A few years ago a pastor announced a dream, or goal, to his church that didn’t really sit well with the folks. His dream was for the church to build a worship center that would seat ten times their current average attendance. The church wasn’t growing, so his dream wasn’t connected to accommodating recent growth. It was more of a “if we build it, they will come” kind of dream.
As I thought about his dream, or goal, I realized that there were several reasons his dream never achieved “lift off” with his people. First, it wasn’t connected to anything that God seemed to be doing through the church. They weren’t reaching many lost people, baptisms were low, and transformational growth in people wasn’t really happening. Thus, his dream wasn’t connected to God’s work in the church, or at least it wasn’t apparent that it was. Second, his dream did not address the spiritual needs of the church. It didn’t address the need for more prayer, more evangelism, or more leaders. It also didn’t tap into the spiritual needs and hunger of the people. It didn’t tie the people into the mission of God in their families and neighborhoods, or the nations beyond. Third, and this might not be fair to that pastor (thus no names or locations), but I wondered, “Whose ego does it stoke to build a huge worship center?” It didn’t stoke the ego, or stir the imagination, of the people in the pew. They would be asked to pay for a building for which the need was not apparent. Now, if the church was growing and spiritual transformation was happening on a regular basis, if they were experiencing the excitement of new births through their ministry, they might have gotten excited about building facilities to accommodate a growing ministry. But absent that, it appeared that the pastor’s dream wasn’t transferred into the hearts of many others.
I thought about the above story in a recent discussion I was having with a young pastor. He and I were talking about setting goals for their church for 2016. In light of that, I would like to suggest 10 goals for you to consider in 2016. Set goals to:
1. Pray for lost people by name. Pray for as many people as you have on Sunday morning. If you average 40 on Sunday morning, develop a prayer list of at least 40 lost people. Make this a part of your church’s prayer strategy. The people you pray for will be friends and family members of your church.
2. As a part of your prayer ministry, and outreach ministry, set a goal to reach the children and grandchildren of the attenders of your church. Connect your outreach ministry, and all that you do, to reaching children and grandchildren. Teach parents and grandparents how to share their spiritual stories and testimony with their own children, and lead them to do it. The MY316 evangelism resources provided by the NWBC can help you teach your church to do this.
3. Reach the children in your neighborhood and community. The ruffian down the street might marry your daughter or granddaughter one day. Lead him to Jesus first! These kids will work with you or for you. They will become teachers and business leaders and political leaders. They will be your neighbors and your children’s neighbors. Reach them for Christ early in their lives and build a better community as a result.
4. Train 10 percent of your church (average Sunday attendance) to share the gospel, and lead them to actually go into the community and share Christ. Many churches stopped weekly evangelistic visitation without replacing it with some other method of taking the gospel into the community. Find some way to connect those you train with lost people, lead them to share the gospel, and then share witnessing stories with your church.
5. Train XX number of new Bible study leaders. Small group Bible study leaders reach people. The more leaders you have the more people you will reach, serve, and deploy in ministry.
6. Start XX number of new Bible study groups. Goals 5 and 6 replace a goal to increase your average attendance. Attendance goals are not helpful if they do not include goals to train leaders and start small groups. A church’s average weekly attendance is about 10 per small group. Churches that average 70 in Bible study attendance have 7 small groups, for example. If you want to average 100 people, you need at least 10 small groups.
7. Train your church, not neglecting the children, in the principles of biblical stewardship. Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). Christian people must develop generous hearts toward God and His work. We must be taught to live within our means and not rob from God in order to indulge a lifestyle we cannot afford. As a part of this, invite the Northwest Baptist Foundation to conduct a “will and trust” seminar at your church. Seventy percent of our church members do not have a will, which is dangerous. Also, many continue to invest in the Kingdom after they are in heaven by setting up a trust that will finance Kingdom causes until Jesus returns. There are many good charitable causes, but Christian people need to fund Christian work that will glorify God.
8. Send XX numbers of people on mission this year. The NWBC has a partnership in East Asia, including a trip to serve 1,300 missionaries and their children at a retreat in Thailand next summer (July 30-August 6 or 11). This is but one opportunity to send church members on mission. Email Sheila Allen at sheila@nwbaptist.org for more information on this mission opportunity.
9. Provide quarterly community service opportunities for your church. By this you will bless your community and grow your people. Service to others should be a “first step” for new Christians and young people because we grow when we help and serve others. Jesus deployed His disciples in ministry long before they were “ready.” He knew this was necessary for their spiritual growth. He then debriefed them so that they could learn from their experiences.
10. Challenge every church member to develop relationships with non-church people. You could challenge them to develop one new relationship, or two, but get them focused on looking outside their Christian circle for a new friend.
I am sure that you can come up with other goals, including some that are better than some of these. The main thing is to focus on goals that build people, connect people to others, and connect people to God. If we do these well, we will reach more people for Christ, and we might have to move to a larger facility, or start a new worship service, or even a new church. But attendance grows as people grow spiritually and look outside the church walls to other peoples, people who need Jesus.