Book Review: Growing Plans by Lyle Schaller

Schaller, L. (1983). Growing plans: Strategies to increase your church’s membership. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press.

Although it has been four decades since the book was first published, Lyle Shaller’s Growing Plans: Strategies to Increase Your Church’s Membership remains a supremely practical resource for pastors and church leaders seeking to spur their churches to growth. With a chapter dedicated to each of small, middle-sized, large, and new churches, the strategies Schaller prescribes are insightful, and because he focused on timeless principles rather than the latest trend or theory, these strategies are just as relevant today as they were when the first copy came off the press.

Schaller opens the book with an explanation of the six assumptions underlying the book. These include the primacy of personal visitation as the single most effective church growth strategy, the uniqueness of each individual congregation, and the fact that what happens in one congregation or at the denominational level will affect other congregations. He also assumes that established churches will primarily attract transfer growth, while the planting of new churches is the best way to reach the unchurched. He further asserts that denominational subsidies, while potentially helpful in the short term, will harm the congregation in the long term. Sixth, he observes that numerous factors, including the local church’s “values, goals, dreams, prejudices, assumptions, interpretations of reality, theological perspectives, and understandings of the biblical imperative” – things we might today describe collectively as the congregation’s culture, will profoundly impact a church’s capacity and strategy for change. Finally, Shaller points out that the assumption held by many in plateaued and declining churches, that numerical growth is antithetical to faithfulness or spiritual depth, is false.

With these assumptions in mind, Schaller observes that the key obstacle to growth in the small church is often its single-cell nature. Overcoming this obstacle directly is often ineffective, as evidenced by the tendency of most small churches to grow and then contract chronically. This obstacle is compounded by the reluctance of small church leaders and members to embrace changes that would undermine their ability to know intimately everyone in the congregation. Therefore, the most effective strategy for growing a small church involves the pastor and a few allies launching new small groups that will address previously unmet spiritual needs in both the congregation and community. Generally, the pastor will provide leadership to this group, which will be comprised of one member of the congregation’s core group, 2-4 peripheral members of the church, and 3-10 nonmembers. After a year or two, the pastor will hand leadership of the group to one of its members and proceed to launch another. Half of these new groups will survive, and within 5-6 years, the church will be transformed into a multi-cell congregation poised for further growth.

Sparking growth in a middle-sized church is rather more straightforward. First, the congregation must examine itself to determine its identify its current, actual mission profile and compare this to the biblical imperative of making more and better disciples of Jesus. The congregation may then perform an analysis of its own strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opportunities and threats facing it in the community and develop a strategy to leverage its strengths to address the opportunities. In short, the congregation must reorient itself to be outreach-focused. The apparent simplicity of this process, however, belies the fact that, in many middle-sized churches, congregational leaders are often thoroughly invested in the status quo and/or mistake the means (e.g., Sunday School, song choice) for the end. Therefore, successfully navigating this process will often require a more objective catalyst who can help the congregation determine its actual priorities, gain new insight into its calling within the larger community, and discern a strategy to achieve that calling. Schaller also observes the importance of lay ownership in spurring a middle-sized church to growth; it will be imperative for the pastor of such a church to delegate to responsibilities to the laity and for the laity to embrace that responsibility as their own. Finally, the growing middle-sized church will develop a distinctive community identity and ministry focus.

The senior pastor is arguably the greatest key to growth in the large church. The pastor must provide vision and direction, essential components of which will be newcomer integration and small groups. The pastor must help the church view itself as a congregation of congregations, with each sub-congregation consisting “of a changing mix of groups, circles, choirs, classes, and other organizations” (91). As part of this, the pastor must embrace increasing degrees of organizational complexity and the need to delegate responsibilities appropriately. He/she will also need to help church leaders accept the fact that they will not possess a comprehensive picture of all that is happening within the church and begin thinking in terms of “both-and” when considering new programs and ministries, etc. Key to doing these things will be to relate every initiative to the church’s larger mission and operational parameters and policies. So also, the board will need to trust staff to assume the leadership role, and staff will need to trust the governing board to devise policies to support the various initiatives. While this strategy will result in a constellation of small ministries essential to building a sense of belonging for newcomers and established members alike, the growing large church will simultaneously attend to large group meetings and activities designed to foster bonds between the various smaller groups. The growing large church will also carefully consider current and anticipated facility (including parking) and staff needs, planning for at least one full-time program staffer for every 100 persons in attendance to enable continued growth.

