AEC2001
The 2000 Anabaptist Church
Planting Survey
Survey Results
Part 2- Structure
Angela Zizak
Return to
Previous Part Return to
AEC 2001 Index Return
to Research Index
The structure of the church is comprised of the
facilities, finances, programs, and membership, as well as outreach and growth.
The majority of the churches have adequate size and space to meet and worship,
although 32% stated their facilities were too small for their needs. In most
cases, the first facility was bought, rented, or built before the first worship
service. (We don’t know the comparison among buying, building, and renting.)
Annual giving for the church is an average of $1,175 per person by membership or
attendance. The cost to plant the church, not necessarily build the facilities,
was an average of $84,000. The financial support came from a wide variety of
sources, mostly from members/attendees and the conferences/ denominations. The
largest debt was $500,000+ and that church is not experiencing much growth. Interestingly,
32 churches (63%) do not have debt!
In the church plants studied, the most popular programs
are Bible study (75%), Sunday school (67%), volunteer opportunities (59%), youth
groups (57%), and adult fellowships (53%). Figure 1 titled "Program in
Church Plants" shows the percentage of churches which have various
programs.
Many congregations are involved in collecting food for
persons in need (53%), local mission projects (45%), counseling (41%), and
volunteering in community service (37%). A few are involved in projects such as
operating day care centers and homeless shelters and assisting troubled youth.
Encouraging those attending to become formal members is
not a priority in most of the surveyed church plants. Fifty-one percent of
churches reported that many involved in the church are reluctant to commit to
membership. Most are simply happy that they are part of the life of the church
and hope they will think about membership later. Many churches have also not
emphasized membership as much as reaching out and welcoming newcomers into their
churches. A few others explain that some attendees attended infrequently or
seasonally because of their life situations, including migrant workers and
students, and others already have ties to another church or denomination.
Outreach is clearly integral in the ministry of a church
plant. Outreach efforts have actually increased overall from the time
churches opened their doors to the present. Figure 2 titled "Methods of
Outreach" reveals the differences in activities performed when the church
plants were new versus now.
Over half of the responding churches now make efforts to
reach out to attract newcomers at least once a week. The most widely used method
is inviting family, friends, and neighbors to church (96%). Follow-up with
visitors, newspaper advertisements, community events, and phone calls are also
widely used. However, several churches have taken advantage of other outlets,
including having an Internet site, outdoor signs and billboards, door-to-door
visitation, and service projects. One church in Virginia invites a local
bluegrass band to perform at church worship or for jam sessions – which has
attracted over 20 people to come to worship with them!
Over
70% of the respondents feel they are always open and actively welcoming of
newcomers. As seen in Figure 3 titled "Unchurched Attenders," 18% of
the churches have 31-50 previously unchurched persons involved in congregational
life, and an additional 10% have 51 or more involved in their congregations.
Also, a majority feel that the overall mood of their
church is not only positive and alive but very caring and mission-driven (about
68%). In all, 68% state that their churches are growing, while only 20% say they
are surviving and 8% say they are stagnate. None of the church plants that
responded is failing. About half felt their growth is mostly slow and steady.
Despite the fact that most feel they are growing, many respondents (46%) feel
that their expectations of church growth have not been fully satisfied. One
church wrote, "We have worked hard to grow the church, prayed hard, done
‘all the right things,’ but to no avail. We are not growing, and that issue
becomes difficult to talk about." Those whose growth was rapid felt they
either met or exceeded their goals.
A comparison between first worship attendance and
attendance one year later is very interesting. An average of 48 people attended
the first service, and the same average (48) were attending a year later. The
most recent 2000 attendance figures, however, show a steady climb which is
higher than previous years for almost all churches in the study, with a 2000
worship attendance average of 64 – a positive sign for the direction of church
plants.
Continue to Next Section: Leadership
Go to: 1
2 3
4 5
6
