Launchpad: Celebrate Next With Congregational Multiplication Strategies
Local denominational organizations/judicatories empowering their congregations to serve from the base of their context. Based on Baptist associations in the Southern Baptist tradition.
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Beginning in January (2025), I started writing and publishing a series of columns with The Baptist Paper—then posting them on this blog—about imagining what a national denomination would be like if the local denominational organization—rather than the regional or national organization—was in the lead role by the year 2033.
The Baptist Paper is a publication of TAB Media. Request a free trial HERE. See all TAB Media columns written by George Bullard HERE.)
SPECIAL OFFER! Use promotion code “Bullard” to subscribe to The Baptist Paper print and digital editions at half-price by going HERE. Nine of these columns have posted on this blog. As of today I have at least three or four more to go.
Launchpad: Celebrate Next With Congregational Multiplication Strategies
The answer to the growth dilemma is obvious. When it is shared with congregations, they often reject it in favor of doing things to help existing congregations remain or become vital and vibrant.
Southern Baptists launched their first congregation in the Philadelphia area in 1958 in the suburban community of Levittown, Pennsylvania. It was named Haines Road Baptist Church.
My family joined this church in 1965 when we moved there for my father to serve as director of Delaware Valley Baptist Association. By that time there were seven congregations in the association.
In 1972, my parents moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for my father to serve as executive director of the Baptist Convention of Pennsylvania-South Jersey. He left behind 29 congregations.
That was a phenomenal growth rate of 26% per year over a 14-year period. In a sense it was easy. When you start with one church and launch a second church, that is a 100% growth rate.
Annual Growth Rate
As other congregations launched, the percentage growth decreased. Even so, the annual growth rate after 14 years was outstanding.
I wonder what the annual percentage growth in new congregations is now in the area from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to Cape May, New Jersey. This was the full context of this association in 1972.
How long did it take the association to settle down to a growth rate of 3% or less per year? What does a 3% annual growth rate even mean for them and for your association?
All my adult life I have lived in places where Baptist congregations were already present when the Southern Baptist Convention was founded in 1845. Great Baptist associations developed in these locations.
However, none of them are currently examples of the phenomenal growth I experienced as a teenager and young adult in Philadelphia. Many are not even at the growth rate of 3% per year.
They are not currently launching a significant number of new congregations annually. They are focused on helping their plateaued and declining congregations survive and succeed.
Their focus on having congregations strategically situated for lost, unchurched, underchurched and dechurched people in their context shifted to a focus on maintaining existing congregations. They moved from a Great Commission to a great maintenance focus. Serving existing congregations focused on being sure they attract the next generation of families.
How has this worked out for these and all other associations? Collectively, associations moved during the last 50 years from an average of two-thirds of all congregations plateaued and declining to more than 80% in that category.
The answer to the growth dilemma is obvious. When it is shared with congregations, they often reject it in favor of doing things to help existing congregations remain or become vital and vibrant.
The Answer?
Continue reading HERE.
Let me hear from you if you want to talk about this.