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5 Practical Systems to Drive Growth at Your Church

Are you ready to see your church impact more people than you have ever before?

Are you tired of church leadership books that are long on theory but short on practical help? Have you wanted to reach more people in your community but you weren’t sure where to start?

Are you worried that your church isn’t reaching its full potential?

Today, I’m releasing a new book called “Church Growth Flywheel: 5 Practical Systems To Drive Growth at Your Church” and it’s full of practical insights to help your church reach more people starting today!

The “big idea” of this book is that prevailing churches have five “systems” that they leverage to see their church’s growth. Each of these systems help the church encourage their people to invite friends and ultimately grow. Your church grows because people at your church tell their friends about the church. However, we know from studies that only 2% of people who attend church have invited a friend to join them in the last year. [ref] Core to the “Church Growth Flywheel” are a series of strategies to encourage your people to start talking about your church.

Below is a broad overview of the 5 systems that we talk about in the book. For each system we deep dive and provide:

  • Background information to understand why this is an effective church growth strategy to put into action right away.
  • Step by step “getting started” instructions that you and your leadership team can start adding to your church right away.
  • Real life examples from multiple growing churches who are leveraging this as a part of their growth strategy.
  • Each system discussion ends with “rapid action steps” designed to move you from simply thinking about the topic to making an effort to apply these lessons to your church.

Big Days are a Big Deal

Don’t worry; I’m not going to ask you to have live camels at your Christmas Eve services or to have a robotic Jesus that goes up into the ceiling of your church at Easter. I am going to push you to think about how you can make those services, and a few others during the year, the kind of service which your people would want to invite their friends to witness, and moreover, which their friends will actually attend.

In this section, we’re going to talk about the three or four Sundays which happen at your church every year, and which are critical for the long-term growth of your community. You know those Sundays: the mornings when your people are more inclined towards inviting their friends to come to a service (and their friends are more than willing to attend). We need to ensure that we’re crafting experiences on those big days that are set up to encourage invitation, especially to those who may have never attended the church before. You’ll learn about how early on in my career, I held convictions and led in a way that, in hindsight, actually hindered our ability to reach out to the people with the message of Jesus. We’re also going to talk about how churches get visitors from these Big Days to return for all the other days, because you might be able to drive in a big audience on Christmas and Easter, but how can you drive them back on non-holidays as well?

Leveraging Series Roll-Out Rhythms

Your church should be packaging up the way it talks about scripture into series. These stretches of four to eight weeks are the ways to focus your audience and your community on what it is that you’re talking about the teachings of Jesus and the Bible. We all know that people don’t just want to know what’s on the TV; they want to know what else is on TV. This has only become a stronger reality as we now live in a universe influenced by Netflix. How are our churches leveraging the way we talk about our content to help people wrestle through not only what we’re talking about now, but also to make them realize what we need to be talking about in the future?

Social Media & Content

How can you produce engaging content that can help your community, and how can you leverage social media channels to spread that content?

I don’t think your church needs a specific social media strategy for a particular social network. I am aware this might seem controversial in an age where Facebook is so incredibly dominant in most of our lives. However, what I do believe your church needs are a content marketing and social media strategy. We’re going to give you action plans for how you can leverage both content and social media channels to drive interest and engagement at your church that ultimately translates not just into more likes, comments, and shares, but into driving more people showing up to your services and eventually, drives people to engage in your community.

Community Engagement

People want to make a difference in the world. We think it’s a God thing, the world thinks it’s a good thing. Let’s stop fighting them over it, and just work together. I have seen that community engagement is a vitally important tool for church growth as we go into the future and look to reach people that currently aren’t in our churches.

Over the last 15 years, we’ve seen an increasing trend that shows people are more likely to join the church to make a positive social difference in their community before they come to our Sunday morning services. Rather than pushing back on this trend and saying that your church isn’t involved in social justice issues, I want you to consider how you can encourage your community to work together for improvement and ultimately see that as a front door for people connecting with your broader church community, including the Sunday morning attendance.

Internal Communication

Finally, we’ll talk about how you can get your people who are currently in your church the right message at the right time so that they’re able to tell their friends everything that’s happening at your church and arouse their interests to ultimately get them plugged in. We know that not everyone in your church is inviting their friends to come visit every Sunday, and so in this section, we’re going to show you how to identify those audiences who are currently attending on a regular basis and are connected to your church family, because they’re the ones most likely to extend invitations and essentially drive the growth of your church. We’ll even discuss ways to engage people on the fringe of your community in a way that encourages them to draw people into your church.

What other leaders are saying about Church Growth Flywheel:

I’m humbled by the early feedback that is pouring in for the book. Particularly, I’m honored that so many leaders from some of the fastest growing churches in the country have been so supportive of the book and it’s message. Here are just a select few comments, you can see more quotes when you “look inside” the book on Amazon.

