People Spots
Online
Produced by James W.
Moss, Sr., and Church Consultants
Provided as a service by New Life Ministries
Understanding Saturation
by James W. Moss, Sr.
Saturation is a disease that attacks churches that have been successful in ministry. Many positive things have occurred. The building is full to overflowing.
Mt. Olivet Church has done many things right. It seems that everything they have done in the past couple of years has brought in new people. John Martz is an excellent pastor. In fact, there have been several incidents in the past couple of weeks when new visitors walked in the door, found no seats vacant, and left before the service began. Several others never got inside because the parking lot was full. So they just kept on going.
Initially, this might feel and look fantastic. You may be saying, “Let me have that problem to deal with!” But make no mistake it is a problem that must be addressed.
There are two basic reactions I have observed to this problem.
First, if the problem of saturation is not addressed,
people will stop inviting other people to attend.
Mary Smithton attends a saturated church and was heard to say, “I think it is great that our church is full. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that we aren’t going to a new service and we aren’t anywhere near a building expansion. There really isn’t room for new people. So I will quit inviting people to attend.” Mary’s reaction is not isolated. In a short period of time, all spontaneous invitations by the participants to friends and family have stopped.
Momentum will carry the church for a short period of time. But gradually normal attrition will take over and bite deeply into the congregation. Losses will begin to mount. The real clinker is that it may take two to five years to rebuild the drive that brought the initial success.
Second, if it becomes blatantly obvious that nothing
will be done to address the problem
of saturation, key leadership people will peal off and go elsewhere.
Harry Marker has been a key leader at Living Stones Community Church. Harry has invested a great deal of time, energy, and money in this church. The church is full. It is obvious that something must be done. Much of the leadership is carried over from a time the church struggled to make ends meet. They don’t want to lose the fellowship that comes from everyone being present in one service. They are too afraid to risk the money that a new building would cost. A couple of consultants from the outside gave the same advice that they must go to two services or build. Their counsel was ignored. The frustration has been building in Harry for a couple of years. Though he likes Pastor Murtha, Harry Marker finally announces that this will be his family’s last Sunday. Over the next few months, the Battys, the Parkers, the Harrisons, and the Langers leave too. The core of the leadership team is now gone. Living Stones will have great difficulty recovering, because the next set of available leaders who now must move into the key roles are not at the same level of competence as the one’s who left. It now may take a decade or more for this church to recover even a part of their losses.
On the DISC scale of personality tests, the D’s, I’s and C’s are the first to leave. S’s and heritage people remain. Generally, the growth of the church is not high on the agenda of S’s and heritage people.
Conclusion
I wish the problem of saturation was simple to cure. It generally isn’t because it forces people and churches to change their approach to ministry. That is not always easy. There are four basic areas where saturation can occur. They are: worship space, small group base, parking, and number of people participating. Saturation in any of these areas can block further growth.
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September 29, 2004. Volume 7, Issue 17. 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.