Before I go much further into church growth, I should show you the respect of answering this simple question: How do you know this?
I could tell you that I have been in church leadership for about 25 years, that I’m ordained as a minister and as a Bible College Professor and have the 
experience you might expect upon hearing this. While the foregoing is true, the answer I would prefer to give, which is also true, is that I have been in the front lines of turning a church around that had basically been written off as dead; and turn it around we did! Of course, I also need to point out that the Holy Spirit had a little something to do with it also. I can also tell you truthfully that I have undertaken quite a bit of study and research on the subject and I have discovered a number of very interesting facts that I will be sharing with anyone who cares to read it, right here in this series of posts… at no extra charge I might add…
The truth is, none of this is rocket science. I will tell you how you can do your own research and you will see what I am talking about. As we go, I will also share with you exactly how we turned our church around, what we tried and what worked and what didn’t work… and why. I will also share with you some applied theology to show where our priorities must lie if we are going to change lives for Jesus Christ in a real and practical way. Finally, I will share all of this with you in a direct and simple way that will be very easy for anybody to understand. I may at times be rather blunt, but better the point is made than having it hard to follow because it’s buried in too much “nice-nice.”
Fair enough? OK, let’s clear the decks and get into it in tomorrow’s thrill-packed post!
Life Project Blog 
i guess i’ll have to wait to hear the definitions of “written off as dead” and a church that has been “turned around” and by what standard of measurement has been applied. suffice to say, i’ve seen lots of churches defined by ‘experts’ as BOTH which were actually the opposite in terms of reall biblical definition as far as I understand it.
I promise not to prejudge. looking forward to the articles. -mike
I took the letters to the seven churches in Rev. 2 and 3 and made 2 lists from the observations that the Lord made about those churches. My lists were titled “DO’s” and “Don’ts” for churches. Our church was in fact quite adept and experienced at all of the “Don’ts” and had no experience with any of the “Do’s”. Today, in spite of our various imperfections, it is the other way around. Of course the theologians use other words to describe those comments Jesus made about those churches, but I thought do’s and don’ts made things pretty clear to non-theologians… at least for starters.
cool focus on the Lord’s rebukes and commendations for the churches. i agree, good place to start.
-mike
I thought you’d like that one. When you can get the guys who’ve been the leaders for 20 plus years to agree that you’re lukewarm, you can start to get things done! I haven’t included this little anecdote in the post on this part (hasn’t posted yet) because one of them reads the blog and I don’t want to embarrass him… although I can still change my mind… it does clear things up slightly.
Don