 

“Rich is right again. Momentum is hard to catch, easy to lose, and most important. If Flywheel has any importance, it has loads of importance. Don’t miss this book!”

– Clay Scroggins, Lead Pastor, North Point Community Church

 

“Rich Birch has knocked it out of the park with Church Growth Flywheel. His new book is full of practical helps for church leaders looking to reach more people in their communities. Rich cuts through the theory and offers solid advice and guidance that you can put into action right away.”

– Dan Reiland, Executive Pastor, 12Stone Church, Lawrenceville, Georgia

 

“Rich Birch has been reading my mind! After reading the first 15 pages, I made this book mandatory reading for my entire staff.”

– Hal Seed, Chief Mentor at PastorMentor.com and Founding Pastor of New Song Community Church

 

“What an incredible book! Rich has a unique way of sharing real and relevant practices from his experience and conversations that will no doubt be a game changer for you and your church community. Church Growth Flywheel is a gift to church leaders filled with practical yet challenging steps to help initiate growth and change within your community. And what church leader doesn’t want to see more lives changed by Christ!”

– Sonja Waltman, Executive Director of Ministries at LCBC Church

 

“In Church Growth Flywheel, Rich helps us as leaders think through the way we lead our churches, understand the dynamics of how our churches are perceived in today’s world and for us all to become futurists in painting a landscape for that allows us to have Kingdom impact for the gospel message. Thanks for making us think about how we impact the world Rich…well done!”

– Dennis Richards, Executive Pastor of Operations & Expansion at Preston Trail Community Church

 

“Rich brings a wealth of passion, knowledge and experience to the subject of church growth. He presents a treasure trove of best practices and learnings around engaging people in your city with the message of Christ. Church Growth Flywheel is full practical steps that you can actually start doing and growing in your church, today. I’m so grateful for Rich’s voice on this subject and I think you will be too.”

– Carey Nieuwhof, Founding & Teaching Pastor, Connexus Church

 

“I’ve followed Rich Birch for many years as he has had a front row seat to some of the fastest-growing churches in North America. That’s why I got excited when I heard he was releasing a book with some of what he has learned. You will be energized, informed, inspired, and equipped after reading Church Growth Flywheel.”

– Tim Stevens, Vice President of Consulting, Vanderbloemen Search Group

 

“Insanely practical… super simple… and absolutely essential!  Rich Birch has captured the disciplines and behaviors that will allow your church to experience growth that enables you to thrive. Buy one for every member of your team and read it together!”

– Jenni Catron, Founder/CEO The 4Sight Group and author of The 4 Dimensions of Extraordinary Leadership

 

“In this book, Church Growth Flywheel, Rich has distilled years of experience and study to help church leaders succeed. This book is full of practical insights and shortcuts for leaders like you. Worth picking up!”

– Brad Lomenick, Founder, BLINC; Author, H3 Leadership & The Catalyst Leader

 

“Most pastors I meet are frustrated since they are trying tons of tactics for growth, but not seeing any results. It isn’t good enough to just go out and just do 100 things. Rich’s system is what they are lacking. For sustained growth, you need an end to end process that’s strategic and easy to follow. This book gives you the entire blueprint in one shot.”

– Kenny Jahng, Founder, Church Butler Social Media

 

“What makes Church Growth Flywheel a must read is that is a book with practical applications.  Rich is not just a theorist of church growth, multiplication and reaching people for the gospel…he is a Practitioner. He has lived it. He has led it. He has gotten his hands dirty DOING IT!  As Rich says…”We need your church to grow. We need your church to make a difference.” We are counting on you!”

– Tim Cool, Chief Solutions Officer, Cool Solutions Group

 

“Rich gives us strategic rocket fuel for growth in our ministries. This book goes way beyond theory and gets practical about what you can do this year to impact your community.”

– Frank Bealer, CEO, Phase Family Center / Executive Director of Leadership Development at Orange

Pick up a copy (or two!) today.

I’d be honored if you pick up a copy or two of “Church Growth Flywheel: 5 Practical Systems to Drive Growth at Your Church”. I wrote this book because I want to help your church impact more people in your community than before. This book is designed to help you take action and reach more people.

If you do pick up a copy of the book I’m wondering if you’d be willing to do two things:

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Rich Birch
Rich Birch is one of the early multi-site church pioneers in North America. He led the charge in helping The Meeting House in Toronto to become the leading multi-site church in Canada with over 5,000+ people in 18 locations. In addition, he served on the leadership team of Connexus Church in Ontario, a North Point Community Church Strategic Partner. He has also been a part of the lead team at Liquid Church - a 5 location multisite church serving the Manhattan facing suburbs of New Jersey. Liquid is known for it’s innovative approach to outreach and community impact. Rich is passionate about helping churches reach more people, more quickly through excellent execution.His latest book Church Growth Flywheel: 5 Practical Systems to Drive Growth at Your Church is an Amazon bestseller and is design to help your church reach more people in your community.