The solution is to get more men in church. Perhaps Driscoll’s strategy of specifically targeting men is the way to go.

“A study from Hartford Seminary found that the presence of involved men was statistically correlated with church growth, health, and harmony. Meanwhile, a lack of male participation is strongly associated with congregational decline."*

A quote from churchformen.org:

A business guru once said, “Your system is perfectly designed to give you the results you’re getting.” Christianity’s primary delivery system, the local church, is perfectly designed to reach women and older folks. That’s why our pews are filled with them. But this church system offers little to stir the masculine heart, so men find it dull and irrelevant. The more masculine the man, the more likely he is to dislike church.

What do I mean? Men and young adults are drawn to risk, challenge and adventure. But these things are discouraged in the local church. Instead, most congregations offer a safe, nurturing community-an oasis of stability and predictability. Studies show that women and seniors gravitate toward these things. Although our official mission is one of adventure, the actual mission of most congregations is making people feel comfortable and safe-especially longtime members.

If you want to turn around congregational decline, target men. That means making church more attractive to the average male - and I don’t mean seeker sensitive. Jesus constantly threw up challenges beginning with ‘If...”, barriers and hurdles, which includes being tough on doctrine, holiness (the male kind), accountability and comradery.

*C. Kirk Hadaway, FACTs on Growth: A new look at the dynamics of growth and decline in American congregations based on the Faith Communities Today 2005 national survey of Congregations. Hartford Institute for Religion Research, http://hirr.hartsem.edu.

The solution is to get more men in church. Perhaps Driscoll’s strategy of specifically targeting men is the way to go.

I agree. If I were running a church, I would spend 100% of my evangelistic effort targeting men aged 18-34.

It comes across to me that you see Church growth , like a multinational sees profits. and markets.
How lasting are your converts?

Dannii Willis - 08 October 2008 11:09 PM

According to Alan’s stats 1.3% of Syndey residents are Sydang, let alone all the other denominations. Now it would definitely be great to reach the other 90%… but I can’t help wondering if it would be better to reach the 100% who don’t know Jesus you find in some foreign cities.

Craig...This is akin to your question about “shaking the dust off our feet” quoted on your blog…

Care to flesh this one out?

Well, for the time being I’ll quote my blog post, and maybe add some more thoughts later -

Some friends of mine are in an African country for a year, teaching English and sharing the gospel. Presently they are running English classes, and they give each of the students a gospel of Mark. The demand for these classes exceeds their available time, and many of the students are Muslims. My friends simply schedule the classes and about a hundred people turn up. It’s amazing.

I can’t help but contrast this to gospel work in Sydney, which is slow and frustrating, and often seems to produce little fruit. All over the world, people are absolutely thirsty for God’s Word, and thousands are coming into relationship with Him. But in Australia the people are hard-hearted and cold. There are some exceptions of course, but they seem very few.

Sometimes I wonder if we shouldn’t just shake the dust from our shoes…

We were talking about this (about African’s hunger and thirst for the Gospel) at a meeting over lunch on Sunday, The meeting was in the context of trying to minister to Congolese refugees who know no English, but who have turned up at our church (through one of our men witnessing to them in the Street near where they lived).  They knew of the Anglican Church in Tanzania where they lived for 12 years in a refugee camp before coming here. The first family told others of the way we run Church, and of the warm welcome they have received, and the teaching that is central.  We now have two families, plus two others in the pipeline.  We have had Sudanese for a few years now, but this is the first time we have had people from the Congo. 

We reckon it is to do with people in other countries having to rely on God cause everything is hard, from where you get money, to the food you buy, to the education you can get.  Here we are so relatively self-sufficient. 

This influx has affected our women’s ministry/bible study, youth group, sunday School - every area.  There are 18 people in the first two families. 

I have become the liaison person because I speak Swahili - did I know I would be used in this way when I came home 17 years ago, and praise God, it is still fluent.
Gill.

Last night I tried to submit a post, but after pressing “submit” , I ended up in a funeral parlor. It may have been a glitch, but I suspect the post may have been “moderated”, because , although it was meant to be “tongue in cheek”, it could also be interpreted as offensive.
All I tried to do was suggest that Sydang frontrunners were very much restricted to loving Orchids, while not being able to come to terms with the Lillies of the field. That may be their nature and a reason why it may be very difficult to grow.

