help my church grow

Sometimes people still ask me for ideas to help their church grow.  Here is something simple that I thought of the other day.

You want your church to grow?  Remove all undesirables.  Remove all obstacles to growth.

By undesirables I don't mean people, but there might be some that you need to manage and get under control.

Barriers to growth, undesirables might be-

• not enough parking
• a shabby exterior appearance
• sad colors
• trash outside
• trees that need  to be trimmed
• no greeter
• an overly forceful greeter
• bathrooms that are not clean
• bathrooms that need to be remodeled
• rusty water
• bad singers
• too long of worship service
• themes of guilt and shame
• no nursery, dirty nursery
• on and on it goes

In short, anything that would cause someone to take your church off of their list, fix it right away.   Any agenda, even if it is your favorite, if it is off mission, let it go.  You may even want to have some fresh eyes come in and look around because we humans get used to "good enough" and that won't win new folks.

Removing barriers won't guarantee growth, but keeping the undesirable things will certainly create barriers and keep new people away.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.