How People Are Coming to Faith as Churches Do Good in the Community

Evangelism and Externally Focused Ministry: How People Are Coming to Faith as Churches Do Good in the Community

by Eric Swanson

We’ve all heard the news; the number of people who are attending churches in the U.S. is in decline. For the past several years we’ve poured over research from Pew, Hartford, Stetzer, Rainer, and Leadership Network’s Bird that tells us:

• “Roughly half of all churches in America did not add one new person through conversion growth last year.”

• “In America, it takes the combined effort of 85 Christians working over an entire year to produce one convert.”

• This year in the United States…4,000 churches will be started…3,500 churches will close.

• “Growing churches make up only about 20% of all U.S. churches today. The rest have reached a plateau or are declining.”

Recently we’ve been reading about decreasing frequency of attendance.

In dramatic contrast, we’ve discovered a very different story with a certain kind of church…

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How to Start Planning Your Succession

by Dave Travis

Where should you start in your succession thinking and planning?

This is a continuation of two prior posts. The first was on the idea of no success without a successor and the second was on various ways leaders and churches try to address the issue.

Leadership Network will be helping church teams address this issue May 3-4, 2016 in Houston at our Large Church Succession Planning gathering.

But first, where does one start in the process? 

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