Big Church-Small Church, Old Church-New Church

Before you read this, note the age of your church and the average Sunday morning attendance. Then read these stats. They come from various sources, you can double-check them on Google, try Natural Source Resources and Environics as a start.

- Church with under 100 people ==> 7.2 decisions for Christ in a year
- Church with over 100 people ==> 4.2 decisions for Christ in a year

- Church without a building plan ==> 3.3 decisions for Christ in a year
- Church with an active building plan ==> 8.2 decisions for Christ in a year

- Church that is planting another church ==> 8.5 decisions for Christ in a year
- Church not planting another church ==> 4.0 decisions for Christ in a year

- Church under 15 yrs old ==> 13.2 decisions for Christ in a year
- Church over 15 yrs old ==> 4.9 decisions for Christ in a year

Consider that most churches strive to be big (over 250), stable (old) and they rarely plant new churches because of the cost, risk and difficulty in finding good leaders.

Three more statistics:

- A new congregation will bring 6-8 times more new people into the life of the body of Christ than an older congregation
- Churches over 10-15 years old gain 80-90% of members by transfer from other churches
- 56 mini churches of 51 worshippers will reach 16x more people than a mega church of 2,856 (say 3K) people (I don't know if there are any this size in Canada) ... and likely will be more theologically sound…that's 1,600% greater effectiveness in evangelism

Hmmm...what do you think about that?