The following is another installment from my friends at MAG Bookkeeping. If your church needs bookkeeping or virtual assistance, there is no one I recommend more. You can contact this wonderful organization by clicking HERE. Now, onto 4 Practices Of Highly Effective Churches:
Here at MAG Bookkeeping, we have the privilege of working with churches all around the country on their finances. In addition, our leadership team is made up of professionals who’ve collectively spent decades working with churches on their strategic planning, membership strategies, construction projects, discipleship models, and dozens of other issues.
Through all these meetings and interactions with churches, our leaders have seen that effective churches of any age, stage or size consistently do the same four things really well. The ways in which each church does these things will look different, of course, depending on their communities. But across the board and across the country, effective churches that are reaching their communities for Christ do these four things really well:
- Their Sunday morning worship experience is relevant to their community and effective in reaching attenders where they are. It doesn’t matter whether it’s defined as “contemporary” or “traditional,” or if the pastor wears jeans or a three-piece suit – effective churches have figured out what resonates with their worship attenders and what makes those attenders bring others with them to worship on Sundays.
- They understand and emphasize building authentic Biblical community. Effective churches don’t just publish a list of how people can connect with each other- they’re deliberate about helping people build relationships with one another. They have a sustained focus on helping people understand that all the “one another” exhortations in the New Testament can only be carried out in an environment where there’s the freedom to have real relationships centered around the Word.
- They minister well to the next generation. They focus on ministry to the next generation of Christ-followers – the children and youth in their congregation. They understand the power of inter-generational worship and learning, and keep it at the forefront of their efforts.
- They reach out to the world outside their walls. They balance their outreach between local and global efforts, and communicate to their regular attenders what it means for their church to be the hands and feet of Jesus.
That’s what we’ve gathered from our experiences – what would you add to this list? What else have you seen effective churches do well?
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