Key Church Growth Components

by   Pat Cole                                                                                                                                                                            Vol. IX, No. 2, February 1996

A study of growing Southern Baptist churches has affirmed the evangelistic effectiveness of biblical preaching, intentional prayer ministries, and outreach-oriented Sunday schools. These factors were consistently cited as important in most evangelistic churches of all sizes, said church growth author and professor Thom S. Rainer. The study was conducted by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth, which Rainer serves as dean.

"God is using a variety of methodologies that are as numerous as the churches themselves," Rainer said. "God is using a variety of methods to draw people to himself." Preaching, prayer, and Sunday School nevertheless formed the "big three evangelistic methodologies," he said.

The study was based on the responses of 576 Southern Baptist churches from around the country. All churches surveyed had baptized at least 26 people last year and had recorded at least one baptism for every 20 members. A survey instrument was mailed to each of the 1,400 Southern Baptist churches which met both criteria. The return of 576 useable survey forms was well above the average response rate for a study of this nature, Rainer said.

In their responses, 90 percent of church leaders indicated preaching is an important evangelistic methodology. "The pulpit is powerful," Rainer said. "In our infatuation with church growth methodologies over the past three decades, the role of preaching for evangelistic growth has been sorely ignored."

More than 60 percent of the respondents cited prayer as a major component of their church's evangelistic ministry. "Though one must be careful about explaining the work of a sovereign God, we can see one clearly discernible pattern in many of these newly awakened churches," Rainer said. That pattern, he explained, is that a new emphasis on prayer touched the church "prior to the visible manifestations of God's Spirit" revealed through "repentance, brokenness, and people coming to Christ."

Among program-based evangelistic methods, Sunday School is clearly the most successful among growing Southern Baptist churches, Rainer said. More than 60 percent of church leaders said Sunday School is a key part of their outreach. Rainer said respondents expressed amusement at the prediction by some that the Sunday School would decline or die.

"When we asked them why such predictions were being made, they had a unified response," Rainer said. "The problem with non-evangelistic Sunday schools is not the program itself, but the failure to utilize the program as an intentional evangelistic tool."

In addition to preaching, prayer, and Sunday School, Rainer noted several other methods were frequently mentioned by leaders of evangelistic Southern Baptist churches, including:

-- Relationship evangelism. More than half of the church leaders cited the importance of relationship evangelism in their congregations. These are evangelistic efforts stemming from friendships developed in the work places, schools, and neighborhoods.

-- Traditional outreach. About 50 percent of the churches have weekly visitation programs. "Cold-call visitation is not dead," Rainer said.

-- Youth evangelism. Almost half of the churches emphasized youth evangelism in addition to youth ministry.

-- Music ministry. Nearly 50 percent of the church leaders reported music ministry played a significant part in outreach efforts. Yet no single style of music predominated. About 40 percent of church leaders identified their worship services as "traditional," 30 percent as "contemporary," and 30 percent as "blended." [BP]