What am I reading now? Simple Church

Thom S Rianer & Eric Geiger in their book “Simple Church” discuss the implications of their survey of around 400 evangelical churches, split between those which are growing (at least 5% p.a for 3 consecutive years) and those that are not. They argue that in the growing churches everyone in the church understands and is clear about how each activity of the church contributes to the overall goal of the church. A non-growing church maybe doing the same things as a growing church but are ineffective because there is no clarity about how each activity fits into the overall goal of the church, there is no clear process of moving people to greater areas of commitment. They may not be abandoning things which don’t fit into this process.

In other words two churches may have the same activities but the growing church has a clear process of growing the members in the church in maturity and commitment (movement), whereas a non-growing church maybe doing the same activities but people aren’t moving to increasing maturity and commitment.

One example would be both a growing church and non growing church have small groups. But in the growing church there is a focus on making everyone at church aware of the small groups. There is a clear process of how people can join these groups. In these groups, people join smaller serving teams. There is a set process which people are clear about.

In a non-growing church theses small groups exists but maybe announcements are made once in a while to join a group but not much else.

Simple, but very few churches are doing it.