How to Grow your Church

The third day of the 40-day fasting and prayer came with another dimension of anointing as Bishop Emmanuel Nterful shared his message entitled 'How to grow your church'.

Reading from John 15:8, the man of God began his message by saying that one of the things that should be most important to us is that the church of Jesus Christ should grow. He announced if we don't grow the church other religions will take over like what's happening in other countries. He continued, "When your church is growing it shows that you are bearing fruit and it brings glory to God."

He went on to explain ways we can grow our churches:

1. Have a burning vision for your church to grow

The man of God made it known to the congregation that they can never achieve anything great in their lives without a vision. He stated that we must be consumed with the burning vision for a large church.
He told the congregation that the heart of God is to see many people coming into the Kingdom of God.

2. Know that church growth starts in the heart of the pastor

Reading from Proverbs 4:23 Bishop Nterful explained that for you to see expansion in your ministry your heart needs to be filled with the vision for church growth.

3. Know that in your church you have three stages of members and care for all of them.

He mentioned that there are three types of members based on their level of spirituality

•Deer stage members

•Goat stage members

•Sheep stage members

The man of God said God wants all members to be sheep. He illustrated that the deer is a very fast animal; thus deer members are members you see once in a while and as such they are very unstable. He cautioned that pastors must be patient with the deer stage members and pray for them to be sheep members.

Typifying how goats are always in house, he explained that goat members are the members who find themselves in church but are very stubborn and cannot be controlled. He stated that they are in church but do what they want to do. He admonished pastors to be patient with goat members and teach and love them.

The final stage which is the sheep stage members are those that follow and obey the voice of the shepherd. They play roles in church and obey the word of God.

He stated that if you sack the deer and goat stage members you can never grow your church. Instead, we must care for them till they become sheep members.

4. Let your church be a Person X oriented church

A Person X oriented church is a church interested in new converts and visitors. He declared that your church will not grow if we don't take special interest in new converts and visitors. 

He listed what we must do with our converts viz.:

# Do an altar call after every service

# Set up a team to welcome your new converts properly. Treat them as VIPs and don't allow inexperienced people to handle converts. Your senior pastors must handle the converts.

# Take a good detailed information on the convert so you can follow up. Take their names, common names, nicknames, and their specific locations.

# Visit them within 24-48 hours. A pastor who does not visit their members is not worth being called a pastor.

# Set up a good new converts school and take them through the basics of Christianity for up to 6 weeks.

5. Care for Type A and Type B members

Type A members are the active members. We need to pray for more Type A members. Type B members however are the inactive ones. They don't often come to church, they don't pay their tithes or belong to any department. Because of the behavior of Type B members, you can easily disregard them but be patient and care for both Types A and B members.

6.Use the secret of industrialization

Bishop Nterful explained that this is when you create soul winning activities in your church. Some of which include street evangelism,  gospel rock shows, open air crusades, conferences, breakfast meetings among others. He hinted that the church must be an industry that produces souls.

7. Organize outreaches for young people

He made known that a church that does not have young people is a dying church. He encouraged the congregants to design special programs that bring in young people. Form Dance, choreography, drama,music etc groups for the young ones to be active in church in order to attract the unbelieving youth to church.

8. Create the cell system in your church

You can't grow your church without a cell. A cell is a small fellowship that meets to pray and encourage each other. He explained that the largest church in the world is thriving as a result of the robust cell system in place. Cells evangelize and bring their converts to church to increase membership  of the church. As the cell grows to 15 it is broken down into 2 and starts to grow again.

9. Create a powerful prayer system in your church

Church growth is orchestrated through an engine of prayer. For your church to grow, create a powerful consistent prayer team. Also pray yourself. A pastor should pray at least 3hours a day and encourage their members to pray at least an hour a day. The secret of Jesus' ministry was prayer. Quoting Jeremiah 10:21, he said a pastor who does not seek the Lord will scatter his/her sheep.

10. Allow the Holy Spirit to help you

Jesus said in Matthew 9:38 that the Holy Spirit is the Lord of the Harvest. He described how the disciples won multitudes of souls after the Holy Spirit had come upon them in the book of Acts.

The room was filled strongly with the Holy Spirit as the man of God laid hands on all apostles, church workers and the youth for a mega Souls Harvest.

Compiled by Minister Alice Ofosu Adarkwa