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?
It is simple to say but difficult to convince pastors of and hard to get churches to do.
An associational family of congregations that launches a number of new congregations annually equal to at least 3% of the number of congregations they have at the beginning of each year is growing. Those who do less are not.
The average association has between 35 and 45 member congregations. Many have more and many less. The smallest associations might launch a new congregation every few years. The largest associations need to launch three to five or more each year.
This is, of course, if your associational context is changing, growing or diversifying.
In a sense it is easy. Just one congregation at a time.
The benefits?
First, launching new congregations reaches new demographics of people already present or moving into your context.
Second, launching new congregations draws people in new residential communities.
Third, launching new congregations gets laypeople from congregations involved in missional experiences.
Fourth, launching new congregations is one of the best ways to motivate existing congregations to reenvision, revitalize, renew, rethink and even replant. Their involvement in launching a new congregation helps them realize what they need to be doing in their own congregation.
Fifth, when three or more congregations join together to launch a new congregation, it helps them learn what it means to be an associational family of congregations.
A congregational multiplication strategy is the second of three strategies to develop during your year of jubilee. The first one is your missiological strategy, and the most challenging one focuses on replacing the strategies of revitalizing and replanting with dreaming and developing strategies.
EDITOR’S NOTE — George Bullard spent 45 years in denominational ministry. He served on the staff of three associations, was a key staff person working with associations in two state conventions and served on the association missions division staff of the former Home Mission Board of the SBC. He retired in June 2022 as director of Columbia Metro Baptist Association in South Carolina. He has led strategic planning processes in more than 100 associations and has written extensively in this area. Bullard now serves as a strategic thinking mentor for Christian leaders through his ForthTelling Innovation ministry and a correspondent for The Baptist Paper.
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