A recent study by LifeWay Research in partnership with the Cornerstone Knowledge Network showed a correlation between ministry expansion and church growth. Seven types of expansion were included in the survey:

• Building new or additional ministry space at the same site where your church is located.
• Building a new facility at a new site.
• Adding an additional worship service or venue on site.
• Adding an additional worship service or venue off site.
• Beginning to offer streaming video of worship services or teaching on the Internet.
• Directly participating in helping start a new church or churches.
• Merging with another church.

Mark Kelly summarizes the findings:

Of these seven types of ministry expansion, the pastors surveyed indicated that adding an additional worship service or venue on site is most closely related to higher growth in attendance, followed by building new or additional ministry space at the same site where the church is located. Churches that expanded in those two ways experienced significantly higher levels of growth in average worship attendance over a five-year period, according to the pastors surveyed.

It's an interesting study worth looking at. Read the study first at Lifeway Research and at The Christian Post.

This study actually includes both opinion questions and the reporting of facts by pastors.

The fact questions included asking pastors if their church had made any of the 7 changes in the last 5 years. We also asked their current average worship attendance and their attendance 5 years ago. The recollection of the church's attendance 5 years ago could be off slightly for some. After all, this was a phone survey, but it should be close in most cases. Overall, we do consider the number of growing churches reported in this study to be a little higher than when annually reported data is available for comparison.

We ran statistical tests on these facts as reported and the first point in the story is related to these tests. The title we released the information with was stated in the negative, "Ministry expansion doesn't automatically lead to attendance growth." The fact is that causality is not something that we can test at all. However, since it is safe for us to rule out causality if there is not even a statistical relationship we felt comfortable stating this as we did in our release.

The opinion questions show that more than two-thirds of Protestant pastors agree (strongly or somewhat) that 5 of the ministry changes we tested "lead to additional growth." Pastors whose churches have actual made that type of change are more likely to agree, and this was true of all 7 we tested.

We wanted to see what the rest of the pastors believe.

It is interesting to note that all pastors did not agree without hesitation. A look at the PowerPoint that is now up on the LifeWay Research website shows that more pastors somewhat agree than strongly agree in all cases. Also, keep in mind our questions did not ask whether the pastors believe this is the only thing that leads to growth. For example, I can understand why many pastors did not want to disagree that you get some visitors when you open a new building and that some stick around.

The statistical tests we ran that showed a real relationship between two of the changes and growth also prove that only a small portion of the attendance growth is explained by the items we tested. There indeed are other things that lead to growth and some of the spiritual things related to growth would never be able to be tested through research.

Jump into the comments below and share your thoughts and experiences. Has expansion of your church led to, or been a result of, growth.

For those of you who came to my talk yesterday, here are the notes I promised. This is from the message I gave at Catalyst church planting lab.

In Matthew 16, Jesus' relationship with His disciples takes a dramatic turn. Until now, the disciples were expecting a front row seat as Jesus fully ushered in His Kingdom. And on the surface, that made a lot of sense.

We have a King... check. We have a Kingdom... check. Let's get this show on the road and restore the Kingdom, right?! Not exactly.

At this time, Jesus introduces a new element. He tells them about you and me-- the church. What in the world is that?

Continue reading Keys to Kingdom Church Planting.

Have you ever wondered about the terminology of megachurch and gigachurch? I did-- and I asked around.

The first term that was widely used was actually "Superchurch." Elmer Towns was the most common user and popularizer of that term and most early megachurch research used that term.

Thanks to Warren Bird, Director of Research at Leadership Network, who wrote his Ph.D. on the megachurch phenomenon, I know the origin of the word "megachurch."

meg•a•church n. A church averaging 2,000 or more people in attendance during weekly worship gatherings.

Frequent readers of this blog will know of my appreciation for Francis Dubose as the first person to use the word "missional" in the manner we do today. My "Meanings of Missional" series spends much time with Dubose.

Well, quite to my surprise, his is the first printed reference to the word "megachurch." You can find that in Francis DuBose, How Churches Grow in an Urban World, Nashville, TN, USA: Broadman Press, 1978.

But, it was megachurch uber-researcher John Vaughn who first used the term to refer to churches over 2000 in weekly attendance. (The 2000-mark is the standard today thanks to John's influence.) And, he is the first to use it in a book title, Megachurches and America's Cities: How Churches Grow (1993).

Also, in 1991, Prepare Your Church for the Future (by Carl George with Warren Bird, Revell, 1991) helped popularize the word megachurch. The book was based on some popular training Carl had done with pastors from America's largest churches for the 3 prior years. That book quickly sold over 100,000 copies, which no doubt helped popularize the word

What about gigachurch?

gig•a•church n. A church averaging 10,000 or more people in attendance during weekly worship gatherings.

Well, actually, I first saw the term used by Missouri Synod Lutheran and World Magazine editor Gene Edward Veith in an article here.

Veith expressed great enthusiasm for his newly coined word, explaining:

I realize that I have just coined a new word--the giga-church--deriving from a parallel with computer technology, in which megabytes of memory grew exponentially into gigabytes. The word "gigachurch" for metastasizing megachurches deserves wide currency. Use it and let's see if it catches on. If you hear the word elsewhere, please report, and remember that you saw it first on the Cranach blog.

But, in his comment section, one of his astute readers pointed out that it was Bill Easum who first used the word. I emailed Bill to be sure and it was the case, and he confirmed it.

The first mention I could find was in a Washington Post story that explained:

Where megachurch refers to congregations with an average of 2,000 or more worshipers every weekend, gigachurch refers to those with 10,000 or more, said Texas-based church consultant Bill Easum...

Special note: most researchers who use the word "megachurch" don't like the term "gigachurch."

Come back later today for one more megachurch interview.

(The graphic about is a Wordle of my first post of megachurch week.)