This is part of a series of interviews with pastors of churches whose attendance has grown 20% or more in 5 years. We hope this series will be a resource of ideas to help increase worship attendance at your church.
“Reach, teach and unleash people for Christ”

Grace Church is located in downtown Greensboro, a block and a half from one of the largest United Methodist Churches in our annual conference.  During the 1950’s and 60’s Grace was a vibrant community of faith.  However, in the 1970’s the population shifted to the suburbs.  And like many downtown churches, Grace began to experience 35 straight years of decline in worship attendance and membership.  In early 2000, however, all that began to change.  During the last eleven years the worshipping attendance at Grace has grown from 140 to 325 each Sunday, the average age of the congregation has dropped from “70” to “40”, and the number of children and youth has grown from 15 to 150.  Grace is now a vibrant community of faith offering a variety of ministries focused on helping children, youth, and adults follow the way of Jesus so they can be used by God to transform the world for love.

Here are a few of the steps that helped that process happen.

1. We determined that our past did not have to define our future. After many years of decline we had the mindset that things would not, could not ever get better.  In 2000, however, we decided that did not have to be the case.  Trusting that God is a God of resurrection power we began to pray, inviting God to help us envision a future that was filled with new life.  As we gathered for weekly worship, in formal and informal small group gatherings we began to dream and talk about what we felt God wanted our church to look like in 5 years.  This began to create an atmosphere of excitement and expectancy.
2. We got clear about our mission as a community of faith. Once we determined that our future could be better than our past we organized a study group to define the mission of our church.  After much study, dialogue and prayer we determined that our mission was to “reach, teach and unleash people for Christ”.  This mission was based on our study of The Great Commission in Matthew 28. By “reach” we meant that we were going to be a church that was passionate about reaching unchurched people for Christ and would be willing to make whatever changes were necessary to help that happen.  By “teach” we meant that we were going to be a church that was passionate about helping people learn to be disciples of Jesus – people who were learning the relevance of Jesus’ message for our everyday lives.  Finally, by “unleash” we meant that we were going to be a church that helped people know they had been gifted by God and were called to use their gifts, and lives, to help transform God’s world for love.
3. We decided to “let dead dogs die”. Once we got clear about our mission as a church we began to evaluate every decision we made, every activity our church funded against our mission.  If an activity did not fit into our church’s mission statement or was not producing fruit that helps us accomplish our mission we felt free to let it die.  Sometimes it means we did this by stopping the funding for that activity.  Sometimes we did this by refusing to “rescue” an activity that was struggling so that it could simply fade away.
4. We invested resources in things that would improve our visibility in the community. As a downtown church in the midst of many buildings we knew that we often “blended into the landscape”.  So, we decided to do things that would help us stand out.  For example, when the 3-story building next to us came up for sale, we purchased it.  We then tore it down to create parking, which we did not have.  We constructed an attractive marquee on which we could announce our times of worship, sermon series titles and special events.  We also began placing creative banners in the churchyard that could be changed fairly frequently and attract the attention of people who were passing by.  All these things combined to make us more noticeable.
5. We decided to become an intentionally invitational community of faith. At Grace we believe that gospel really is good news, that it really does make a difference in the lives of all people.  And we wanted to share that news.  We began to ask ourselves who we knew that did not have a church home.  We began to identify friends, neighbors, people at work, families connected to our kid’s soccer team and folks in many other areas of our lives who were unchurched.  Then we became passionate about inviting those people to come worship with us.  We also practiced “radical hospitality” when new friends stepped on our church property.  We tried to treat every person who came to Grace as an “honored guest”.
6. We focused on providing a dynamic worship experience with preaching that was biblically based and relevant to issues people dealt with in everyday life. As we prepared for worship each week we asked ourselves, “How will our presentation of the gospel on Sunday help people live out their faith on Monday?”  This forced us to have practical application in every service.  We also tried to develop sermon series that connected with modern people.  For example, when Bruce Springsteen came to Greensboro we decided to do a sermon series based on his music.
7. We began to offer new worship experiences. Realizing that new churches attracted new people, we decided that new services would attract new people as well.  So, in addition to our traditional worship service we developed a modern worship experience focused on reaching the next generation for Christ.  Offering additional times for worship also enabled people to have options for attending worship that fit their schedules.
8. We focused on the importance of lay led ministry. As Grace grew we became aware of the fact that the role of the staff in our church was to help people discern their gifts, hear where God was calling them to use their gifts, then “bless and cheerlead”.  Although we are not yet where we would like to be, we have seen a number of our members dream and develop ministries they felt God calling them to fulfill.
9. We began to focus on serving people in our community, country and world who were less fortunate. Although Grace had a history of financially supporting missions, we decided to focus on a more “hands-on” approach.  Although we still have room to grow in this area, we are continually encouraging our people to “engage those they serve” in a very hands on way.  This has led to a number of mission trips, involvement in local ministries and most recently a ministry to serve breakfast to friends who are homeless called “Arise at Grace”.

Grace is by no means a perfect church.  We know that God has a lot more shaping and molding to do on us.  But, we do feel that God has given our church new life that we are trying to use to bring new life and God’s love to others.

Written by Rev. Morris Brown, pastor of Grace UMC through June, 2011

Current pastor:  Rev. Mark Weekley – pastorofgraceumc@gmail.com

Church website – www.grace-methodist.com