Everyone is talking about hitting a 5% conversion rate but who’s actually doing it? Our latest survey of 85 churches across 10 denominations shows the numbers are better than expected. This episode breaks down what’s working, what’s stalling, and what churches are missing in their mission efforts.
Key points:
- Church plants are punching above their weight and why they lead in conversions
- Growth stalls between 200–400 people and how to break through it
- More small groups and serving won’t fix your mission problem
- Why size of your church, not age, might be dragging your evangelism down
- Real stories behind the stats: who’s walking into church and finding faith
TOOL BOX:
Reach Australia National Conference
Ep 391 10 Denominations, 60 Churches, 1 Report: Key Takeaways
Leadership Development Program
CREDITS:
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The One Thing is brought to you by Reach Australia
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TRANSCRIPT:
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
00;00;11;17 – 00;00;12;05
Derek
Good. I am very.
00;00;12;05 – 00;00;14;08
Peter B
Calm and I’m Peter Blanch.
00;00;14;10 – 00;00;32;13
Derek
Under the one thing the podcast is on to give you one solid practical tip for gospel centered ministry. The one thing is brought to you by Reach Australia. Our vision is to see thousands of healthy, evangelistic and multiplying churches. And speaking of multiplying. Hey, Blaine, I’ve just got off the back of plan to boot camp or plant is six plants.
00;00;32;13 – 00;00;41;23
Derek
Plant is coming together. And we aim to talk about the churches they’re hoping to evangelize into existence. Now, you planted a church in Wagga a couple of years ago.
00;00;41;26 – 00;00;46;15
Peter B
Yep. Back in, 2007. So I just saw just yesterday. Feels like.
00;00;46;17 – 00;00;48;26
Derek
Today. Yeah. Did you ever plan a boot camp back then?
00;00;48;28 – 00;01;03;29
Peter B
No. We didn’t. It would have been a goldmine for us. I look back at planting and thinking that it was the gathering with our planters and then helping through all sorts of situations that I didn’t know I was going to face. That was really good.
00;01;04;05 – 00;01;05;17
Derek
Yeah. Do you have a coach?
00;01;05;22 – 00;01;22;27
Peter B
I didn’t have a coach. One of the great things I had, though, wasn’t I don’t know if this is a bit of advice to give, but I remember someone giving me advice saying, Peter, if you’re gonna plant a church, plant it when you’re young. Because you’ll be naive. Yeah. And you won’t know exactly what is needed to do it, and you’ll just throw yourself into it and I’ll say, yep, that’s exactly what happened.
00;01;22;29 – 00;01;33;15
Peter B
But it is always best to go in. Listen, I even more, way more boot camp is really helpful for that. If you’re old and you’re about to play the church, if you’re in your 50s, it’s still possible. I know guys who are doing it. Get out there and do it.
00;01;33;19 – 00;01;52;17
Derek
You’re doing amazing job. Yeah. Look, I think the beauty of, boot camp is hearing these guys, share their stories at heart. So who they’re trying to reach and just sharpen each other. So amazing. But one of the things we’re going to talk about as well, the thing we are talking about today is network learning. So, and that’s going to be talking about, the impact of church plans as well as the established church on here.
00;01;52;24 – 00;02;06;21
Derek
And so for now, you’ve pressed play on another episode of the one thing, 86 churches, ten denominations in two countries. And what have we learned? The Network Learning survey.
00;02;06;23 – 00;02;30;21
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00;02;30;23 – 00;02;34;22
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And now back to the podcast.
00;02;34;25 – 00;02;43;20
Derek
Hey, we’ve done three webinars just to feed that back. We’ve gathered information from a whole bunch of churches. What is a network learning survey? Why do we do it?
00;02;43;23 – 00;03;06;05
Peter B
They work learning. So I is where churches within our network give us some. Well, they’re high level data points. They’re really just six data points that we ask regularly of churches every six months to give us a feel of the state of a nation of Christianity at any given point in time. This is only the third time we’ve done it.
00;03;06;07 – 00;03;24;16
Peter B
86 churches feel that that’s I mean, we’d love to see 860 churches. Finally, if we got that many churches doing it, our thoughts about the trends that we’re noticing, we’d have more, more clarity. But we ask you, 86 is still a good number of churches from all the states and territories of Australia. I think by the Northern Territory.
