People Spots
Online
Produced by James W.
Moss, Sr., and Church Consultants
Provided as a service by New Life Ministries
Saturation
by James W. Moss, Sr.I have in my hand an interesting cartoon. A pastor is in his study in a posture of prayer. He prays, “O Lord, please let us have problems with parking and crowd control next Sunday.” In fact, I believe I have prayed that prayer on occasion during the times when I was serving as a parish pastor.
Saturation is a problem that comes with success in ministry. God is blessing. Many good things are being done. People begin to respond. The attendance grows until the facility is stretched to capacity. A crowded church feels really nice for a while. Notice I have said "for a while."
I have a friend who raises chickens. He told me I could put as many chickens in a coop as I wanted. But they would die off until there was the right number of chickens for the space available. In fact it takes eight-tenths of a square foot for each bird. Saturation is a problem. It is a problem that comes from doing many things right in ministry and experiencing the blessing of God. Many times it comes after many years of successful ministry. But make no mistake: it is a problem that has to be addressed.
I’m sure that a number reading this article are saying, “Give me the chance to have this problem.” But, make no mistake, it is a problem. There are horror stories that come out of churches suffering this problem. I have heard of visitors who walked through the door, looked around realized there was no place for them to sit and turned and walked out the door. I have heard of people in a church who attempted to save a pew for someone only to have others sit in it. I have heard of watching cars drive through the parking lot, find no place to park, and drive out and on. I have known of many who had new people attend and join, only to be gone within the first 6 months because they couldn’t get into a small group. These are tragedies that result in people getting hurt.
I’m driving down the turnpike in the fast lane. A tractor-trailer is passing me on the right. The truck begins to crowd towards the center-line. I feel threatened, glance at the heavy median divider and in that instant pass a spot where a vehicle had struck the heavy cement barrier. I immediately touch my foot to the brake, release the cruise and move into the right lane where I belonged anyway. I knew if I ran into that barrier bad things would happen. Bad things happen when churches run into the saturation barriers.
New people and visitors don’t tend to be so patient. They don’t tend to stay so long. One of the problems in a saturated church is a roll-over of people, resulting in no growth in attendance. That means one group attends for 3-6 months and disappears. Another new group attends for 3-6 months and they leave too.
There appears to be about a 5-year window for a congregation to make adjustments. That is for the people already inside. That window seldom lasts longer than 5 years. If the people become convinced that nothing will be done to address the problem, the vision will be lost and people will exit in mass and the problem of saturation is solved.
What are those saturation barriers?
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Morning worship attendance will not tend to rise above 80% of the comfortable seating capacity in one service. The ratio is 70% of the capacity doubled in two services. I don’t have enough data on three services to predict that. The solution is the addition of a new service, an alternative site worship, or the addition of space. |
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At least one parking space is needed for each 2.3 people on the inside. |
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At least one small group is needed for each average of 8 in worship. |
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At least 2.5-3 people are needed to average 1 for a year. |
These barriers are real. You may break them for a while but not for long. Growth can be stymied if you are bumping against one barrier. Growth will stall totally if you are bumping against more than one of these barriers.
I pray that God will bless your ministry so you have to deal with saturation. Then I pray that you and your church will have the creative capacities to move the barriers.
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Read about Jim's seminars and books.
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Read about Jim's seminars: People Spots and Churches Have Personalities.
He also conducts seminars entitled
"Does Your Church Really Care About People?"
and "A Christian Perspective on Leadership Skills."
For more information, contact Jim directly.
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June 23, 2003. Volume 6, Issue 5. People Spots Online is prepared by James W. Moss, Sr., and Church Consultants. It is provided as a service by New Life Ministries, www.NewLifeMinistries-NLM.org. Articles may be duplicated and reproduced in any way with proper credit. A new article is produced about every two weeks. To be added to a list to receive these messages directly by e-mail, send a request to churchconsultants@yahoo.com.