Key to growth in the new church is missional clarity. In particular, Schaller prescribes nine questions that new churches must be able to answer. First, who will they please (e.g., denominational officials, Saddleback Sams, or people moving into a new housing development)? Second, how will they minister (e.g., focus on people in a specific geographic area, leverage the personality and talent of a celebrity pastor, launch a number of small groups with the expectation that some will eventually find footing as full-scale congregations)? Third, how large will the congregation be (e.g., start small and stay small, start small and grow big, start big and grow bigger)? Fourth, who is the correct church planter? The fifth question could be summarized as establishing specific details of the launch plan. Examples include whether the pastor will be full- or part-time, whether the congregation will seek financial subsidies, and how large the congregation’s nucleus will be. On this last front, Schaller specifically recommends an initial core group of no more than two (2) persons (i.e., the church planter and spouse) from the sending church because a larger core group runs the risk of cloning the parent church and/or crippling its missional effectiveness. The sixth question addresses who will be primarily responsible for reaching new members: the entire core group, the church planter alone, or some mix of the two. Seventh, will the congregation purchase land and/or a facility? Eighth, what will be the congregation’s incremental “survival goals”? These may include achieving financial viability, securing a meeting place, paying off a large mortgage, and planning for the expansion or renovation of the meeting house. Finally, the new church must determine in advance the church planter’s priorities so that when conflict arises, there will be an existing framework to determine what he/she will do.

The final chapter of Schaller’s book concerns the development of a denominational strategy for spurring churches to grow. This task is complicated by the unique characteristics of each denomination, and of each congregation and context within the denomination. Therefore, Schaller recommends that a denominational strategy be unapologetically shaped by the group’s theology and missional understanding; primary audience; traditions, customs, and history; and assets, strengths, resources, and distinctive gifts. Simultaneously, the strategy must allow adequate latitude to be implemented in a variety of settings. The result will be a wide range of unique strategies. However, these strategies should share nine common priorities, in order of importance. The highest priority of any denominational growth strategy will be the establishment of new churches. Special attention should be given to churches serving minority populations. Second, denominations should “encourage the numerical growth of large churches” (166). These churches must attract new members simply to maintain their current attendance, and the pre-existing systems for new member attraction and integration can often be expanded to allow for growth. The third priority of any denominational strategy will be to help congregations integrate new members. Fourth, they will train pastors to help congregations move from single-cell congregations to multi-cell congregations and so break the 50 barrier. Fifth, denominations should train and deploy a team of consultants that will serve member congregations as periodic secret shoppers and objective observers. Sixth, the denomination should tailor its annual reports to encourage congregations to set goals for new-member enlistment and hold themselves accountable for the same. Seventh, it will foster the notion that all ancillary organizations consider themselves as entry points for new members. Eighth, the denomination should provide training for re-engaging inactive members, though with the realistic acknowledgment that such efforts often offer little return on a rather heavy investment. Finally, the lowest priority of any denominational growth strategy will be to help congregations whose members have largely moved out of a community to be reestablished as neighborhood or geographically-bound parishes.

Throughout the book, Schaller’s Growing Plans remains remarkably relevant even after four decades in print. Indeed, with only a few vocabulary updates, this volume would be right at home among the latest and best manuals for church growth and revitalization. This, however, is not universally true. For example, many of Schaller’s ideas seem to build upon the unspoken exception that every church should aspire to be large. Additionally, he seems to commend the strategy of targeting homogenous people groups even as our society is growing increasingly pluralistic.

The greatest weakness of Schaller’s work, however, is found in his assumption that established churches will simply re-shuffle members from other churches, while new churches alone are likely to reach the unchurched. While this assumption has certainly been true historically, our culture has changed dramatically over the last half century. Namely, church attendance has fallen precipitously, and the number of people claiming no religious affiliation has increased substantially. In fact, in my area, it is not uncommon for people to be two, three, or even four generations removed from any meaningful exposure to Christianity. In the two generations since Growing Pains was published, then, we have progressed from a Christian society in which everyone either attends church or knows that they should to a post-Christian society in which people have abandoned the church and their faith, and we are now knocking on the door of becoming a pre-Christian society in which there is no universal morality. The result of this seismic cultural shift, finally, is that established churches must re-learn how to grow the way they were always intended to grow: by making new disciples of Jesus Christ from among people who have no church affiliation whatsoever.

Modern churches of all sizes and ages must endeavor to reach the unreached. Fortunately, as we seek ways to accomplish this mission, the vast majority of Schaller’s strategies remain relevant. Small churches can still establish new groups, whether they are part of the same congregation or new congregations on the next block. Middle-sized churches will still need to objectively assess their current missional priorities and find ways to align them with the biblical mandate to make more and better disciples. Large churches will still need to find ways to foster personal connections with small groups and group cohesion with large group activities. Churches new and old will need to work for missional clarity, and denominations will still need to find ways to help member congregations to realize the missio Dei. As long as these things do not change, Schaller’s Growing Plans will remain near the top of my recommended reading list.