Several years ago, I wrote that I believe multiplication is God’s preferred math formula. Every living thing that God created, He created to grow and to reproduce (multiply). None of God’s living creations will grow indefinitely. But all are designed to reproduce themselves. These are natural growth tendencies of all things living. One more of the biotic – natural growth principles is Multiplication.

Multiplication: Interestingly, every definition I looked up of the word multiplication, used the word multiply in its definition. Now, I was always taught in school to never use a word in its own definition. So, let’s take another angle. Addition is adding to what is existing. Multiplication is reproducing at higher rates than simply adding. Every living organism that God created He created to reproduce (multiply).

Healthy organisms do not grow endlessly, but reproduce themselves. The church is a living organism therefore it should be considered a living, growing, reproducing creation of God Almighty. Classes reproduce classes, churches reproduce more churches, and a Christian reproduces more Christians. Successful leaders reproduce more leaders.

In everything you do, a basic question to ask each day is, “What am I doing today to reproduce – multiply – what I have and know, in other people?” If you are a teacher, are you reproducing or simply teaching facts? If you are a pastor, how are you reproducing multiple ministers? As a leader, how are you gifting others to produce successful leaders?

Whatever God has given you, He has given to you, not to hold and hoard, but to share to and build others. We are to pour into others what we have gained in knowledge and experience. Then we are to go further and assist others in becoming even greater than ourselves. This was even a practice of Jesus Christ. He said, The Father will do even greater things than these through you (George Yates translation).

Don’t teach to show how much you know. Teach to show how much more someone can grow. Teach them how to go out and find even more than you can give.

And while you’re at it, don’t just choose one person to pour into. That’s addition. God prefers multiplication. Resolve today to multiply yourself. Then go out and get started!

This article was first posted November 2018.

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

“Our community is so tough. They just won’t come.” This is a common statement among churches today. But is it valid? After all, The Great Commission does not say wait for them to come to church. Jesus’ command to us in The Great Commission is to “GO”. As we are walking through life, wherever we find ourselves we are to watch for God’s opportunities to share His Love and His story.

Here are ten different arenas right in your community in which every church can embark.

1, Recreation – what recreation can your church sponsor, participate in, or host in your community. It might be something that is ongoing like a soccer or little league, any children’s sport. It could be an adult bowling or golf event or league. How about fishing tournaments, checkers in the park, marathons, wherever your imagination can take you. It might be simply providing meals for a local high school team or event.

2, Emotional Support – Providing emotional support groups for grief, divorce, addiction recovery, wounded veterans, or others.

3, Arts – Like sports, what are the possibilities of sponsoring art exhibits, clinics, or ongoing classes for music, painting or any of the arts. Why not a music or arts camp in the summer for children?

4, Parental Support – Providing evening seminars or support groups for parenting in general or single parenting is a need in every city, town, and rural community in America. Perhaps a weekly bulletin.

5, Financial Support – Offering budgeting seminars or financial information support for younger or struggling families is a great blessing. Even a monthly newsletter on financial issues families deal with.

6, Education – After school tutoring is needed in every generation. Some cultures insist on after school instruction. Adult education is also a need, as well as English as a second language. Do you have people in your church who could teach basic auto mechanics or carpentry? Education is not only the three Rs.

7, Mental health – Your church can be God’s blessing to the family with a member living with mental health issues. Even a 3 hour time slot each week as a break is a small sacrifice, but a most generous gift to the caregivers.

8, Wellness – What wellness outreach events can you host/sponsor? Do you have medical professionals in your church? What are possible health and wellness evening seminars you can host. Healthy cooking?

9, Fostering Relationships – Peer relationships are an easy way to share Jesus’ story with others, first through your living and then verbally.

10, Hobbies – How many different hobbies are held by members of your church? Some we’ve listed above, but they range from cooking, to recipes books, to reading, quilting, hunting, boating, walking, biking, motorcycling, shade-tree mechanics, gardening, bird watching, collecting, the list goes on and on.

