Measuring Church Numerical Growth
is Not as Easy as it Seems
by George Bullard

A recent request for the names of growing churches caused me to think about how hard it is to measure church growth. One's first reaction might be that it is an easy task. If a church has more people in attendance this year than they did last year, they are growing. But with that standard in mind, consider the following list of congregations. Which of them are growing?

• Hillside Church's weekly attendance has grown by 17 percent over the past five years in a community where population has increased almost 30 percent during the same period. Most people in attendance come from neighborhoods within about a three-mile radius around the church facilities.

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Book Notes - Three Concise Reviews of New Resources

Leadership Essentials:
Practical Tools for Leading in the Church
by Carol Cartmill and Yvonne Gentile, Abingdon, 2006, $14

This book is a concise but information-rich resource for congregational leaders. Ministry team leaders will find help in areas where many leaders say they have not had sufficient training. These topics include making meetings productive, planning, communicating, leading change, and managing conflict. Other sections give solid guidance on visioning, strategic planning, and making disciples - guidance that is suitable for use within ministry teams or for the congregation as a whole. The appendix contains nineteen templates and worksheets to assist readers in utilizing the lessons from the book. The authors have extensive experience in lay ministry and have written other widely-used resources on mobilizing and training congregational leaders.

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Leaders do not need answers.
Leaders must have the right questions.

When congregations plan for the future, a good balance of attention to opportunities and challenges is helpful using questions such as: 

What are the three greatest opportunities our church
has in the next three to five years?

Where is our church most vulnerable (i.e., any areas that,
if not addressed in the near future, could seriously
undermine the church's ministry)?

Editors:  Lovett H. Weems, Jr. and Ann A. Michel
Production and distribution:  Joe Arnold

Copyright © 2007 by the G. Douglass Lewis Center for Church Leadership. Leading Ideas material may be freely distributed with attribution (exclusive of material protected by separate copyright).