00;03;24;16 – 00;03;44;06
Peter B
A couple of New Zealanders have also jumped in, but it does give us a great chance to take stock. Think about it from not a state, but from data. Just say what? What are some things that we can notice that’s happening across the country, whether that be for good or we think this area needs improving, but it’s great to get a snapshot at a moment in time.
00;03;44;06 – 00;03;47;13
Peter B
What’s happening? This is what the survey is giving us time to reflect on.
00;03;47;14 – 00;04;05;00
Derek
Yep. So this is the, April to October or thereabouts. So we do the other one, pay reference here as we do on from, the October to, to around April, May. And that one is often a larger one because all the people who come to the national conference that’s in my next region try to accommodate you.
00;04;05;00 – 00;04;17;05
Derek
Go and sign up. Everyone comes to National Conference. We encourage it. So it’s a larger sample size, but this one is often just at churches, isn’t it. Now just give gives a, high level peace prize as big plus as.
00;04;17;08 – 00;04;37;04
Peter B
You’ve seen at this. You know, I think from those 86 churches, over a six month period, they’re reporting to us, 557 people have been converted to Christ. And I just look at that and go, that is fantastic. If if you’re listening to this and that doesn’t excite you, it should excite you. That’s just over a six month period.
00;04;37;04 – 00;04;56;27
Peter B
Those 86 churches, if I had a very similar six months at the start of your, to get an annual figure like you looking over 1100 people coming to Christ through those 86 churches, they’re sure in that in their in our survey, we we’re surveying people who are, many of whom are like minded, who really have a heart for lost people.
00;04;56;29 – 00;05;16;14
Peter B
And you can see that people with that kind of heart leading churches in this direction, that is just really exciting. One of one of the things that did surprise me and, is a real source of great joy for us is that, when we ask about conversions, there’s kind of two angles to that. We ask, who are the people who are having their very first time confession of faith?
00;05;16;17 – 00;05;37;11
Peter B
Who are they? Have any of those kind of conversions? Have you had. But yeah, having reading the scriptures and thinking about the particle sons and daughters of the world who are people who are actually involved with the church? Maybe, maybe it’s been five years ago, ten years, but it definitely over five years since I’ve been involved regularly with a church who is a part prodigal son coming home.
00;05;37;13 – 00;05;52;24
Peter B
Well analyzed, 557 people over that six month period. Only 1 in 6. The reporting as the day church. The particles aren’t coming home, which means five six of them are the first time confession of five era. Yeah, that is.
00;05;52;24 – 00;05;53;26
Derek
Just amazing.
00;05;54;00 – 00;05;54;06
Peter B
That is.
00;05;54;06 – 00;06;17;09
Derek
Amazing. Yeah. I think particularly when there is a narrative, and has been for many years, that it’s like plowing concrete. And, people are oppositional to the government, to the gospel. And that’s true that, you know, God is the only one who can say if he can only bring you life, people will by their very nature oppose Jesus, just like I will and like you will.
00;06;17;16 – 00;06;25;20
Derek
But God is gracious in His Spirit. But what we see here is that God is being incredibly gracious at the moment in drawing people back to himself in their.
00;06;25;22 – 00;06;45;00
Peter B
I’m often on consultants in my responsibilities of Church Australia. Just reminding Peter of two people, of two Peter chapter three that the whole reason God is delaying the return of Christ is what he’s doing is just giving people more people, the time they need to come to their repentance. And it’s it’s a it’s a very gracious work of he’s an ongoing work of his.
00;06;45;00 – 00;07;00;08
Peter B
It was the sun rises up tomorrow. He’ll be doing it again. Yeah. But people are generally God is giving them the time to come to repentance. We’re seeing people coming to repentance. And God is calling is is drawing people to himself. It is like saying that kind of detail to me just came. Right. That’ll keep me out for the next 15 years.
00;07;00;08 – 00;07;00;14
Peter B
And it.
00;07;00;14 – 00;07;01;26
Derek
Works quite.
00;07;01;28 – 00;07;02;05
Peter B
Well.
