From the session this morning…
There are benchmarks that are going to help discern whether a new congregation is going to be viable or not. These are tangible benchmarks that can be quantified within eighteen months of the launch of public worship. Some of these are:
Presence of a formal stewardship plan – The way that a person uses possessions and wealth is a sign of transformation in a person’s heart. This does not necessarily mean that the congregation is financially self-sufficient.
Growth in numbers – Gather the worship attendance of only adults for the first ten Sundays. Throw out the high number and low number and average the remaining eight. This will give a bench mark number for worship. Within eighteen months the number in worship will need to have grown significantly. New congregations are started to bring new people to Jesus Christ. If growth is not happening what happened was the start of a new small group, not a growing congregation.
Formal plan for helping people grow in Christian discipleship – People need to be growing in their faith and they need to have the opportunity to seek out and find assistance in that growth.
Existence of multiple small groups – This is a sign that people are connecting to each other, not just to the pastor.
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New Congregation Plant Benchmarks
Rev. Andrew Conard 
One reply on “New Congregation Plant Benchmarks”
This is interesting. The benchmarks you were given make sense, but I wonder if sometimes God ignores them and puts a congregation on its own unique pace of growth and development.
I passed this on to Laura (my wife) to see what she thinks of it. Her church plant has been worshipping for 3 years with very slow growth. We averaged only 16 people in our first year, 22 in our second year, and 29 in our third year. We’ve been running 37 for the last 6 weeks. The old adage “it takes people to get people” has been strongly borne out. We acknowledge that it’s still quite small, but the momentum has clearly shifted and the long-term propects are now quite encouraging.
A primary challenge when growth is slow is the availability of resources to sustain the effort. Fortunately, Laura doesn’t need to earn a living, which has made it financially feasible to allow things to unfold in God’s timing. We still have cash in the bank and are getting closer to the point of being finacially self-sustaining. If she had needed to get paid a livable wage, we never would have made it this far.