Help! Our Church is Growing

Brief Description

It’s the secret, unspeakable dream shared by every minister. After years of diligent work in an average-sized church, you glance up one Sunday and notice a new family. The next month you notice another. Soon it seems like somebody new arrives almost every week. Suddenly you are the leader of a living, breathing, growing church!

Like any roller coaster ride, this one begins with a long, slow ascent. Attendance climbs. Giving climbs. Expectations climb. Of course a few problems crop up along the way, because, as with every other roller coaster, this one has a long and often scary downside. Even as your church continues to climb in every measurable statistic, you, the spiritual leader, may well find yourself in a virtual free-fall as you struggle over how to manage the impact this change will have on your congregation.

What can you, as a minister in a growing church, do to survive the pitfalls that lie just around the corner? What do you do when the old ways no longer work?

About the Author

Mark Phillips is currently completing a PhD in Business Management. From 1996 to 2001, he served as senior minister for the Franklin Church of Christ, located near Indianapolis. Before entering full-time ministry in 1991, Mark earned degrees in Psychology and Management and worked for a Fortune 500 company. Mark writes “Love Notes,” an online e-zine sent weekly to more than 3,000 readers worldwide. He and his wife Laura have two children, Allison and Matthew.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction

I. Discovering You Have an Adolescent Church
Lights, Locks, and Other Mysteries
Caught in the Middle
Growing Pains
Adolescence
Crisis Sunday
Questions without Answers

II. Answers and Questions for the Adolescent Church
Logistics
Leadership Skills
Programs and Policies
Tradition
Fear of Growth
Fellowship and Friendliness
Communication
The Resource Gap
A Grab Bag of Problems
The End and the Beginning

III. Preventative Medicine for the Adolescent Church
The Thoughts of the Heart
The Words of the Mouth
The Focus of a Ministry
The Tools of Ministry
The Spiritual Life of a Spiritual Leader

Epilogue: The Real Secret of Church Growth