00;07;02;05 – 00;07;21;06
Derek
I wouldn’t say it’s every six months, but a big long as well. And we use, you know, in our consults, and with our churches, we have a kind of, in there. They’re all indicators. So they need narrative around. But the indicators around the evangelistic impact, often we’re saying to churches, look, a really healthy evangelistic impact is between 3 and 5%.
00;07;21;06 – 00;07;37;25
Derek
That is. Yeah, for every 100 people. If you can say 3 to 5 people become Christians, every year for each hundred people, that’s amazing. Obviously we want as many as we can, but that’s in some churches it’s been zero 1%. But what is the percentage in this six months you’ve seen?
00;07;37;25 – 00;08;00;21
Peter B
Well, we’ve seen it’s well over six months. It’s 2.4% to 2.4 people. Yeah. Who ever the point for is about 2.4 people over six months if you any annualize that. So that’s looking really at 4.8% close to 5% conversion rate for these 86 churches. Now that is just yeah, we just think that that’s above what we would imagine be a healthy benchmark.
00;08;00;22 – 00;08;01;13
Derek
Yeah.
00;08;01;15 – 00;08;19;13
Peter B
Always is. We’re saying that recognizing God’s sovereignly drawing people to himself. But God does seem to be using churches that are urgent for the lost prepared for them. I would have follow them up and ground them in the faith that God is sending them people to be converted is genuinely exciting. Yeah, yeah, it’s one thing, Derek, to hear the numbers, right?
00;08;19;13 – 00;08;38;11
Peter B
They’re just numbers on a Bible. They’re not just numbers on a page. It’s a point. I’m trying to make it behind every one of those 550 conversions are real people with real stories. Can you just give a few? What’s a couple of stories? Just out of the 457, what are a couple of stories?
00;08;38;14 – 00;08;48;28
Derek
I’m just going to give 300 stories. No one got look until all of them. Now look, I’ll give two. One is from, exchange shirt and Shepperton. There’s Todd. Laurel, I played it. Oh.
00;08;49;02 – 00;08;49;25
Peter B
What was it?
00;08;49;27 – 00;09;05;08
Derek
It would have been over ten years ago. I think I should look that up. Sorry. Todd. And Laurel is listening. But I was just talking Todd the other day. He’s trying to, He’s always trying to see the gospel spring for somewhere else. But this is a story. That young guy, Malachi, come to the church just out of the blue doing you 12.
00;09;05;15 – 00;09;24;15
Derek
This desire to, to work out who Jesus was for him. No previous gospel background. His family just wanted to know more about life, who Jesus was. He’s been coming for the last five months. So that’s just a guy. And that story there of these young men, who, out of the blue, it seems like.
00;09;24;15 – 00;09;25;22
Derek
So now God’s been working.
00;09;25;24 – 00;09;26;08
Peter B
Yeah, yeah.
00;09;26;13 – 00;09;31;23
Derek
Just, exploring meaning and purpose and finding Jesus. I’m hearing that story again and again.
00;09;31;23 – 00;09;47;25
Peter B
And that is so exciting, isn’t it? Because I think there’s been a narrative for quite some time where people have been saying, these young men, other people have been walking out of our churches for decades. What can I say? What’s happening there? Shepherd is actually being repeated in numerous spots across the country. Young men are walking in the church.
00;09;47;25 – 00;10;15;01
Derek
Yeah, they absolutely are. Yeah. Let me tell you one more. Yep. All Saints Mitcham, this is, Anglican church in Melbourne. Great Wongs down there like this, Christmas 2024. They encourage the congregation be a little bit more proactive in having the, the gospel looks to people. One of the elderly members in the congregation, having to have, a sister in law that she handed one to, not realizing that that person was related to someone in church.
00;10;15;06 – 00;10;36;01
Derek
Later in January, she was struggling with pregnancy. Pains, decided to read the whole gospel because she heard him talk about God and praying in times of need. She read the gospel message. Greg Grace wife and said it was amazing and she wanted to become a Christian. And so they said they baptized her. And he had a new nephew at the same time, I think, though different ceremonies, those two things.
00;10;36;01 – 00;10;38;12
Derek
But, she certainly got baptized.
