Church Planting in Post-COVID Era Is All about ‘Vision,’ New Survey Finds

According to The Christian Post, as part of the survey, researchers examined church growth from respondents who said their church would not grow in the next five years and respondents who said their church would multiply “10 or more times” in that same time.

Those that believe their churches would multiply at least 10 times are growing nearly 10 times faster than churches when leaders and planters did not expect to grow.

Those who anticipated growth reported a 10 percent annual growth rate since being founded, while those who did not expect to grow reported only a .3 percent annual growth rate.

The survey considered the responses of more than 2,700 participants. Of the participants, more than 2,300 were church planters and/or founding pastors, and nearly 390 were campus pastors or multisite directors.

According to the data, the number of new churches that drew 200 or more people on its opening day dropped from 12 percent in 2019 to seven percent in 2020. In 2021, that number rose to 20 percent. By May 2022, however, the number dropped to 17 percent.

Growing churches with 500 or more congregants in weekly worship attendance in 2022 spent about $322,000 on launch day.

Non-growing churches with attendance ranging from 101-200 people for worship in 2022 spent about $247,000 on average at launch. Growing churches that maxed out at 200 for weekly worship in 2022 spent about $141,000 when they launched.

Non-growing churches whose attendance ranged between 51-100 in 2022 spent an average of about $220,000 at launch, while growing churches whose attendance ranged from 51-100 in 2022 spent about $100,000 when they launched.

Most (83 percent) of the churches with numbers over 500 in weekly attendance said they paid their pastors full time from the beginning. Comparatively, just 55 percent of churches with 50-100 attendees said the same, and 52 percent of churches with less than 50 attendees also said the same.

Related:

Non-Denominational Pastors Are More Likely to Have a Biblical Worldview: Survey

Photo courtesy: ©GettyImages/Darwin Brandis

Amanda Casanova is a writer living in Dallas, Texas. She has covered news for ChristianHeadlines.com since 2014. She has also contributed to The Houston Chronicle, U.S. News and World Report and IBelieve.com. She blogs at The Migraine Runner.