Church Growth Strategy

Growing a church is key to its long-term success. 

At ChMeetings, we understand a thing or two about managing and growing a church effectively. After all, we provide cloud-based and user-friendly church management software, which is trusted by more than 3,000 churches and dioceses worldwide. 

Not sure where to start? We’ll share some growth initiatives you can apply to your church today. 

Let’s dive in!

What is a church growth strategy?

A church growth strategy is a way of expanding a church’s reach. 

Church growth isn’t just about growing your flock and expanding your congregation. It also refers to growing your branding and image and making your influence felt in the local community.

What do you first need to keep in mind?

Draft a good mission statement

Your mission statement must emphasize why your church exists. Mission statements can often be quite vague, so be sure to pin down what you aim to achieve as a religious organization.

A great mission statement includes a clear reasoning behind it. Ideally, it should reflect the changes that you’re willing to adapt to grow your church. 

We suggest holding a meeting (or several) to garner the thoughts and opinions of the church’s main stakeholders when writing a mission statement.

Ideally, your mission statement will have the following qualities:

• Clear and concise.
• Communicate what your church is all about.
• Touch on the theme of growth.

After you’ve determined this, your church’s activities and programs must work toward realizing the vision in the mission statement. 

Ultimately, a mission statement isn’t simply a fancy slogan. It’s meant to tell people where your church is going and provides you with an important source of guidance as you go about your church business.

Come up with an action plan

An action plan is a clear checklist of steps/tasks needed to achieve your goals. But before working on this, you want to make sure that your objectives are as transparent as possible.

A good action plan can help your church grow while keeping you aligned with your goals. It also shows your congregants that they can trust you to stick to your mission statement. 

Hold several meetings to develop and complete your action plan. Then monitor your progress to ensure your church is sticking to the plan.

There’s no harm in adjusting the plan over time whenever necessary. For instance, if your church grows much faster than expected, you might need to update some of your long-term targets. Unlike God’s plans, human plans need not be set in stone!

Focus on increasing church members

This goes without saying: a church is nothing without its members, so your growth strategy should have this top of mind. Having more members can provide a significant benefit. Obvious ones include:

• Better reach, which in turn can lead to more churchgoers.
• A greater and wider impact on the surrounding area.
• Raise more money.
• A boost to internal morale.
• Increased productivity and church activities and events.

Here are some ways of developing a successful membership program without losing your vision:

• Encourage members to use their skills and passions to help the church grow. If some members have strong social media and tech skills, ask them to work on your church’s website and social media channels.
• Engage with people through various initiatives in ways that don’t stray away from your core values.
• Take inspiration from successful membership programs from other churches.
• Find a way to gather contact information. The easiest way to do this is to encourage people to follow you on social media or to collect their email addresses for your newsletter.

The next section will elaborate on some of the ideas presented above.

The best strategies for growing your church

Strategies for church growth should focus on reaching more people with your message and concentrate on strengthening your church as an organization.

To do this, you should:

Connect with the broader community of your religion

Ideally, a church leader will communicate with other churches and ministries that are also on a holy path to growth.

By working with fellow religious organizations, you can share information and even financial resources and work on idea generation together.

Technology can fast-track growth

In the 21st century, churches need to combine the new with the old in order to grow. This means using the right technologies to your advantage. The internet in general and social media in particular are invaluable tools when it comes to growing your church. 

Here are some of the things you should do on the internet and social media to grow your church:

• Have a website: A church website is a great way of keeping churchgoers informed of upcoming events. You can also use a church site to provide contact details, integrate your social media, and tell the story of how you got started. Build an email list and regularly send newsletter updates on the latest initiatives.

• Get a Google My Business listing: A Google Business Profile will let you provide information and photos of your church online. It will be what people see when they Google the name of your church. Include details such as your phone number, address, and opening hours.

• Keep an email list: You can use email newsletters to keep subscribers/churchgoers informed of events and plans for the near- and long-term future.
• Promote on various marketing channels: Share church announcements.

Engage: Keep churchgoers and potential members up-to-date via social media and community pages on Facebook.

For social media,  let’s look at some church examples we like. As this Facebook post from Willow Creek Community Church shows, it’s best to keep things simple:

Here’s a great example of a church Instagram post:

Public community events

Community events can be the perfect chance to engage with churchgoers and potential churchgoers face-to-face. Aside from the inherent value this offers, you may also find such events encourage people to attend church services more often. Public community events can ultimately raise your church’s profile and may raise money too.

Here are some ideas for public community events:

• Food festivals.
• Church picnic.
• Flea market.
• Community yard sale.
• Charity drives.
• Litter clean up.
• Tidying up a local community area.
• Cooking class.
• Game night – bingo or trivia quiz.

Christian organization ChurchHealth regularly organizes cooking classes to promote healthier living:

Deal with infighting

Infighting can make or break a church’s attempt to grow. Of course, minor disagreements will occur from time to time, but you must ensure argumentation isn’t a running theme in your church. Even if it happens behind closed doors, your churchgoers will likely pick up if there is a growing rift. This may lead to a lower turnout with time and otherwise hinder your ability to grow as a church.

All in all, you must address infighting as effectively as you can. Hold meetings, set out rules, and find ways to solve disputes. The more you work together as a team, the more successful your church will be.

Leadership investment

Without great leadership, your church will lack direction. One way of improving your church’s leadership is to invest in your leadership team. Examples of this may include:

• Offering more competitive compensation for staff members.
• Hiring new staff members and getting off to a great start.
• Providing training and development prospects for your leadership team.

You want your church’s leaders to feel valued and that you have their back. The more you support your church leadership team, the more growth your church is likely to see.

Use a church management system

When it comes to technology, an online church management system can be a big help.

Chmeetings is one such example. Our software comes with a whole host of features to make church management more straightforward, which in turn can make it easier to grow.

Our features include:

• People – Create and track user profiles and manage churchgoing family accounts.
• Groups – Assign employees or volunteers to specific groups to simplify communication, group work, and planning.
• Events & Check-In – Keep all your event management information in a single user-friendly location.
• Giving – Let members donate both online and offline.
• Member Access – Allows members to make contributions online, update their user data, and sign up for events.

Sign up to ChMeetings today and begin using our software for free!

Sign up for ChMeetings today to help manage your church

Today we’ve explored a range of strategies for growing your church. If you’re ready to start your growth journey, ChMeetings can help you with all the essentials and more.

We are one of the most decorated and respected online church systems out there. Our cloud-based church management software has received a wide range of awards, including Capterra’s 2021 best value and best ease of use awards. Software Advice also ranked ChMeetings as its most recommended software in 2021.

Get started with ChMeetings today without spending a penny!

Good luck and God bless.