00;10;38;15 – 00;10;55;29
Peter B
It’s so good. It is just so good to hear those stories. And we could go on for the other 400, 557 of them. Yeah. But it’s it’s such an important thing to hear those stories. Now, you might be listening to this going, oh, wish that was me in my church. I wish we were seeing these kind of conversions and effects, you guys.
00;10;56;02 – 00;11;15;10
Peter B
Yeah. Well of course, keep praying that and keep working towards that. We’ve actually got some thoughts about later on about, these trends and how to make the most of them. It’s, it’s one thing to say, if it’s not happening in your neck of the woods, it’s not because the gospel is not the power of God to save it.
00;11;15;10 – 00;11;24;08
Peter B
Clearly, it’s we’re in this together. We are better. Together we are. We certainly want to reach the country. There’s a long way to go. And, keeping it hanging there. Keep working at.
00;11;24;15 – 00;11;45;14
Derek
Any in all these churches. I wanna talk to you about Trinity in second, but didn’t all these shirts as well. What we’re seeing is people, not try and force God’s hand in this. But it’s been long years of taking ownership over the way in which they shepherd and lead people in order to be able to present the gospel, to people clearly and to mobilize a church or, and have confidence in the gospel.
00;11;45;15 – 00;11;55;06
Derek
Yeah. So this is these are years in the making, this. But let’s just talk about, the recent outcomes in this what trends and conversions did you see when some of this research.
00;11;55;09 – 00;12;20;16
Peter B
Yeah. One of the things we’re seeing is that, church, you heard us talk. These tell this story a number of times. If you’ve been listening to the one thing for some time that it is that new churches do reach new people and that church plants mission outcomes are healthy. It’s actually worth saying that the mission rates that we’re seeing across churches, whether they be established or plans that all of them actually have been healthier than we are anticipating.
00;12;20;19 – 00;12;40;16
Peter B
So this is not a negative story. Everything’s everything is really quite healthy. For in the, in the churches that were surveyed, but certainly plants were had a higher percentage of people coming to faith. And so it’s important to notice that. But one of Tracy noticed that was we were able to pull out because we did have 86 churches now doing the survey.
00;12;40;16 – 00;13;10;17
Peter B
We were able to pull out churches who were plants or were plants. More than five years ago, and to give us a chance to see what’s their conversion rates now that they’ve probably more now into our heading into that established church twice, I guess while churches in the first five years of planting do seem to have higher rates of conversions, bear fruit, it is interesting that it does dip back down again once it’s beyond the five year mark to what is more of a normal established church, right?
00;13;10;19 – 00;13;23;17
Peter B
It’s worth noticing that because part of me wants to know what’s happening in that first, in those first few years. Can we borrow that? How what’s what’s going on there? Why did why does it deep. What’s the reasoning there? I mean, have you given any thought to that theory?
00;13;23;20 – 00;13;40;17
Derek
Yeah. It gives me. Why could not that one. Look, I think the numbers actually suggest after three years, it begins to dip a little bit back and normalize with established churches. I think there’s probably a few things in there, to say. There’s a few things we need to research. One is I think things get complex after that.
00;13;40;21 – 00;14;00;08
Derek
There’s still clarity of vision and mission. You’ve you’ve grown to the point where attention is being diverted, possibly to building and maintaining other structures and other pastoral needs within there. And so the eye may get taken off the ball of mission a little bit. You’ve incorporated people who may not quite have had the same, missional DNA is the launch team would have had.
00;14;00;08 – 00;14;22;09
Derek
So I think that can affect it. But the questions we want to ask with any, which is why are we asking ongoing questions as a network is, had a size effect this as well. Like we’re going to add that dimension into this. Is it not just age, but is it size? Is that one of the factors, does it differ as well in location, regional, city or suburban?
00;14;22;11 – 00;14;37;26
Derek
New growth, brownfields, all those kind of ones. But yeah, it’s it’s so helpful to have it because as you said, there’s some encouraging things in there, but it just helps us ask the question, how is it we keep mission at the forefront of what we do through these stages, through these times, in all locations?
00;14;37;27 – 00;15;01;01
Peter B
I think that’s one of the things we clearly see is it’s those who are very intentional about the mission that God is sending them people to be saved. It’s it’s excellent, actually. Another thing we have noticed here is that and I would definitely say a bit more deeper a little bit later in the in this podcast. But, conversion rates do seem to dip for churches that are kind of between the 204 hundred and attendance mark.
