****YOU HAVE REACHED THIS WEBSITE IN ERROR
-THIS WEBSITE IS NO LONGER ACTIVE****
PLEASE OPEN A NEW WINDOW
AND GO TO OUR NEW WEBSITE AT

WWW.PROGRESSIVECHRISTIANITY.ORG 
THANK YOU!

Any enterprise needs fresh people. Without 20% new members every year, a church won’t keep up with attrition. Ideas will go stale. Even regulars will lose interest. Your goal is to draw people into the space where you can “touch” them, that is, get their email address and start sending them pertinent emails. Your blogpost, therefore, should have a “call to action” link that invites them to read more, download a paper on this topic, subscribe to your blog – not attend your church, for that is way premature.

    Here are three high-value tasks for church leaders to undertake in summer — in and around your highest priority: taking a vacation! Get your data systems in order   You need a tracking system to …

The final stage of an effective membership recruitment process happens when the constituent actually affiliates with your congregation … always remember that recruitment of new constituents isn’t the final stage of membership development. Now you need to work at retaining them and helping God to transform their lives.

Important reminder: Working with Leads will sound familiar. It’s close to what we know how to do. But it’s the third stage in membership development, not the first, and without the hard work of stages one (“Touches”) and two (“Prospects”), this third stage will never happen.

If “touches” are the many thousands whom your church touches in any way, “prospects” are touches whom you stimulate to take some interest in who you are as a faith community and what you do, especially in mission and ministering to people. Take it as a given that, at this point, they aren’t the least interested in how you worship, the traditions you observe, who presides at your altar, the quality of your facilities, or your history. If that’s all you have to tell them, you are lost.

A day did exist when a church could grow and thrive by opening its doors on Sunday and welcoming whoever arrived. Knowing how to welcome regulars and visitors was as much evangelism as a congregation needed to do. That day ended long ago. Nowadays, most churches don’t have enough visitors to offset the inevitable attrition that happens when people die, move out of town, or lose interest. And “regular attendance” now means one or two Sundays a month, not three or four.

No longer can congregations focus all of their energies on Sunday morning worship. They can’t just open the door on Sunday and expect people to walk through. The flow of visitors isn’t enough to compensate for attrition, and people’s needs are too varied.

Yes, both transparency and engagement add to the board’s work. But resolving the issues won’t mean a thing unless these two steps are taken. Keeping constituents in trusting mode and engaged is the board’s primary work.

I am coming to see that the hardest work facing a church isn’t finances, facilities or failing programs.
The hardest problem is trying to be multi-generational.
That is, trying to nurture a congregation that embraces the elderly, active retirees, middle-aged persons, young adults, youth and children in one fellowship.

The associate pastor of a 225-member Presbyterian church in rural Virginia sent me an important question. She described an extensive evangelism project they had undertaken — at considerable expense and effort — and asked “why it didn’t quite work?” Rather than respond just to her, I thought I would make this a case study from which we all could learn.

Since starting to attend the Episcopal Church nearest to our new home in Upstate New York, I have learned five real-world lessons about membership development.

In the spirit of Janus, I ended the year looking backward at a world in disarray and forward at three faith movements I expect in 2015.

Incremental steps are where the transformed life occurs. One wholesome meal, followed by another. One time of choosing family first. One act of kindness. One act of self-restraint in the face of provocation. One assignment done carefully.

This has been difficult terrain for many years now. Giving throughout mainline Protestantism has been in free-fall for at least thirty years, and is proving to be challenging even in evangelical traditions that supposedly teach the tithe.

I might be “preaching to the choir,” but these five December tips are worth remembering.