May 15, 2025

Why Some Pastors Never Experience Church Growth

26 minutes

Very few churches are growing, which means most pastors will lead plateaued or declining congregations. Some pastors experience an entire ministry career in no-growth situations. Why does this happen? Josh and Sam discuss several reasons why some pastors never experience church growth.

Some pastors are called to difficult churches and are there simply to stop the bleeding.

Some pastors are not evangelistic and do not change the culture of their churches.

Some pastors are gifted with mediation and stay at churches for a short time to prevent splits.

Some pastors shepherd in communities where people are less receptive.

Some pastors are able to replace older, dying members with families. These churches get significantly younger but do not increase in number.

Resources:

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Churchteams

FREE Research Report! New Surprising Insights

Church Answers Central

The Hope Initiative

Episode Sponsors:

You’ve been in ministry long enough to spot both the obstacles and the opportunities facing your congregation.

There must be solutions, but how do you find them?

If you are the ministry leader called to champion these issues, Southern Seminary has a problem-solving degree that will guide you to the answers.

From the moment you begin your doctor of ministry program at Southern, you will research the issues and start writing about the biblical solutions that will immediately benefit your church.

The academic sharpening that comes through your faculty supervisor and doctoral cohorts will strengthen both you and your church.

Learn how Southern’s DMin can be an extension of your current ministry, not a distraction from it.

The DMin at Southern Seminary will equip you to solve a problem or harness a ministry opportunity that will strengthen you and your church. Learn how at SBTS.edu/solutions.

You see the need for systems to follow up on guests, volunteers, pastoral care; but right now that is really sporadic and siloed. Each person doing their own thing and people falling through the cracks. Churchteams will help you build and implement the system you need.

Tired of not being able to get the help you need for your software? Churchteams support staff have all served on Church staff. They know the software and they know how churches work. Call, text, set up free support appointments.

Integrated. How many different software systems are you using that require sharing people’s data? If 2 or more, you know the challenge and limitations of data in different systems that don’t play well together. Churchteams has all your people data in one place, including your communication data (email, texts, workflows).

Ease of use. Do you feel like you should be getting more from your church software, but just can’t get people to use it? Churchteams makes it easy for guests, members, volunteers, and leaders to do everything they need to do including giving without having to create an account. Check it out to learn how.

Reports. Are you getting the feedback on your ministry that you need from your database when you need it? Churchteams reports are extremely customizable. Let each staff save the ones they use on their dashboard. Or, schedule it to show up in their inbox.

Learn more at Churchteams.

The post Why Some Pastors Never Experience Church Growth appeared first on Church Answers.

...more

View all episodes

By Thom Rainer

4.8

460460 ratings