00;15;01;01 – 00;15;11;11
Peter B
Yeah, we are noticing that what is interesting is that while it does dip at that point, it then starts to beyond 400. It it it actually gets a bit more traction.
00;15;11;11 – 00;15;11;19
Derek
Yeah.
00;15;11;20 – 00;15;30;18
Peter B
So there’s something that’s going on in the complexity in the and the complexity, the difficulty, the, the, the changes that need to happen to get through the 200 growth barrier. Churches are going through a lot. If you’re in that phase and you might be listening, are you in that phase going? Yes. Mission sometimes dips at that point.
00;15;30;18 – 00;15;41;11
Peter B
But if you can work through Will and we’ll get through to the kind of things that need to be paid attention to, it does seem to be some very good fruit when things are clear up. And and growth continues. Yeah.
00;15;41;11 – 00;15;42;22
Derek
Yep. Absolutely. Yeah.
00;15;42;29 – 00;16;01;16
Peter B
Now, what about plants, Derek? Just from the survey, we, we kind of we’ve just focused a little bit on some mission kind of trends. We’re seeing plants go well, we’re seeing across the board go, well, we’re we’re actually seeing churches between 200 and 400 deep. But what about just, plants in general? What do we know seeing about church plants in a survey?
00;16;01;18 – 00;16;18;20
Derek
Yeah, some of the things again, some of those. Yeah. For hunches about this stuff. Yeah. And the data is helpful because it either confirms that or tells, you know, you you’re off the fairies. But the, the thing we, we have always had a hunch handful of was more visitors go through the doors of church plants. That’s what we’ve always thought.
00;16;18;20 – 00;16;38;06
Derek
There’s a high tentative right as we’ve been doing consults with churches. Generally we would cite churches, established churches, pick your biggest Sunday or your average attendance on Sunday. And that’s probably how many visitors throughout the year we get people in church. You probably want genuine visit, hundred, we would assume plants would have more. And what we saw in the data was that was true.
00;16;38;12 – 00;17;00;09
Derek
Church plants have, quite significantly more noticeably more visitors through the door. Even after, they’ve hit that three full five year. So there’s a bit more of a bring rotational culture in there. Now that that does differ in locations for Sabbath churches, like if you’re a cathedral in the city, you can have a heaps of visitors through, by a church, certainly head high.
00;17;00;12 – 00;17;17;26
Derek
But in terms of the other stats, we we looked at small groups and serving there wasn’t a noticeable difference between plants in established churches in those ones. So really the the differences between plants in the first few years and established churches were a high conversion rate. Yep. Plants and more people through the door or people.
00;17;17;29 – 00;17;34;21
Peter B
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Which is again, we just kind of keep reminding ourselves new churches, they genuinely do reach new people. Yeah, yeah, it’s got to be part of a strategy to reach the country that if we’re not planting new churches particularly, we we will see the bit later on does have many in the, in the kind of greenfields areas as well.
00;17;34;21 – 00;17;44;04
Peter B
Yeah. But greenfields suburban Australia, I’ve actually everywhere there’s people getting mission fruit. But we do need to plant significantly more churches I think so, and it’s exciting time to do so.
00;17;44;05 – 00;18;05;02
Derek
It is. And and that’s a thing as well wind because the new growth areas they’re nearly always plants. Yeah. Because that’s the definition. They need new church in there. So they are reaching more people seem more visitors. But we did see an established churches, brownfields because a lot of them too, that were that were just kicking goals in terms of having people through and seeing people converted as well.
00;18;05;04 – 00;18;15;27
Derek
Can you just talk to us because you, you do a lot of work with, established churches and, and church leaders in that space. Just talk a little bit about the relationship between mission and small groups. And so, yeah, this is.
00;18;15;27 – 00;18;48;26
Peter B
A fascinating part of a survey where we because we there’s not too many data points we’re getting, but we do get data points on obviously mission outcomes, but small small groups and serving. And we’ve just been thinking about this question of is there a link that if a church has really great mission outcomes, does it mean is it doing a lot of heavy lifting in their church and therefore, the fruitfulness and the healthiness of the service area, the healthiness of the newcomer area, the front door, the healthiness of the small groups that these are actually it follows that.
