Your Church Can Thrive: Making the Connections That Build Healthy Congregations

by Harold Percy

How is your church going to grow? Will it grow by fine-tuning worship, the preaching, the Christian education programs, and the like? Or will it grow by making strategic assessments of the people it is most likely to reach and focusing the ministries of the church on the goal of offering the gospel to those people? In this brief, practical book Harold Percy helps congregations answer these critical questions about their mission and ministry.

After assisting the reader with the crucial issue of motivation, Percy lays out the four main groups of people that any congregation can and should seek 1. Those in the pews; 2. Those who walk in; 3. Friends and family of current members; 4. Those who live in the neighborhood. Percy argues that these four types of people represent the congregation's best opportunity to lead people to become committed disciples of Jesus Christ. He offers solid, easy-to-follow advice on how churches can understand the needs of these groups and reach out to them.

Paperback

First published October 1, 2003