Gill, I’ve heard similar stories from St Paul’s Carlingford, who are seeing a real harvest amongst Iranian refugees. Perhaps these are the sorts of areas where we should focus our evangelistic effort - along with the asian community, which also seems very fertile ground for the gospel.

Regarding white Sydney, this week I’ve felt like saying “Ichabod"…

Doug Leverett - 10 October 2008 12:16 AM

Last night I tried to submit a post, but after pressing “submit” , I ended up in a funeral parlor. It may have been a glitch, but I suspect the post may have been “moderated”, because , although it was meant to be “tongue in cheek”, it could also be interpreted as offensive.
All I tried to do was suggest that Sydang frontrunners were very much restricted to loving Orchids, while not being able to come to terms with the Lillies of the field. That may be their nature and a reason why it may be very difficult to grow.

Hi Doug,

In other words, are you saying that your post went cactus ? As regards the flowery second paragraph, perhaps you could water down the metaphors - and plant some legible ideas into our desert dry brains. In other words, what are you talking about ? I think I know what you may be saying - but I am not sure that I know what I’m saying in response. To use a misguided quote : ‘please explain’.

Cheers, Kevin

G’day kevin,
You have me in a corner as usual. I think I will dive for the Bible like a good Christian should. ie refer you o Luke’s parable of the sower. Hope that keeps me out of trouble.
Psalm 40:05 “You have done many things for us, O Lord our God, there is none like you. You have many wondrous plans for us”

I just finished listening to Tim Keller’s fascinating sermon on “Hasn’t Christianity been an instrument for oppression”. He focuses on the verse stating that God has chosen the weak things of the world and the reality that in history the church is composed mostly of the poor and the nobodies.

Could the question “Why aren’t we growing?” be answered simply by the fact that we spend most of our time preaching to the “somebodies”? Perhaps if we put most of our energy preaching amongst the poor and weak we would see a difference??

Well said, Phil.

Terry Gallagher - 02 October 2008 06:52 PM

Hi Jeff,

I don’t want to side-track things too much, but we are talking about numbers and I must admit I have a passion against dodgy statistics and the one you quoted above sounds very dodgy.

Do the have a reference link for that figure please?

In a whole year to 2007, Mars Hill added a combined total of 1,686 people across 4 campuses.

Sorry Terry...I only just realised you asked me a question (the email notifications stop if you don’t visit the forum topic).

Source is the man himself...quoted in his talk at the recent Desiring God conference (titled How Sharp the edge: Christ, Controversy and Cutting Words) at approx the 1hr 4min mark.

Download here: Desiring God

He also mentioned it during a recent Sunday message (can’t recall which one).

Cheers
Jeff

I see people talking about what are the best strategies for church growth. I have to say that one of the biggest mistakes is that churches don’t encourage all members to be involved in this strategy. You see you can have the best strategy in the world, but it will be short circuted if the newbies come into contact that guy who sits up the back and will tell anyone who listens the minister is a control freak, and how people form cliques and are snobby and would have no interest in getting to know you.

It is interesting that the discussion seems to focus mainly around the idea that we need to do something different with our evangelism. If the problem is that we have stalled in our growth, then maybe the problem is not in what we are doing. There are all sorts of possibilities.

That is to say, that if we have been growing but have now stopped then:

1. Perhaps we have stopped doing what we were doing - and we need to start up again! We also would need to ask why we stopped (we got tired, distracted, didn’t realise what it was we were doing that was causing the growth and so didn’t realise it was important)

2. We are doing the same thing, but the context has changed so much that the process no longer works - we need to find what will work in this brave new world.

3. Perhaps, we are still doing what we were doing to cause growth, and that will still work, but some structure or something is now hindering that growth - have we outgrown our properties or our pastoral structures, is our materialism hindering the clarity of our witness?

4. Perhaps we are still growing, but the “back door” has also gotten bigger - have we become so focused on reaching those not at church that we are not looking after those who are already at church, are we losing people who do not want to be committed to a “mission-focused” church (ie are we slimming down to competition fitness?)

5. Perhaps (and this is not necessarily incompatible with any of the above) God is providing us with a time of consolidation before the next spurt of growth....and/or persecution?