Dr. Richard Krejcir, researching for the Frances Shaeffer Institute of Church Leadership and Development, has compiled a great article on growth factors verses failure factors in church today. You can read the whole article here. Hope you enjoy!
The main, significant factor over all else of why churches succeed is this one point: they were centered upon Christ as LORD! They were not centered on a personality, a vision, a denomination, an emerging paradigm, or a set of trends. They were “souled out” to Christ as central and sovereign. Each of these points relate to the Lordship of Christ.
The Significant Seven
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5:18
1. The number one reason people come and bring other people to a church is the love and fruit that is real, felt, and displayed.
2. The number two reason people stay a part of a church is the teaching aptitude of the pastor to stimulate spiritual knowledge and growth.
3. The number one reason people will stop going to any church is because of conflict and gossip!
4. The number one reason why people are stimulated to serve is because the Bible is taught in a real, effectual, and applicable way.
5. The number one reason people grow spiritually is by being encouraged to read through the Bible, do devotions, and practice the disciplines of the faith as modeled by the leadership.
6. The number one reason a church is effective in its outreach and missions is because of its real, authentic worship.
7. Healthy churches that are growing in Christ have prayer as a primary focus from the pulpit to the boardroom to their personal lives.
Note that none of these deals with the age of the church. There tends to be less conflict in a new church because everyone is working so hard to keep it from going under that those with issues just quit, or the church plant fails before the conflicts come to the surface. Every church, brand new or 200 years old, needs to constantly refresh their commitment to core disciplines of Bible study, corporate prayer, community care & concern, and contextualized evangelism. Doing this, their worship will continue to be vibrant expressions of love for Jesus, and the church will thrive. In general, these churches will be healthy enough to clone themselves into daughter churches over and over without losing vibrancy.