Essentials For HealthyChurch Development with Mike Pearson
"What I have discovered through our experiences and as I have met with the pastors over this period is that there are common activities we must do in order to facilitate growth. I am convinced church growth is ultimately something God does—but that he uses our activity to accomplish it. These common activities crop up virtually every time in the course of my coaching, and of the thirty smaller churches I have coaches this last year, seventeen have experienced significant growth over the last year, seven of which have actually doubled in size." - Mike Pearson
Mike will outline for us these common activities and other important points on getting unstuck in church growth and moving on to church health.
Friday August 15th Sydney Seminar Day 1 Peninsula Vineyard Community Church,Level 1/ 693 Pittwater Road, Dee Why
Saturday August 16th Sydney Seminar Day 2
Wednesday August 20th Perth Seminar Day 1
Thursday August 21st Perth Seminar Day 2
Friday August 22nd Perth Consultancy Day
Saturday August 23rd Sydney Consultancy Day
Intentional means to be "determined and resolved to act" in a certain way. To plant and lead a growing church requires a high level of intentionality. Nothing is haphazard, nothing is assumed. We need to think, pray and act in a determined and resolved way to see healthy growth. This material seeks to clarify a number of essential areas of church leadership that we especially need to be intentional about.
Mike Pearson
Between 2005 and 2008 I was employed by Vineyard Churches UK to do some church growth coaching for pastors and planters. This role came about after several surveys of UK Vineyard Churches in 2001 and 2004 highlighted a number of churches which had remained under 60 people over a number of years and would benefit from some investment of time, encouragement and advice towards growing.
The national council of Vineyard Churches UK was aware of some informal coaching I had done already, so I was asked to provide short term coaching and see what happened. During the two and a half years I actually met with over fifty Vineyard pastors and planters and did some "hit and run" coaching with 32 churches that had not previously seen much by way of growth.
Of the 32 coached 17 have since reported growth. About 50% of these grew by at least a third and several doubled in size. Of the remaining churches about 12 reported that they are moving in the right direction and will see some results in the months and years ahead. A handful of churches have remained pretty well unchanged and several have since closed.
To date, Maggie and I have planted two Vineyards, helped to start two others and have proactively coached church planters, as well as doing the short term church growth coaching for the Vineyards in the UK. I am certainly no expert but the last few years have been an invaluable experience and I am excited to be able to share anything we’ve learned.
