Many traditional churches have great potential to grow exponentially as long as people around them are not reached with the saving grace of Jesus. However, they are not growing. Growth means not only numerical growth with new believers but also overall health of the church and its impact and influence upon people. Here are few keys for church growth.

Vision 

Vision is like steering wheel of a vehicle, vision takes an organization into its future destiny. Vision is a picture of the future. It is a well known fact that you get what you see. Bible says that where there is no vision, people perish (Proverb 28.19). Vision guides us where to go. If pastor and church leadership do not know where to take church in the future, it cannot grow. Vision helps to focus what matters most. Vision gives a clear picture about what you want to achieve with your ministry. Vision inspires, motivates and engages people.

 Habakkuk speaks about writing down the vision (Habakkuk 2.2). It indicates the clarity of the vision. We need to clearly write down a vision statement for the church. Moreover, Habakkuk also reveals the source of vision, God. A leader or church can receive vision from God. For that, it is essential that leaders of the church wait upon God to receive it. The Leaders of the New Life Fellowship movement in India fasted and prayed in 1980 when they received a vision to send church planters all across the country. Today New Life becomes the fastest growing church planting ministry in India with hundreds of churches all across India and other nations. 

Once you received the vision from God and made it as a communicable statement, then the leader/pastor needs to communicate it to the church. Casting vision needs strategic communication. 

If your church does not have a compelling vision with enough clarity, then the church may not grow.  If you analyze any growing church in the world, there you can see such churches are having a compelling vision that they propelled into everyone and everything in the church. Many churches are not growing because they do not have a vision. They end up in routine spiritual activities.

Strategy 

Strategy is the means by which we accomplish the vision in reality. The pastor/church leadership should have a strategic plan which is essential to mobilize your members to act on your vision. In other words, strategy is simply a plan that helps the organization to realize the vision. With respect to church growth, I would recommend to have strategic plans in following areas: 
  •  Reaching out new people with gospel and then add them to church 
  • Maturing new believers 
  • Spiritual growth of the existing believers
  • Equipping people for ministry and leadership 
  • Helping the needy
I would suggest that the proportion of these areas can be decided by your vision. In our church, our strategy gives priority to three various aspects of our vision in following order: evangelism, spiritual growth, equipping. Here I would request pastors and leaders of the traditional churches to think about the existing programs and systems of the church. Break your routine programs and come up with new plans and activities that will help the church to accomplish its vision. We need boldness to cut off all things that are not helping in our vision from our churches.

Evaluate the result of our church program especially your huge budget programs. For example, , born again churches in Kerala conduct big conventions/long term fasting prayers without much result by spending a huge amount of money. I am sure that the huge money that is spent for a convention is big enough to support a church planter for one year anywhere in India. Every year hundreds of conventions are happening in Kerala. If churches could stop conventions and send a church planter, every year Kerala churches can establish hundreds of new churches. Churches need healthy systems. Fact is that healthy churches will grow and reproduce. 

Team 

Once we have a vision and a strategy, then we need a team to achieve it. New Testament envisions Christian ministry as a team ministry. When you form your team, make sure that the team members should have a good character, competence and a good chemistry among them. I am not talking about the so-called church committees or eldership team. These are often outdated and corrupted practices as Christians witness in many churches. Instead of such systems, we need powerful leadership team that can steer the entire church to achieve a vision. Or the existing committee or eldership team need to be transformed. Such team does not have the job of controlling the pastor or power politics rather they have to work strategically to achieve the church's vision. 

Positioning Resources  

Once you have vision, strategy and team, then you need resources to execute your vision. Resources include both human and material resources. Many churches are blessed with enough resources. It is sad to see that majority of the believers in many churches are ending as mere consumers rather than producers. Many of them simply continue as mere believers and church leadership often fail to facilitate a next level growth to its believers. In many churches, many of their believers are not involving in any kind of ministry. It is high time for churches to reposition their human resources strategically to bring a great growth into the church. We need to align our human resources to vision. Moreover, many churches do not have a budget. Even if they have, often they do not have a budget that support the vision. We need to strategically budget our finances to achieve our vision. Churches should know where to invest. Vision is a guide to do that. 

Sam Lal K S