Each year at LifeWay Research, we work together with Outreach Magazine to create the Outreach 100 listings of the country’s Fastest-Growing and Largest Churches. On one hand, these lists are one of the most anticipated things we do each year. People seem to eagerly await the lists so they can learn from these churches about what God is doing to build his kingdom across the United States. On the other hand, there are those who complain about the lists. They seem to think this is a way of exalting “big churches” in an effort to make them look better than the churches that are not on the list, when nothing could be further from the truth.
Remember folks: facts are our friends.
I love to learn. I have spent a significant portion of my adult life in the classroom, either as a student or as a professor. These lists feed our hunger to learn as we evaluate the temperature of the churches we study in an effort to learn more about the ways God is working. I hope these lists encourage you and challenge you. I hope, like me, you read them and celebrate the ways God is working. I hope they challenge you to think through your own strategy to reach your community with the gospel.
On this year’s lists, we noticed many of the same trends we’ve seen in the past. Among the recent trends, we continue to see multisite churches becoming more and more common. Among the 100 Largest churches, we find only 12 have a single campus (although one church did not report how many campuses it has). On the Fastest-Growing list, the number with a single campus is much greater—42, reflecting close to a split in the number of churches that do and do not have multiple campuses.
Some once believed this move to grow via multiple campuses was a temporary trend, but it appears to be a trend that’s here to stay. While it was once the domain of only the largest churches, we now see smaller churches deploying the same methodology. What’s interesting to me is the number of churches that utilize a multisite methodology and are also committed to church planting. The two are definitely not exclusive of one another. I think this may have something to do with the missionary heart of these churches.
Sacrifice is Trending
As we come to these lists each year, we look for three things: a characteristic trending across the church spectrum; something that stands out as unique; and something that may fly a bit under the radar and yet is surprisingly influential among growing churches.
This year, as my team processed the data, we saw something that excites me and is thoroughly biblical. What’s more, it’s something in which every church can engage. Something in which every church must engage if it wants to reflect the character of God as a church body: self-sacrifice.
Growing churches are showing a great commitment to multiplying themselves, as we see in the discussion about multiple campuses, and this commitment to multiplication often creates a need for sacrifice. Sacrifice is inherent to the experience of every growing believer—and every growing church.
In another research project we conducted, the Transformational Discipleship Assessment, we learned that growing disciples share a number of common characteristics. Chief among them are: “Obeying God and denying self,” “Serving God and others” and “Exercising faith.” None of these should come as a surprise, but I think it’s important to note that churches are made up of disciples. When these disciples are growing to be more like Jesus, the churches they are a part of reflect these same characteristics.
This growth in maturity is reflected in many of the churches that are also growing numerically at a rapid rate. This is a great thing! It’s encouraging that many of the Fastest-Growing Churches are often churches willing to sacrifice. We want to share a couple of these specific stories with you this year.
