As church leaders, we know that most churches in our country aren’t growing, but have you ever asked why? [ref] What are the common factors that inhibit church growth? What are the things that we all seem to do that slow us down? What stops us from reaching the people that God wants us to reach? In what ways are we not living up to our full redemptive potential?

Over the last few years, I’ve spent a tremendous amount of time, effort, and energy trying to understand growing churches. I’ve watched how they operate and gleaned lessons and principles that we can apply to our own churches in order to reach new people. I’ve also spent time with churches that aren’t growing and have noted some commonalities that are slowing these churches down.

We should examine and model ourselves after the organizations that are seeing the results we want. However, we also need to examine the organizations that aren’t achieving desired results to ensure we’re not emulating their model.

There are three similar traits that I’ve seen in churches that aren’t growing, and we need to ask ourselves are these things happening in our churches?

How often do we find ourselves caught in these realities?

A Focus on Insiders

Who is your church for? In the grand cosmic sense, we understand that our churches exist to worship the Lord. However, in the day-to-day logistical sense, who are our churches designed for?

Many churches design everything they do for the people who are already there. Ironically, this is the exact opposite of what the church is supposed to do. The church is the only organization in the world that exists for people who aren’t there yet. As such, each of our churches is supposed to focus on those who are outside of its walls.

How can we connect with those people and see them come to know the message of Christ?

People who are outside the church don’t have a voice at the leadership table, so we need to find ways to change that. Eventually, if all we ever do is listen to the people who are currently present, our churches will atrophy and we will not have the kind of impact we desire.

“Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity.” – Colossians 4:5 (NIV)

Churches that make a difference try to understand both the communities they serve and the questions the people of those communities are asking. These churches wrestle with the needs and the concerns of the people in their community. We cannot ignore the environment and location where God has placed us; He’s placed us there for a reason and we need to focus on that purpose. Our churches need to have a mayoral role in connecting with the people in our towns in order to see those folks get plugged into our churches. If your church has an exclusive focus on insiders, you will not have the kind of kingdom impact you’re looking for and it certainly won’t help your church grow.

Being Too Complex

Simple things spread while complex things tend to stagnate.

We live in a culture of increasing overcommunication where we are bombarded with massive amounts of information on a regular basis. Our job as leaders is to simplify what we’re doing and saying so the message can spread. Churches that aren’t growing have a complex web of programs, systems, and approaches to connect with people, but it’s that very complexity that prevents them from making an impact.