High Sundays 4

Like to know more about future trends in your church?

One of the greatest leadership challenges is to predict the future, and the best way to do that is to look at past trends. If your church hasn’t grown in the last 5 years, it is unlikely to double in the next five. At King’s we have always planned for and prayed for an annual increase of 10% - net! Your church will double in 7 years if you achieve this goal. On the basis of this principle King’s will have 2000 attending in 7 years time.

Over the years we have worked out that the leading indicator of growth is the number of ‘Like to Know More’ forms which are handed in at our Welcome Desk on a Sunday. I pray for 5 a week - we have 3 meetings. If we get 5 a week I now know we are going to have 100 more people in a year’s time. This is incredibly helpful information. From this we can then forward project numerical growth which shapes all our forward financial planning. We have a 5 year budget forward projection which helps to shape our staffing needs and our building requirements. All from new connection forms.

In this last year we have had 321 forms, at a retention of 50% - that represents 160 people. Of course some people leave, sometimes that’s a weekly event as well, mostly for good reasons - but from this analysis I am confident that we are continuing to grow and that we will have over 100 more people attending in a year’s time.

When I leave King’s at the end of each Sunday, I am given a report containing the numbers in attendance as compared to last year, and the number of ’Like To Know More’ forms handed in. From this information I can continue to tell King’s is growing – and how fast.