Let’s continue to talk about ideas that Flavil Yeakley presents in his book Why Churches Grow. Though the book is several decades old, many of the ideas presented fit today’s churches as well.
The last couple of days we’ve looked at evangelism. Yeakley’s focus is broader than that; he’s also interested in retention. Not surprisingly, just as it showed when looking at evangelism, Yeakley’s research points to relationships being the key to retention.
Succintly, Yeakley states:
These data suggest that when subjects formed personal relationships with members of the congregation, they were likely to remain faithful. When they did not form such personal relationships, they were likely to drop out of the church.
In his study of 100 people, those who formed six or more new friendships after their conversion stayed in the church; those who formed three or less, dropped out. Half of those who dropped out had found two or fewer new relationships. None of those who dropped out had formed more than six. None of those who stayed had formed fewer than three new relationships.
Again, my experience shows much of the same. It’s not about worship style nor church politics. It’s about people. Relationships. Friends.
The one most important thing that a church can do to grow is to be a welcoming church. That needs to go beyond giving a smile and handing someone a bulletin. People want to be a part. They want to find a loving fellowship.
Maybe that’s why Jesus said this: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35)
Tim, I agree with you that relationships are primary but, in my experience, worship and music issues are almost equally important in our general failure in Churches of Christ to attract and keep many “outsiders”- those who have no prior experience with us. I was a leader in the same congregation for 27 years as we evolved into a somewhat progressive Church of Christ. We did very well over the years in gaining members who had some kind of background with Churches of Christ or Christian Churches. (There was no Christian Church in our county so for Independents who moved to our county we were pretty much an a Capella Christian Church for them.) But we gained precious few members from the community at large who had no knowledge of Churches of Christ. After building an attractive new church building on a highway we were flooded with community visitors for about the first six months but none of them stayed despite our efforts to contact them after their visits. We sent a survey form out about two years into the new building with a dollar bill asking all our community guests for the past two years for their frank responses to a number of questions as well as asking for anyoother feedback they might have as to why they did not keep worshipping with us. The vast majority ranked us extremely high on friendliness with some saying we were the friendliest church they had ever visited. But an almost equal proportion found our worship and music (a Capella singing) to not be what they wanted in their regular church experience. We were very much into worship renewal but were completely a Capella except for a few children’s events. I reluctantly concluded that it is next to impossible to grow an a Capella Church of Christ from the larger community who has no background with us. We did receive many members over the years who found us to be a welcome change from more conservative Stone-Campbell churches. Instrumental music does not ensure church growth of course. Plenty of instrumental churches are dying. But a Capella singing only almost guarantees a lack of substantial church growth in my opinion.
That’s interesting Gary. Thanks for sharing your experience.
One thing that isn’t factored into Yeakley’s study, that I can tell, is the size of the church. I’m wondering how that would impact things.
So when people call church “a social club” they are not far off.