The Number One Reason People Will Stay at Your Church Plant

Over the past three weeks we’ve talked about “Seven Reasons Why People will Attend Your Church Plant” and the importance of “The First Seven Minutes” once they get there. But why will they stay? Well, there are many reasons why people do what they do, especially at church, and in a subsequent post I’ll list a number of other reasons why people will “stick” at your church plant. All of the coming reasons, though, pale in significance next to the number one reason why they’ll stay with you. Yes, by now you’ve probably guessed it: the number one reason people will stay at your church plant is EXACTLY THE SAME NUMBER ONE REASON THEY’LL VISIT YOUR CHURCH PLANT: Relationships.

The relational component is so needed and so wanted that it’s far and away the most important reason why people will stay at your church. But there is a difference between the relationship(s) that bring them to church and the relationships that will keep them in your church plant. At the beginning, the seminal relationship they have with the new church is YOU; you are their connection, you are their link to the rest of the church body. But if they chose to stay, the circle of relationships must enlarge: it must include many more than just you.

Church growth researchers say that if a person visits your church three times in a row there is a far greater than average chance that they will stay–but don’t miss this–for up to six months. During those six months they must make at least seven significant relationships for them to stay at your church plant indefinitely. This is why it is critical to get them into a small group or a new member’s class, or the like. Because in the final analysis, your friendship or that of the pastor if that is not you, will never be enough to keep them there long-term.

So, as a church planter, I’d be planning and preparing to make the most of the advantage you have from day one: the relational element of church life. Build relationships with everyone you can; do it over fellowship meals, in times of recreation, through group study settings, during service projects. Because if you don’t, then one day not so far in the future, you’ll look up and they’ll be gone. If that happens, you’ll regret what could have been if you had built the proper relational systems needed. And I guarantee you, it will be multiplied times harder to get them back than it would have been to incorporate them into the life of your church plant the first time around.

More to come in the days ahead…