cry not only for a more authentic religious experience but a more outward focus of church purposes (i.e., the Missional Church). It seemed that the work of such missional scholars as Bosch, Nida, and Hesselgrave became extremely relevant to modern church growth. The focus has now become intentional mission work outside the church in the neighborhoods, affecting both the spiritual and physical needs of the community.

Some of the techniques of today’s contemporary church growth include more authentic and integrated forms of worship, narrative preaching, diversified understandings of corporate worship/church attendance, emphasis on missional living, creative spirituality, small groups, and an even greater reliance on technology and social media. Certainly some of these techniques existed in various ways in the past, just as many past techniques continue to work (contemporary worship, multiple services, marketing, etc.).

As America further becomes a post-“Christian” nation and the Biblical worldview becomes even more foreign to the culture, more missional methods of church ministerial work will become necessary. We can no longer regard the church as an institution to which outsiders must come in order to receive a certain product, namely, the gospel and all its associated benefits. Churches can no longer exist for the members and depend on pastors and staff to evangelize the lost. The local church and its members will need to define and organize themselves in terms of mission – each as body and member being sent to take the gospel to and incarnate the gospel with their specific community and culture. Thus, the local church must redefine its nature and create a new paradigm in which it is seen as missional in nature, instead of attractional in nature. Instead of churches attempting to attract people to churches through church programs, churches must instead take the gospel outside of the church and engage society with the gospel, often by being involved not only in missions and evangelism but also in social justice movements. How we do “church” will need to be more embedded in the community.

Authenticity will be important. There are millennial aged people who are even embracing more liturgical churches because they have the appearance (justified or not) of being more authentic. Contemporary churches can have the bad reputation of being more flash, fluff, buzz, and pre-manufactured and less substantive. But contemporary, traditional, liturgical, charismatic, and emergent can all be useful models of ministering to whomever God is directing you, provided there is that authenticity (though you might not necessarily receive numerical growth).

Right along with the need for greater authenticity, in a post-“Christian” culture, the need to reeducate people about the Biblical narrative is essential, primarily with children but also with adults. Learning the grand narrative of the Bible is essential to creating a proper worldview. At the same time, grounding a believer in the grand narrative also provides him or her with a mission, THE mission, on which to fully participate as a member of the Church.

Just like in the nineties, contemporary churches are going to have to change and adapt to the culture in order to achieve Kingdom goals. What worked 20 years ago may no longer do so. For such churches to continually rely on nineties methods of church growth is simply to become another traditional church embracing the inevitable decline into religious irrelevance.