Each one of these ten has numerous possibilities for your church. More importantly is to equip and expect members to use these as a means to share the gospel of Christ. An atheist group can do any of these, but as Christ followers we are called to share the Good News of God’s love as we go. What can you do to encourage church members to get engaged in sharing their testimony to others through any of these ten? What other arenas can you come up with?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

Artwork by Deandre’ Burns

Like many of you, I like to garden. Every year I till the ground plant seed, fertilize, water, and cultivate the garden area. Yet, I cannot produce any amount of growth in my garden. This year’s garden did not produce the best crops I’ve seen, yet God blessed and gave the increase.  There is a scripture passage from the Apostle Paul as he is writing to the church in Corinth that reads, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. ⁷ So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” 1 Corinthians 3:6-7 (ESV)

Whether in a garden, in your personal life, in a church or any other organization, God is the giver and sustainer of life. You can eat well live right, get proper amount of exercise, yet it is God who produces growth. In the midst I adhere to the belief that God has certain biotic principles at work in our lives enabling the growth process, both in our bodies and in the health of the church.

There are biotic principles working around you and me every day of our lives. Biotic refers to actions caused by living organisms. Biotic principles are the underlying causes which produce ongoing operative life.

Every living thing that God has created, person, animal, plant, has been created to grow and reproduce. Even the smallest blade of grass. These biotic principles are constantly working behind the scenes to produce this on-going growth and reproduction.

Let me share six biotic principles identified by Christian Schwarz in relation to your spiritual growth and the health of your church. As you read these can you identify how each one is at work in your church? Also identify how you could better employ these in your life to advance the health of your church.

1. Interdependence: God created us to be interdependent with other believers to grow individually and corporately as a church.
2. Multiplication: Like every tree, God created us not for endless growth, but to reproduce. A tree does not endlessly grow but drops seeds year after year to produce more trees.
3. Energy transformation: Rather than force or coercion God’s ecological system uses the transformation of energy to bring about growth, even from unlike beings. While nourishing on the nectar of flowers and plants, bees and butterflies transfer pollens from one plant to another.
4. Multi-usage: Trees gather nutrients through its root system and produces leaves each year to provide shade, nesting, and other necessities for bugs, animals, and people around the trees. After a season the leaves die, fall to the ground and decay, producing more nutrients to be absorbed by the roots.
5. Symbiosis: The interconnected co-existing of two dissimilar beings for the shared benefits. We are not created to live alone in a silo, but to live in symbiosis with one another for the mutual benefit of being used by God in His kingdom work.
6. Functionality: Every living thing God has created, has two great attributes; to bear fruit and to reproduce. This is their function.

What can you garner from understanding these biotic (not bionic) principles of healthy growth? What will you take to your church as you improve your usage of God’s biotic principles?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

The quick, simple answer to the title of this article is, “You cannot.” Only God can grow His church. However, there are features you can undertake to improve The Holy Spirit’s work in and through your church. Using what Gene Mims termed as the 1-5-4 Principle, let me attempt to briefly address how church health leads to healthy growth.

God’s directive to us is the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). We carry this out through five functions of our ministries – Evangelism, Discipleship, Fellowship, Ministry, and Worship. When we have the Great Commission as our sole driving force and we work through the five functions of the church, we will see four areas of kingdom results.

Spiritual Maturation

At the time of rebirth or spiritual salvation, we receive a complete transformation. However, at that point we also begin a life-long process of transformation: A transformation to Christ likeness – being like Christ. In Sunday School and other small group Bible study classes, we study to learn the attributes and characteristics of living a Christ-like life. Studying in small groups with other believers helps us in the assimilation of Christ-like characteristics and assists us in processing and understanding Christian values through the support and testimony of one another. Through small groups, spiritual maturation comes to the individual and to the body as a whole.

Ministry Expansion

As we grow spiritually, individuals and corporately, (as mentioned above) we realize the need for ministry expansion. As we study and grow deeper in Christ-like characteristics, God reveals to us missing ministry opportunities – new doors to ministry openings. Things like ministering to shut-ins, the need for more Bible study classes, better relationship building opportunities within the church family, etc. As we grow and spiritually mature, we not only see the needs, but people have a tendency to gravitate to the ministry opportunities where they have a passion to see improvement or to assist.

Missions Awareness

The next supernatural progression as we grow spiritually and we are expanding our ministries is people become aware of the need to be mission oriented. Missions is ministry outside the walls and family of the church. Ministries of the church endorse and support missions through the promotion of missions giving and providing opportunities for mission engagement on one or all three levels of missions – local, national, and international.