00;18;48;27 – 00;19;09;06
Peter B
Are they necessarily healthy as well? What’s what’s interesting in that is that churches with good, healthy mission rates, those with less healthy mission rates, the numbers of people in small groups or percentages of people in small groups in that percentages of people serving actually is pretty similar across the board, no matter what your mission fruit is. That’s all it is for.
00;19;09;06 – 00;19;31;23
Peter B
I find that interesting. It demystifies a couple of things for me. There was some time recently ago where there was an idea that, well, to get mission traction in your church, people are doing way too much. Yeah. What we need to do is to drop back how much people are serving, how much people are doing for church in order to free up their time to spend with the unbelievers in their life.
00;19;32;00 – 00;19;50;26
Peter B
And that way, as a church will see far more mission fruit happen. I think this kind of data demystifies that, that, that that’s actually not true. Yeah. I think what happens is people who give themselves to mission. So people who give themselves in serving others, who who are regular at small groups, they’re actually getting discipled in both of those settings.
00;19;50;26 – 00;20;05;25
Peter B
To my actually, it’s amazing how much discipleship happens when you serve shoulder to shoulder with someone, but they’re getting discipled. They’re getting they’re getting taught well. They’re getting reminded of the kingdom of God and its urgency. And I think those people are getting spurred on to do mission well.
00;20;05;28 – 00;20;06;19
Derek
Yeah.
00;20;06;21 – 00;20;24;10
Peter B
And so it’s not a did I drop get people to significantly drop what they’re doing so that I can give more to missional. I think that’s a myth. Busy people who are in Christian, who are in churches, who are giving themselves. So these things are actually they’re doing just as much mission work as the one that I buy into that myth.
00;20;24;12 – 00;20;25;22
Derek
Yeah.
00;20;25;25 – 00;20;55;19
Peter B
That’s that that that’s not happening. The, the important thing here, though, is that if you’re nervous about dropping some of rate some of your resources in your ministry, that you think if I’m going to give more to mission, more resources and time and energy and money to mission, that if we do that as a church or their small groups are really going to suffer and our serving is really going to drop because we’re putting too much resource into that part of part of church life, the mission, part church life going, you know what?
00;20;55;22 – 00;21;10;24
Peter B
I think you can devote quite a lot of resources to mission. And there are surveys actually showing that where you have your small groups and you’re serving is probably going to say pretty much the same. Yeah, yeah. And so, if you’re nervous about that, I’d want to say to you that you’re okay. Now give more resource to mission.
00;21;10;26 – 00;21;31;20
Peter B
I don’t think the results are saying you are. At least these are higher level numbers right there is a lot more to small groups and just mere tendency. There’s a lot more to saving than just numbers on a page at this point. But certainly at this higher level. We’re saying we’re saying give resources to mission. You’re small groups and you’re serving don’t appear to suffer if you do to do it.
00;21;31;24 – 00;21;32;12
Derek
If you bring.
00;21;32;12 – 00;21;33;10
Peter B
Energy to mission.
00;21;33;12 – 00;21;40;17
Derek
Now we’re hurtling towards the end. But anything you’ve mentioned before, the 2 to 400. But anything you want to say around church size.
00;21;40;20 – 00;22;00;13
Peter B
Yeah. Church size that that is that has been a fascinating piece of it. The dip that it’s got there are around release of the mission outcomes. The dip around 200 to 400 it regardless of size. It’s worth saying the the newcomer rates are all healthy regardless of size. Actually it’s very it’s great to see that it’s again reminder that man keep inviting people to church.
00;22;00;13 – 00;22;20;01
Peter B
People are willing to come. You come a visitor rates are high. They are in place, but they height they high everywhere. Certainly small groups across the board planned or established church. No matter what you size, no matter where you are in a country, location wise, that’s all roughly the same. It’s it’s reasonably healthy. Crosses 8686 church. It’s same these same we’ve serving.
