State of the Church Planting Address

I just read an article titled: "Improving the Health and Survivability of New Churches."
And while it focused on church plants in the US, there was much to glean.

• As opposed to (un)popular opinion, most church plants are NOT failing! 68% of new churches are surviving past 4 years.
  

• Most of these churches are under 100 in attendance at 4 years, but, these churches are averaging 10-14 baptisms a year after 4 years- which is awesome.

• The odds of surviving increase 178% when the church plant puts a proactive Stewardship plan in place (Note: we formed our Stewardship Team this Fall! Yeah for us!)

• Survivability increases 135% when the planter has a support group (Note: I do! Yeah for me. In fact, I just went on a retreat with my peer group... OK, I can't lie, we went on a ski trip. It was AWESOME!)

Other interesting facts on successful plants:

• 88% have church plants teams (we don't, but have great volunteers!).
• 63% have a core group of 26-75 people (We exceed this in our number of volunteers).
• 80% put 10% to outreach and evangelism (besides my salary and rent, I think that ALL we spend money on).
• 75% are contemporary. I'm amazed that 25% aren't- are they speaking Latin?
  

OK, here's the scary ones, and the last ones I'll share:

• 88% of fast growing churches have church planting teams;
• Over 90% of struggling church plants work with only one paid staff member.
• 17% of fast growing churches start with one paid staff member.
  

OK, can I freely say- it's time we hire some staff!
That and some other grow changes have to happen at Connections.

All of this information comes at a critical time as we have been engaged in a "Ministry Review."

• We invited all our Ministry Team leaders and volunteers to answer a survey;
• We had a few experienced church leaders "secretly" visit on of our worship services;
• We meet with these leaders to discuss their impressions;
• Now we are prayerfully preparing a ministry plan for years 2-4 of Connections.

Soon we will be inviting our peeps to be a part of these Next Steps at Connections.

PS, You can find the church plant study at this website:
http://www.leadnet.org/Resources.asp