With two-thirds of all Protestant churches having expanded their ministry space or outlets in the past five years, a new study by LifeWay Research shows that adding a worship service and building new space on site corresponds to higher levels of growth in church attendance.
The study, “Effects of Ministry Space and Outlet Expansion,” was conducted Feb. 16-23 through a telephone survey of 1,000 pastors of randomly selected Protestant churches. The sample size of 1,000 pastors, according to LifeWay Research, provides 95 percent confidence that the sampling error does not exceed +3.1 percent.
Of several types of possible ministry expansion, pastors surveyed indicated that adding an additional worship service or venue on site is most closely related to higher growth in attendance, followed by building new or additional ministry space at the same site where the church is located. Churches that expanded in those two ways experienced significantly higher levels of growth in average worship attendance over a five-year period, according to the pastors surveyed.
The pastors were asked whether each of these types of expansion leads to growth. More than two-thirds agreed (strongly or somewhat) that five of the types of expansion lead to growth. Forty-two percent agreed that merging with another church leads to growth beyond the attendance of the two merged churches, while 39 percent agreed that offering online streaming video leads to additional in-person attendees. One in 4 pastors strongly agreed that building additional space leads to growth, while 15 percent strongly agreed that relocating to a new or different facility leads to growth.
Overall, 44 percent of Protestant pastors estimated that their worship attendance has grown by at least 10 percent during the previous five years, 23 percent said their attendance has declined at least 10 percent and 33 percent reported stable attendance.
Among pastors of churches that have not engaged in ministry expansion during the last five years, a smaller percentage (34 percent) reported growth in attendance; 37 percent reported stable average worship attendance; and 29 percent reported declining attendance.
“Many churches who do not take steps to expand are struggling,” said Scott McConnell, associate director of LifeWay Research. “Pastors of churches who take the same message to more people through new methods and new media are expressing the positive impact of these steps of faith.”
On average, the Protestant pastors estimated that 49 percent of their new attendees during the last five years had transferred from other congregations, while 32 percent were unchurched and 19 percent were children born to adults attending the church. – BP