00;22;20;03 – 00;22;46;27
Peter B
We’ll always love to see more people in small groups and more people serving. So it could be better. Don’t don’t don’t get us going. We’re all done. Pack up. That night I gave you energy and time that that kind of resourcing. There’s still work to be done, but, we are seeing across the board, size wise, those kind of numbers, really reasonably consistent where we do see the dip, which is the one I’m focused on here is the mission one for churches between 200 to 400.
00;22;47;00 – 00;22;52;17
Peter B
And it’s worth us asking the question to give us a network.
00;22;52;20 – 00;23;02;02
Peter B
What’s happening there? Are these churches losing mission focus. Why? Why is 200 to 400 seem to be a bottleneck? And once you get past 400, it does seem to pick up.
00;23;02;06 – 00;23;03;10
Derek
Yeah.
00;23;03;13 – 00;23;07;01
Peter B
Yeah. We’ve got some thoughts in that, Derek, if you share some thoughts.
00;23;07;01 – 00;23;14;19
Derek
Well, no, my thoughts aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, how will they not written on at the moment. What’s been really helpful in feeding this back to the network we’ve had if you want.
00;23;14;20 – 00;23;15;06
Peter B
To.
00;23;15;08 – 00;23;31;26
Derek
Is at each of these points, that we’ve put this up, we’ve said, yeah, here’s what it says. We’re not quite sure how to interpret it. Each of the wise people on the webinar, I’ve pushed into it in different ways. And that’s been really helpful, actually, because I draw some conclusions. Then I hear them speak and I think, oh, no, I’m not quite sure.
00;23;31;28 – 00;23;49;03
Derek
So I think, I think what I want to say is I need more longitudinal data, but I want to keep throwing it back out to the network. This question saying, are you seeing what we’re seeing? What’s happening in there? Because it may it may be that we just need to help people push through that 200 to 400 mark and we’ll see missional, fruit.
00;23;49;08 – 00;24;07;07
Derek
And maybe we can just help them work in that 2 to 400 mark in a more missional way as for whatever reason, venue, whatever. So I just I want to be really careful with this, not to build a narrative in my head. Of one sample of data. But the beauty of this network is we’re doing this every six months, so we’re going to save.
00;24;07;07 – 00;24;31;17
Peter B
It for the Anthony. Yep, yep. But it certainly does feel that’s a one of the one of the hunches I think we’ve got is that, very some organizational things about very clear pathways systems for me from for mission that revolve less around, a gifted one, one individual to a, to a mission engineer that’s less reliant on just one person.
00;24;31;20 – 00;25;00;29
Peter B
I create, like I said, a clear pathway, reproducible system, team based ministries, lots of people bearing responsibilities, a good distributed, team based leadership, these kinds of things that help a church actually get through the 2 to 400 mark, actually. Then once they are in place, it does seem to supercharge various elements of their mission. Yeah, if that it is worth persevering with some larger changes in those in that size of church, because the fruit in the long run will be will be there.
00;25;01;00 – 00;25;40;14
Peter B
Yep. There. I’m actually talking about these. Derek’s thinking, some people might be listening. This guy, man, my church of 70 people. I wish we had 400 people there because I wish we had 200. Yeah. This is not just, what we’re noticing, though, is that at any size level, given we’re seeing good missional fruit, across the board, in some ways is to say the intentionality being very deliberate, being urgent, making sure that you’ve got things in place so that anyone who comes to your church, who’s not a Christian can know where they can hear about Jesus, have very clear things to do in order to put their faith in Christ for
00;25;40;14 – 00;25;49;26
Peter B
the first time. A strong follow up system, that kind of intentional, deliberate, urgent work is bearing fruit no matter what the church. So yeah.
00;25;49;28 – 00;25;51;27
Derek
Absolutely. I mean, yeah, yeah.
00;25;51;27 – 00;25;58;03
Peter B
So getting there and and do that kind of stuff. What about location? What do we learn about location? I found this interesting.
00;25;58;03 – 00;26;20;12
Derek
Yeah, yeah. Look, just very briefly on that one, across the board, we are seeing people reaching out or regional, suburban brownfield, Greenfield. What probably was noticeable in the conversion space was churches in the city. Finding it tricky. Yeah, particularly in the inner city areas, low conversion rates there, although high numbers often.
