Blog | Things That Won’t Grow Your Church Attendance

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You’ve probably had this conversation with yourself in one way or another:
“If I could just do this one thing, I could really grow my church’s attendance.”

We look to other thriving and growing ministries around us and are inspired by certain aspects of their church. We convince ourselves that if we could change that “one thing” that our ministry could grow tenfold. Unfortunately, that’s simply not the case.

4 Things That Won’t Grow Your Church Attendance

If you’re wanting to grow your ministry, there are so many ways you can do so. However, these are some ways that, on their own, will not grow your church attendance:

New Venue

A new venue is great for a lot of reasons. If you are outgrowing your current space, running into issues with sharing the room, it’s not available for events outside of Sunday, or any other number of critical ministry operating issues, it may be time to move into a new venue – your own venue.

However, finding a new church venue should be a result of growth, not an approach to growth. Getting a new church venue on its own doesn’t grow a ministry largely because “venue” doesn’t even come close to the top of the list regarding why people choose to stay at a church.

If you’re looking for a new venue, that’s great and we are all for it! If your current venue is causing problems and not allowing you to do the things you’d like to do with your ministry, that’s a great reason to plan a move. But just remember that getting a new venue will not grow your church on its own.

New Technology

Sometimes, the thought is that “If I only had a better lighting set up, soundboard, or sound system, the church would look and sound better and cause people to stay.” This only works under the assumption that quality of music and lights/stage design is a reason people choose a church, which simply isn’t the case.

Most surveys done on church attendance show that the music, the pastor, and sermon topics are among some of the bigger reasons people choose to attend a church. Opportunities for connecting with others in community is the biggest reason people choose to stay at a church. No amount of lights, sound equipment, or cameras will get more people in the doors of your church. Keep your mind set on the purpose of your ministry, its goals, and how you can connect with each and every one of your visitors to grow your church’s attendance!

Adding Campuses

Adding campuses doesn’t, on its own, grow your church’s attendance. In fact, unless your church is prepared for a new church campus, it will more than likely end up compounding the current issues your church is facing with attendance.

Adding a campus requires double the volunteers, double the workload, and double the number of committed leadership staff. There are tons of fantastic reasons to add campuses to your church, but if you’re solely doing it for the sake of growing attendance, chances are it won’t work as expected and you may end up compounding the issues you’re currently facing with your ministry.

Merging Churches

Churches merge all the time, and about one third of all multisite churches say they wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for a merge. However, merging churches isn’t always the right move if you’re simply trying to grow your church attendance. Here’s why:

If you are planning on acquiring another church during a merge for the purpose of growing attendance, keep in mind that there are often barriers to growth caused by a merge. A huge one is culture fit – sometimes a church merge attempts to meld two completely different church cultures, resulting in more issues without the benefit of growing church attendance.

Also, it’s not uncommon that a church merge fails because the campuses are too far away. Most congregation members may view the shutting down (or merge) of a church as a good time to start looking elsewhere, and if your church is too far away, you can’t assume to take on the majority of attendance from their ministry as is.

Wrapping It Up

Let’s make one thing clear – we’re not trying to say that finding a new venue, upgrading technology, growing your campuses, or merging with another church are bad ideas! There are so many great reasons to invest in new gear and a new space and to consider expanding beyond your own building. However, when the sole purpose for pursuing any of these is out of hopes for growing church attendance, that’s a bit of a red flag.

As with anything, you should approach all these topics with tons of prayer, support, and conversations with others before going all in on a big decision!