Introduction - Rural Church Growth

“We Want To Grow” (A series on the growth potential of rural Baptist churches.)

Every pastor search committee I have interviewed with told me, “We want to grow and we are ready under the right pastor to make the changes necessary to grow.” I would get excited about what I though was growth potential. I would share with the committee that I was interested in being their pastor. Over the years I have realized that most pastor search committees are lying. Most don’t realize they are lying, they think they are telling the truth, but just saying you want to grow doesn’t make it true. My purpose in this series of articles is to share what steps must be taken for a rural Baptist church to grow. I want to help churches that are considering change, leaders of rural churches that are desperate for change, and ministers that may feel called to a rural church and think they are going to be leading change. Issues that I’m going to cover are:

1. A Church Is Mission Driven – Understanding the purpose of your church
2. Change Brings Death – Understanding Life-cycles.
3. You reach your culture – Understanding your church and your community.
4. Just Be Honest – Understanding your commitment level for change.
5. You Win When You Lose – Understanding the risk and sacrifice involved in change
6. Grow Or Gone – Understanding yourself.

This will be an interesting journey and I hope this helps many of you. Plus Happy Thanksgiving.