Church Growth

The Christian church is engaging far less than 1 percent of the 70 million people who are active in the virtual world. This means the virtual world is by far the largest unreached people group on planet Earth, says one pastor.

Douglas Estes, a pastor from San Jose, Calif., has no vested interest in virtual or internet churches – a relatively new phenomenon – but given the large "unreached" population on the internet, he says he has a desire to see healthy churches proliferate "regardless of context."

Although he leads a brick and mortar church (Berryessa Valley Church), Estes defends virtual churches against critics in his newly released book, SimChurch: Being the Church in the Virtual World, maintaining that they are real churches with real people. more >>

One of the greatest challenges facing churches in China is training enough pastors to keep up with the booming Christian population, said the president of a Christian organization in China.

The Rev. Gao Feng, president of the government-approved China Christian Council, told the head of the World Council of Churches, the Rev. Dr. Samuel Kobia, that in his home province there is only one trained pastor for 40,000 Christians.

“One of the challenges is that we need to train more pastors,” stated Gao, who at 47 years old is the youngest president in CCC’s history, last Friday. more >>

Thousands of church leaders from all backgrounds and experiences are gathering in Grapevine, Texas, this week to find creative ways to implement God’s vision in their churches.

Since 1997, the Creative Church Conference (C3) has provided raw, real-life answers to questions that most church leaders have but are often afraid to address.

“What are the characteristics of a leader?” “How do I keep negative people from taking over God’s vision?” “What about money? Should I talk about it?” – these were some of the questions that megachurch pastor Ed Young frequently encountered when he began dialoguing with other church leaders en route to building his 20,000-member church. more >>

Three years ago, Austin Stone Community Church in Texas was recognized as one of the fastest growing churches in America by Outreach magazine.

But what might have privately been a proud moment for most church leaders was keeping the megachurch’s lead pastor, Matt Carter, awake at night.

“I knew we might have just made a list for the top whatever fastest growing churches of wherever, but I knew that I would also make another list if we were making a real true list of the churches, and that’s the top 10 crappiest churches in America in assimilating growth,” recalled Carter during a recent gathering of church leaders and innovators. more >>

Long-time pastor Geoff Surratt, who is a self-described “church addict” with extended family members who are also pastors, recently completed a book entitled Ten Stupid Things That Keep Churches From Growing in which he spotlights the most common mistakes well-meaning pastors make that hinder church growth.

Surratt spoke to The Christian Post by phone recently about the book, which is scheduled to be published by Zondervan in May, from Seacoast Church in South Carolina where he is Pastor of Ministries.

CP: In your book you list 10 stupid things that pastors tend to do that keeps their church from growing. What is the most common mistake? more >>