Monday, May 24, 2010

The 3 Foundational Elements Necessary for a Church to Grow

I'm reviewing the book 27 Tough Questions Pastors Ask by Dick Hardy. For those of you that are in church work or considering work, you should buy this book. It is filled with practical insights from a pastoral perspective. Here are some of my favorite quotes from chapter 4.

Everything grows or it dies. (p. 38).

Please know that having any or all of these elements in place does not guarantee growth. (p. 38).

Good Preaching
The same openness that exists for all sorts of bad theology and spiritual searches is open to good biblical preaching. (p.39).

Good Music
The most likely group to consider a change and come to the church is the under-40 crowd. Their world is filled with outstanding music. It is your job to make the music at church the best it can be. (p. 39).

Don't settle! Go for the best in your challenge to them (music team). (p. 39).

Good Ministry to Children
There is ministry to children and then there is good ministry to children. (p. 39).

What's Absent?
Ministry to youth is not included. Why is that? Children come before youth. Churches all over the country do it backwards. When a church begins to grow, the first staff person they often hire is the youth pastor. If they were really do it right, it should be the children's pastor. (p. 40).

Discipleship - It starts in the pulpit. Discipleship emanates first from good preaching. (p. 40).

1 comment:

Dorothy said...

cannot agree more...said the children's pastor. Regarding youth or children's pastors I think Senior pastors hire youth pastors because they were youth pastors once, but the children's ministry can be the most complex and challenging system in the church. Parents will usually stick around for 3-4 months if their children connect with the church before turning to their own desires. But if you do not connect with the parents after that consider them gone.