Application of Church Growth Ideas - Essay Example

CHURCH GROWTH IDEAS THAT CAN BE APPLIED IN THE CHURCH THAT I HAVE ENCOUNTERED By City, State Date of Submission Church growth ideas that can be applied to the church that I have encountered Introduction For the church to accomplish its salvation ministry in the world, it needs to grow. Growth can be in the form of spiritual growth or physical growth; spiritual growth is the move closer to Christ through the word of God while the physical growth is the increase in population as well as opening up of new branches. God of Mercy Evangelical Church was founded by pastor Alimi in the year 2001 in Nigeria before spreading and opening up branches in other parts of the world including London. The church has services twice a week, on Sunday and Friday. The church offers pastoral care to its congregation to help them with the various challenges of life as well as strengthen their faith. Among the strong holds of the church is the prayerful nature of the church. Through its various ministries the church has been able to bring many people to Christ. Growth of the church is not a one time thing, but rather takes a process before the people receive the calling and receive the gospel. Thus, churches not having instant growth should have faith in God and wait for their faith to be rewarded (Dortch 2010, p. 64). For this church to attain the maximum growth posible several aspects have to be adapted to aid in the growth of the church. Ideas for the church growth Reduction of the time the service takes One of the ways to ensure church growth is to modify the church services to suit the whole congregation including first time visitors. The visitors should be able to feel comfortable in the church even, though it is their first time in church (Dortch 2010, p. 65). The service should be fairly short for all to enjoy the service both the praise and worship and the preaching. The long services at the church scare away visitors as they concentrate on the amount of time spent in the service instead of listening to the preaching thus the church is unable to complete its mission of preaching the word of God. Thus the church should reconsider its practices in the service to ensure they reduce the time in the service if possible to be a short as two hours. The time allocated for the preacher is also to be considered to ensure the other activities do not take much of the church service. The main purpose of the congregation attending the service is to receive the message of the day that the pastor has prepared for them, thus the preaching should be the main agenda of the service thus being allocated a substantial amount of time. The preacher can also check on time to have some time left for evangelism after the preaching. Professional marketing of the church in new places Professional marketing of the church is of importance when opening up a new church in a new place. This does not involve the use of marketing gimmick used in marketing goods and services, but rather focuses on information to the people about the gospel of Christ being preached by the church. If nothing is known about the church by the people then do not expect any guest in church (Metz 2007, p.14). This is aimed at creating awareness of the church so that the community can know what to expect when they attend a service at the church. This involves defining the church in terms of its key advantages that may be attracting the congregation. This is called branding in marketing. This will help the church to attract the target group through marketing. This will work for the physical growth of the church to ensure the church reaches out to as many people as possible. The church ministers and other members of the congregation together with professionals can be involved in defining the church to get the best possible definition. It may cost some amount to do the marketing in various places, but the end result is worth the trouble with more souls being saved from the eternal fire of hell and get eternal life instead. Offer support to other members of the society who may not be church members Moreover, the church offering support to the society especially recovery groups will aid in the growth of the church (Group Publishing 2006, p. 207). The church can participate in helping the recovery groups in regaining their normal life. In so doing, the church also has a chance to spread the gospel to the members of the group. However, the first priority in this program is to ensure that the members of the recovery group first recover from the various addictions they have so that they can be able to accept the gospel of Christ. It should be made clear that the program is not only for the church members but for all who need help therefore practicing the gospel of love taught by Christ himself. Christ had unconditional love for all mankind and was able to save all the human race through his death on the cross; therefore the church can imitate the example of Christ by showing love, concern and care for all. With this, the members of the group will be interested in listening to the gospel of this church which is showing love to all without discriminating and as a result more souls are brought to Christ. The members of these groups will not only get back their desired state of mind and physical help but will also get spiritual nourishment that will see them become new creatures in Christ Jesus and with continued support from the church never to go back to sin. Preach the gospel beyond the area the church is located Another plausible move to ensure church growth is going beyond the radius that the church is expected to cover (Ripley 2008, p. 23). Most churches tend to concentrate on their immediate surroundings when ministering to new members in that they only target people from within a close geographical location to join the church. This is challengeable as a good number of people travel long distances to attend church services in churches where they are not within their circle. This should be a wakeup call to church leaders to focus on ministering not only around the church, but also far beyond to bring more souls to Christ. Moreover, the church should reproduce to ensure growth in that it will give forth a similar offspring as the mother church (O’Connor and Patterson 2006, p. 217). The church is the body of Christ and like any other living thing, after growing to a certain level it needs to reproduce to ensure continuity of the generation of churches. This is another way of growth for the church will give birth to more churches that will attract more congregations in every new church thus achieving the overall goal of growth. This is preferred to having one very big church with an extra large congregation that does not receive maximum attention from the pastors. With the smaller churches, the congregation is able to connect more with the spiritual leader thus enhancing spiritual growth in the church. Bibliography Dortch, D 2010, Church growth from the ground up, Xlibris Corporation, Internet Source. Group Publishing 2006, Pastoral ministry in the 21st century: the encyclopedia of practical ideas, Loveland, Colo, Group. Connor, JP, & Patterson, G 2006, Reproducible pastoral training: church-planting guidelines from the teachings of George Patterson, Pasadena, Calif, William Carey Library. Ripley D, 2008, Help! I Want My Church to Grow: 31 Myth-busting Ideas to Make Your Church the Place to be, Hagerstown, Maryland, Review and Herald Pub Assoc. Metz, P 2007, Marketing your church to the community, Nashville, Tenessee, Abingdon Press. Read More