>Does having a good worship band make a church grow, or do growing churches have good worship bands? Are churches healthy because they are doing community outreach, or do they do outreach because they are healthy?
It is easy to mistake the marks of church health for the cause. I’ve done it myself.
Some years ago I heard of a strategy that several growing churches had used to build attendance. It was a four-week program designed to draw newcomers, and it culminated with an invitation to salvation. Many churches were seeing both a flood of newcomers and a large number of people receiving Christ. I plunked down the money for the program materials and we implemented it in the spring.
It was a complete flop. Simply doing what other churches did could not break our plateaued congregation out of the doldrums. Those churches were not thriving because they used the program. They used the program because they were healthy, evangelistic, and focused on reaching others.
Congregations grow when the experience the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. That may correlate with—
- Good worship music
- Efficient front-door ministries
- A great children’s program
- Dynamic preaching
- A good youth pastor
- Top-notch communications
- Use of creative arts in worship
Yet one is the cause; the others are correlative factors.
