Church Growth - An Example

In 1999 I began to attend a church in Overland Park called the Vineyard and I want to share with you how it grew from 150 members to 850 members in about 10 years.

The Vineyard did not have an organized evangelistic effort, nor did it do slick mailings, and it used no gimmics to draw people to services. So what caused it to grow like it did? I believe three key things created that growth.

1. The Vineyard tapped into the power of the Holy Spirit in a Naturally Supernatural way. Each week the pastor giving the sermon would preach a Biblically sound sermon and then invite people to respond. As people responded he would invite the Holy Spirit to interact with them by having the church personally pray for and with them.

2. The lead pastor put together a competent team of men and women to oversee various departments and ministries of the church. He had them set measurable goals for their areas, empowered them to pursue them and then released them to do the work. He trusted completely in their abilities and demonstrated that by getting out of their way. When they led a meeting or gave a sermon or stood on stage he took a place with the rest of the church and listened. In a mentoring class with some future leaders he told us he purposely removed himself from the picture because if he didn't the church would look to him as the leader instead of the ones he had entrusted leadership over that area.

3. The most important factors were Jesus was presented as the leader of the church and the Holy Spirit was always invited to come into every meeting.

C. Gene Wilkes in his book, "Jesus on Leadership" puts it this way. Filling organizational charts with warm bodies regardless of heart attitude or spiritual giftedness will certainly kill a church. Freeing God's people to serve as God has gifted them to serve makes a church grow. Knowing how God has gifted you for service in the body will give you the confidence to take risks and pioneer new ministries.

I experienced this first hand at the Vineyard. I enlisted a group of men to join a core group to develop a men's minsitry at the Vineyard. We met each week for several weeks, praying and putting together a plan. We made an appointment with the lead pastor and presented our ideas. After we had done our presentation he asked us to add a couple of things and then told us to go and do the ministry. He encouraged us to let it be a ministry under Jesus Christ and guided by the Holy Spirit.  He then finished by saying the ministry would be a men driven ministry and that he would not be involved except to promote it. Go and do it!

Out of the group of men who made up that core group two of us have gone on to become ordained pastors, one is involved in a men's ministry and he travels across the United States and to Kenya to minister to men and another has become a leader in Alpha. Out of the men who attended men's events the men's ministry promoted one is now a pastor of a church plant in Independence, MO and another is the leader of a growing men's ministry at the Vineyard.

The Vineyard grew because Jesus was presented as the answer to life problems, people were empowered and released to ministry and the leadership knew their limitations and allowed the church to lead in areas it lacked gifts in.

Recommended reading:

"Jesus on Leadership" C. Gene Wiles

"Naturally Supernatural" Gary Best

"Natural Church Development" Christian A. Schwarz

Your organization or church can experience the same type of growth by sharing Jesus with those who are hurting, by letting the Holy Spirit work through others and by releasing control of ministry to those who have been given spiritual gifts of service. It is a risk well worth taking and it is a ton of fun watching people doing the ministry they were made for.