Healthy transfer growth

In a church revitalization, our hope is to be a disciple-making church pointing the lost to Christ. No one wants to have a church full of transfers (Christians who formerly attended other area churches).

However, sometimes transfer growth is a necessity. In sports, teams that lack key players or strength in certain positions make trades to secure and fill in the holes in their rosters. Church replants, usually with only a few core people to help the pastor, may need members from other churches to come alongside them and help them grow and thrive.

The struggle to build for growth

In church revitalizations, we meet people coming through our doors, and we are excited at the possibility of what might be as we learn their interests, skills and gifts. When I took the pastorate at Legacy Church, formally First Baptist Church of Sutton, we were excited that an old friend and bandmate of mine came along to be our worship leader. We had a few musicians visit and a young couple stayed and formed a small worship team with him. After a year, they were all gone for various reasons. Where we saw hope of rebirth, we now had a fear of failure.

We had nine people, and I was now serving as worship leader, lead pastor and men’s ministry director. My wife and I prayed earnestly, asking for God to bring us some mature and seasoned followers of His that could plug into these spots. That would mean transfer growth for a time and season. In baseball speech, we would need “moneyball” Christians.

“Moneyball” Christians

In the early 2000s, Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane developed a system that soon all teams would follow called “moneyball.” Rather than look at a player’s normal statistics, he looked at a number of different stats to show how unlikely guys were key to winning games. This system helped the Red Sox, White Sox and Chicago Cubs end 86, 87, and 108-year championship droughts. Plugging in experienced players with different strengths to help teams become stronger in the long run.

We had two experienced worship leaders on our radar, but neither chose to stay. We felt frustrated as we had over 150 visitors in 2018, but no one was sticking around. Finally a member invited a friend, who decided to follow Jesus, and then a family of four came the following week. Over the next six months we grew a little every other month. We had three baptisms in the summer, then lost a family of five to a move, before adding one, then two. A few of these people were from other churches, and God was now using “moneyball” to help us.

“Moneyball” in the church

The first family had trouble finding a church after moving into the area. They tried several congregations, looking for a place their children with special needs could feel comfortable. My wife is a certified teacher/director in Massachusetts and knew how to make the kids feel at home in church. They were also musicians and formed a small worship team with me.

Next, a young lady looking for a church joined us. She has administration skills and a warm personality, so she jumped right into greeting and has now become our first impressions director. A seasoned couple brought needed gifts, too. The husband has experience as a pastoral aide and has become our first deacon, and the wife has experience running a kitchen. Finally, another couple with experience leading worship began attending.

We shouldn’t be poaching

Before someone leaves a church, every effort should be made toward reconciliation. Even if a small church needs people to fill roles, we shouldn’t cannibalize another church. Mediate if possible, but remember that sometimes a church isn’t a good fit for certain people, such as when there is a disagreement about theological beliefs or a different philosophy about ministry than new leadership.

In those cases, the healthy thing is for a person or family to look for another church that will be the right fit for them. Yes, it will be difficult to leave, but by placing plants in new pots, we might see them grow and flourish. We are also reminded of this principle in Acts 15 when we see that Paul and Barnabas split sharply over John Mark. Later in life, Paul wrote to Timothy to “Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry.” (2 Tim. 4:11) Further, Paul was known for sending people from one church to another to help churches out in areas of need.

While that isn’t how we would see it in some cases, we also must stop and ask if God might be moving people who are not a good fit to build a smaller church in need? We can see where God may and does use transfer growth to accomplish His mission in churches to reach people with the Gospel message.

Don McKinnon is the pastor of Legacy Church in Sutton, MA, co-host of the Church Revitalization podcast and blogs at www.donmckinnon.com.