Written with struggling churches in mind but the principles will work with any church. It is based on a successful strategic church planning model I have worked with for years in the northwest. It takes the 10 steps we developed of strategic community outreach and applies them to a small church setting.
Excerpt:
I developed this concept after years of church planting and researching both church growth and church planting. I was disappointed in lack of outreach into the unchurched community even among the fastest growing churches and church plants. I have participated in both.
Two of the church plants I worked with were by most people very successful. They grew from around 30 people to over 150 people in a little over a year. Sounds successful doesn't it?" I was very disappointed after both. Not that I was sad that the churches had grown but that in both there was not one person from the unchurched community that was reached.
When Jesus left this earth he gave the church a commission to go into the world and make disciples. Should we ever be content with church growth that comes from Christians coming from other churches and not include leading people to Christ and making disciples in the community we live in.
It was after these two experiences that I decided that there had to be a way to actually grow a church by reaching people from the unchurched community.
I have spent years of researching churches that were actually effective at reaching people who were unchurched. What I came up with was a mixture of lifestyle evangelism, friendship evangelism and strategic involvement of the church in the community.
This is a simple concept yet complex enough that it requires totally restructuring your vision and your church to implement it.
Here is the simplicity of the concept.
Develop a strategic plan to reach the community surrounding your church.
Sounds simple? We are already doing that right? The answer is probably no. If so you would most likely not be reading this book nor would you even need to do so.