Five Things Every Church MUST Do Well

Since the day of Pentecost, every church that is growing and thriving has become really good at doing five key things. Conversely, every church that has plateaued or is even slowly dying has neglected to do one or more of these well. 

These five things, think of them as motions or “jobs to be done”,^[1] apply to churches of every denominational stripe and every style of church. From mega-churches to house churches, in-person communities to online churches, and deep rooted established churches to new church plants—the core jobs remain the same.That which a church strategizes about and what they already do—from the time and money they spend, to their calendar planning and staffing decisions—can be linked back to one or more of these five buckets. 

You may be thinking that the five are worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry and mission; and although there is common agreement that those are the purpose^[2] of the Church, all of these purposes work within a larger framework of things every church must do well to grow and thrive.

So, what are these five things?

Attract, Get, Keep, Grow and Multiply

• Attract is simply the things you do to make people aware that your church exists
• Get is about getting people in the door for the first time—whether for a weekend service or a special event
• Keep is about your ability to keep people—new visitors and existing members alike—coming back. Keeping is also about closing the back door. 
• Grow is about growing disciples in your church’s growth model whatever that might be. A growth model is your de facto theory of change. “If people do x (small group, giving, serving, etc), they change and grow into a disciple”
• Multiply is about those people who have adopted the mission of the church as part of their personal mission. They multiply the mission of the church through contributions such as leading small groups and ministry initiatives, giving regularly to the church,^[3] serving internally or externally, inviting, discipling and advocating for the church. These congregants can also be called “engaged” because they are engaged in multiplying the mission of the church. They have moved from consumers of the mission to contributors of the mission.

We call these five jobs the engagement framework. And although it’s a framework, it’s not linear. It’s based on trust. As a church earns the right to develop a deeper relationship with its people, leaders will inevitably move people through each of the five areas.

Like the staves of a barrel

The engagement framework is critical to the viability and growth of every church.  This can’t be overstated. Like the staves of a barrel, the contents will only rise to the height of the shortest stave.^[4] Take just one of these five motions away and the church’s vitality begins a death spiral. So it’s important for leaders to examine each of these areas so they can  decide which strategies will really grow their mission.  More importantly, it moves leaders from measuring activity to measuring outcomes—a clearer indication of health and success, especially where there are weaknesses in the chain. 

Start Where You Are

Most church leaders intuitively get this idea of the five core “jobs”, but next comes the question, “How do I apply this to my church strategy?”  The key is to start by looking at your existing strategy with the five jobs as a backdrop and then ask, “What products and services do we currently use or “hire” to solve for each?

As one church began to adopt the engagement framework to reevaluate their strategy, they mapped out this picture:

Attract - to help people know we exist, we hire:

• Bumper stickers
• Billboards
• Banners on the church building
• Facebook ads and posts

Get - to bring in new people, we hire:

• A date night
• A food drive
• A weekend class
• Facebook ads and posts
• Congregants inviting friends and colleagues

Keep - to retain our existing people, we hire:

• Sunday sermons
• Small groups
• Email updates

Grow: to know if people are growing we hire:

• Personal conversations
• Small groups
• Service opportunities
• Surveys and feedback forms

Multiply: to know if people are moving from consumption to contribution, we hire:

• Mentoring programs
• A church management system that tracks giving and volunteering
• Invitation cards, emails, text links to share with new people

For this church, the process of evaluating what they were currently doing helped them gain more clarity on what they hoped to accomplish with each product, service, or effort they employed.  It created a collaborative anchor for conversation amongst their leadership team to explore what they wanted to stop, start, and keep doing. 

Measurement Matters

But even with an understanding of the five motions, how do leaders shift toward measuring outcomes? And what outcomes do they measure? Thinking within a new framework requires a new scorecard, and a willingness to experiment and learn.

One church we work with is taking this approach: 

Attract 

• Net new impressions (reach)

Get

• Net new relationships - they have given us their contact information!

Keep

• Retention rate - who continues to keep engaging with us?

Grow:

• Positive change measured from pre- and post-assessments

Multiply: 

• Number of people giving, leading, serving, inviting, evangelising and discipling

As this particular church set out to measure outcomes, it helped them wrestle with a few key questions:

• How will we track these outcomes?
• What strategies have we been employing that we can’t measure? How would we change that? 
• Where are the weakest links in our engagement framework chain?

Of course, taking this kind of approach takes time, a desire to learn and experiment, and a willingness to collaborate with others. Many of the churches we work with in our Ministry Innovation Lab have been evolving their respective strategies for months and even years.  But the engagement framework provides a solid foundation for them to examine even the dustiest corners of their strategy. 

Likewise for you, especially in these times of unprecedented change and disruption, the framework can bring a renewed sense of collaboration with your team and help you decide the best ways to use your limited time and resources.  We’ve seen it time and again with churches of all sizes and denominations and we're sharing this with you in mind. We hope it breaks open your current thinking and strategy in all the right ways.  

^[1] Jobs theory was created by Clayton Christensen in which he outlines how people employ products, services, and utilities to make progress in their areas of stewardship. https://www.christenseninstitute.org/jobs-to-be-done/

^[2] These five purposes come from Rick Warren’s best-selling book, The Purpose Driven Church. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Purpose_Driven_Church

^[3] National giving data tells us that approximately a third of church-goers give nothing to their church, a third give $1-$500 / year to their church and a third give over $500 / year to their church. Those who give over $500 / year account for 95% of all gifts to the church.

^[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebig%27s_law_of_the_minimum