So to the man considered the preeminent voice on church growth says you should not preach the Gospel so the unsaved have a reason to come back to your church. That sums up the state of the apostate church today. Chasing goats with carnal nonsense while sticking the Gospel on the shelf. This is not rocket science beloved. We want to reach the sheep that God has given us and if the lost are within earshot, hallelujah because they will have heard the only thing that can save them.
"2. HOW DO WE REACH THEM? I wish there were an easy answer to that question. What I've learned, though, is that you can't program your way to health and the ability to reach new people. In other words, starting an evangelism program and conducting evangelism training won't fix this issue. Instead, the church must focus its entire ministry strategy on reaching people outside the church and then helping people become disciples of Jesus. If, for example, you want to reach a diverse group of dechurched, millennial, young adults in your community, then everything you do must reflect that focus.
Your worship services must be designed with that person in mind.
Your discipleship strategy must be designed with that person in mind.
Your nursery environment must be designed with that person in mind.
Your physical space and your online strategy have to be designed with that person in mind.
In other words, you have to become a church for diverse, dechurched, millennial young adults to reach diverse, dechurched, millennial young adults. You can't create a program or a separate class or separate worship service, especially if it's not at a prime-time hour, and expect to reach them. Most people don't like to be segregated like that. By the way, I do think a compelling weekend service is critical to reaching whoever you identify in your community. The primary way people will end up connected to your church is if those in your church invite their friends and family members. Creating compelling environments, including worship services, will help fuel those invites." -- Tony Morgan
Watch what he is advocating very carefully. According to this expert, the church must focus its entire ministry strategy on reaching people outside of the church and making them disciples. How is that even possible? Didn't you skip salivation in that process? Realize the damage that this will wreak within the actual body of Christ! Modern day worship services already do focus on the lost. That is why we have seen an increase in secular songs during worship. Even Highway to Hell and I like to Move It Move It. If not outright carnality then we see the world disguised in faux-Christian songs that worship the created instead of the Creator. That is why we refer to the apostate church as the "Friend of God" generation. A church's worship should be focused on and designed with God alone in mind. Despite what Victoria Osteen thinks, worship is supposed to be for God! Discipleship should be designed with God in mind or else what are you modeling? I am not even going to address something as vacuous as the "nursery environment" or the "physical space." The bottom line is catering everything to the goats may draw more goats but it saves no one because you left out the only thing that can save them. There is nothing compelling about gathering untold numbers of people to your church only to ensure they are twice the sons of hell that you are. I didn't say that -- Jesus did. Morgan goes on to his final point:
"3. ARE WE WINNING OR NOT? Let me share some data from Gary McIntosh and Charles Arn in their book What Every Pastor Should Know: 101 Indispensable Rules of Thumb for Leading Your Church. These are some key metrics you can track to determine whether or not you have a healthy front door: If the church is growing, you'll need more first-time guests each year than you have people in your total average attendance. In other words, a growing church of 500 will need more than 500 first-time guests in a year. The typical growing church sees 20% of first-time guests become part of the church. Growing churches see nearly 40% of second-time guests become part of the church. Close to 60% of people will become part of the church after their third visit. As you can see, the odds of someone becoming part of the church increase dramatically if we can encourage them to come back for a second and third visit. The first thing we should be inviting every first-time guest to do is to come back next Sunday. One of the reasons why you may have a front-door problem is that you've never tracked the number of first-time guests to know if you're winning or not. Setting a target and then monitoring your progress will challenge your team to become more intentional about developing a comprehensive strategy for reaching people outside the church and outside the faith. After getting clear about the front door problem at Connexus Church and rolling out a compelling vision and engaging the congregation, Jeff and team have seen the number of new guests grow by 70% several years in a row." -- Tony Morgan
Wow, talk about pressure. We wonder when we see so many pastors fall from grace or even commit suicide recently what spirit is behind it all. This is the answer beloved. It is the spirit of this world demanding shepherds not shepherd their sheep but instead engage in the age-old Luciferin sin of usurping that which belongs to God. Engaging 70% more goats means absolutely nothing. While some of this may seem obvious, realize this is a million-dollar business. Tony Morgan does this for a living and who knows how many churches and pastors he poisons with these worldly pursuits. I have written before about a local pastor I was speaking to one day who has had a congregation of about 200 folks for 20 years. He was feeling the pressure of seeing mega churches around him grow and grow. The one in particular he was admiring however was sick. It was desperately sick and the sheep were being driven out of the sheep pen for daring to expect to be fed. Rick Warren and the Purpose Driven Church call this "blessed subtraction." I tried to encourage him simply and biblically. I said when he stands before Christ and discovers the vast majority of his sheep are there, he will hear well done my good and faithful servant. When the mega church pastor with 85% of the blood of thousands upon his head? Not so much. That is what we are dealing with here. Carnal minded people trying to apply carnal solutions and grow a business. God simply says, preach the Gospel, tend to the sheep and let God, be God.
