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Four Principles to Membership Retention
Closing the back door with a four-legged stool.
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The fourth of the principles is small-group involvement. There are many venues for such involvement: discipleship groups, home cell groups, ministry teams, and choirs and praise teams, to name a few. Our research shows that the most effective assimilation group is the Sunday school, which is the open-ended small group that typically meets on the church campus. A person involved in a Sunday school class is five times more likely to be active in the church five years later, than a person who attends worship services alone. These principles are not mutually exclusive. Indeed they often complement or even support one another. But they are all critical to the assimilation and discipleship health of the church. How is your church being strategic about keeping each of the four legs balanced and strong? What is taking place with intentionality to monitor progress in these four areas? Conceptually, the process looks simple. In reality, it is often laborious and never-ending. But, in God's power, these four principles have been used by thousands of churches across America to close the back door. In our consultations, we often check the strength of each of the four legs of the stool, and we get an immediate, and usually accurate, assessment of assimilation in the church. Our desire is to help churches win more people to Christ. But it is also our desire to see these new converts and new church members become truly effective disciples for Christ. These four principles often accomplish that goal and help the church to close the back door even more tightly. Thom S. Rainer is dean of the Billy Graham School at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. The author of 14 books, he also serves as president of the Rainer Group and Church Central Associates. Copyright © 2003 by Dr. Thom Rainer. Used by permission. www.ChurchCentral.com |             | |||||||||||||||||||
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