00;26;20;14 – 00;26;36;22
Derek
But it’s hard work in the cities, and we know that from our network. But as interesting as I thought, it said, because I had a few churches in my head as I was reading through, I think they actually outreaching quite a few people as well. And so it might have just been the six month period. But certainly, a lot of people in brownfields are being reached.
00;26;36;25 – 00;26;44;12
Derek
Obviously, new growth areas, regional are to add cities were probably finding it the tricky tricky. Yeah.
00;26;44;12 – 00;26;47;03
Peter B
It’s no surprise that the greenfields have the highest, but yeah.
00;26;47;03 – 00;26;48;12
Derek
People searching. Yep.
00;26;48;15 – 00;26;57;02
Peter B
Look at. But it’s so critical that our inner city churches are doing well, doing good work, doing good ministry. There’s so many people that live there. Yeah, the work there.
00;26;57;04 – 00;26;59;06
Derek
Yeah. Absolutely.
00;26;59;08 – 00;27;02;21
Peter B
There are certainly some, complexities to it.
00;27;02;24 – 00;27;21;28
Derek
Yeah, there is. And again, I just want to keep us keep asking the question first. All be encouraged by what God’s doing. Unbelievable stuff across the country, in the churches that report back just these, these 560 odd people, people who were spending eternity one place and now are spending eternity with Christ. So I want to give thanks to that.
00;27;22;00 – 00;27;40;13
Derek
And as a network, we just want to keep together asking question, how do we continue to support each other in this pursuit to proclaim the gospel faithfully, to see people reach for Christ? So, Pete, let me ask you, what’s the one thing that churches should be learning from each other out of the results of this network lending survey?
00;27;40;14 – 00;27;56;27
Peter B
That’s easy for me to say, Derek. There is never, ever been a better time to do the difficult and ongoing work of evangelism than right now. Right now is a golden time to do mission work. We are seeing great fruit in this space. And so the one thing I’ve got is a get to it. Get on with it.
00;27;56;27 – 00;28;11;04
Peter B
Yeah. Get out there. Yeah. Give you people courage. Give you people, great confidence in the gospel. And there has never been a better time. People are coming to Christ in large numbers. We’d love to see them even larger as quickly as we can.
00;28;11;10 – 00;28;37;11
Derek
Amen. Amen to that. Look, here’s a few things in the toolbox for you. As you, you ponder this, the National Conference, as I mentioned before, is coming up next March and may even, don’t go in March. Going may, these, there’s a plant site. So for people who are planning those first five years or thinking about planning that to Gosford, and there is the established site at EV as well.
00;28;37;12 – 00;29;00;11
Derek
We’ll all come back together on the Wednesday night, but the Tuesday, Wednesday. So go and register for that. There is on the Rich Australia website, a few resources, the denominational 60 churches, one report key takeaway we’ll put a link to that will include some slides from this latest network learning survey. If we can get them that maybe on the show notes for this page.
00;29;00;13 – 00;29;14;04
Derek
And as you look at there’s a couple of other links will put in there as well. I would say one thing on the, on the network learning survey next year as we come to the National comments when you do this, and we would love to open it up to everyone who’s listening to this to do it.
00;29;14;07 – 00;29;26;19
Derek
Part of this is churches paying attention to some of these pieces, but, look out for it. Next April, we’ll start asking people to feed into this data set, so that we can report it back to you and see what God is doing across the country.
00;29;26;22 – 00;29;47;07
Peter B
And just one last thing there, Derek, which is if you’re in those zones of trying to be more intentional and grow your church through various crisis, growth blockages or size blockages, get along to our Reach Australia Leadership Development program. If you’re an established church, get along to a boot camp. If you want to want to plant a church, we’d love to love to help people grow through these through these areas.
00;29;47;07 – 00;30;14;02
Derek
Yep. Absolutely. Well, if you’ve found this helpful, do is five pass it around, pass it on to someone. But, in the meantime, I’m Derek Hannah, I’m Peter blanch. Same son. So the script is at the top reading from the script. Okay, good. I am host, just a little Ron Burgundy joke there.
00;30;14;04 – 00;30;17;07
Peter B
And I’m Peter Blanch.
00;30;17;09 – 00;30;18;02
Derek
Yes. What’s going on here?