Numerical Growth­

I believe if a church is healthy and actively pursuing the natural progression of the first three areas of results, numerical growth will be an automatic bi-product. However, that does not say that we should leave it to happen automatically. Numerical growth will happen because of the 1) spiritual growth, the more I learn about and experience God’s love, the more I want to tell others 2) ministry expansion, as God provides more ministry opportunities, the more I realize I know people who could benefit from these opportunities, and 3) mission’s awareness, as we share outside the confines of the church walls people come to Christ through our expression of God’s love.

How can you assist in improving the health of your church? In each of these four areas, how can you improve your act of service to God Almighty?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

In an earlier post I wrote about the movement of a steam locomotive beginning to move. It is a slow but deliberate process. While there may be others working behind the scenes, it is the engineer who makes the maneuvers to get the train started moving. Unlike the train where the engineer is primarily responsible for moving the locomotive forward, there are different ministries of the church.

Therefore, there are varying avenues in moving the church forward and creating forward momentum. The pastor should lead the effort, but ministry leaders and members share in the responsibility of forward progress of the church. It now becomes essential for proper equipping of the members of the church which begins with those in leadership positions. Without proper equipping of leaders, it is not so likely that all ministries will be part of the forward momentum building process of the church.

An important decision for church leaders at this juncture is to determine how each ministry can benefit the forward moving progress of the church. This too, is not a decision that will automatically come to pass overnight. Creating forward momentum will require some time, teamwork, and a lot of prayer and higher level thought processes to ensure all ministries are considered equally and unequivocally.

One critical factor is that each team leader must 1) buy into the process of reversing decline and assisting in moving the church forward. A ministry/team leader that is not helping create forward momentum is like a set of wheels on the train with its brakes locked, that ministry will keep the church from reaching its potential momentum.

2) Each ministry team leader must be willing to be properly equipped and trained. Regardless of age or tenure in a position, new, revised training must be sought out and competed. The type of training or equipping sought should align with the current goals and vision of the church. Use caution and set parameters for the equipping being sought after.

3) Each ministry leader should be the cheerleader, team captain, and equipper of the members of his/her ministry. If a ministry leader is not excited and energetic about the new forward momentum of the church, members of his/her team will likely not be excited, nor will they reach the full potential as a team.

When a church even in deep decline reaches this point and leaders and members are willing to make these adjustments and acquire necessary equipping, spending quality time in higher levels of prayer, seeking God’s face in new, deeper, stronger behaviors, God will begin to show up and show out in supernatural ways – changing hearts, changing lives. Now the varying ministries are pulling together to make God’s forward progress.

Be certain you are helping get all the wheels on the same track and moving all in one direction.

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

What is the one thing in your personal life and as a church you can do to be the very best at fulfilling your purpose? Every church should answer this question and review it every three years. What is the one thing you can do better than anyone else? Your church does have something, one particular feature, which it can do better than the government, the school system, neighborhood organizations, better than any other church.

There is a line near the beginning of the movie The Legend of Bagger Vance in which Bagger says to the young golfer, “You’ve lost your swing. We’ve got to go find it.” This is such a great picture of the church today! Are you willing to walk with your church in finding that one feature, that one thing that you can do better than anyone else? Only then will you get your swing back personally and as a church. The following questions will assist you in searching out the special God-given feature of your church.

• What are the strengths of our church? People have strengths and weaknesses. Strengths are things that a person is good at and enjoys participating in. Cumulatively as a church body, you also have certain strengths. Seek out those strengths. Your strengths will align with your special God-given feature that as a church you can do better than anyone. Because people of the church believe something is a strength, does not make it a strength.

Set some guidelines for identifying strengths including outward and inward focal points. Example: If this is a strength, how will it help fulfill the Great Commission by bringing people to Christ and growing disciples? Another good criteria can be the five functions of the church: Evangelism, Discipleship, Fellowship, Ministry, Worship. A study of Acts chapter 2:41-47 reveals each of these as functions of the New Testament church. Does each identified strength match up with one or more of these functions of the church?

• What are the local needs? The church today has become good at telling the community our perception of what they need. If you want to know the needs of the community, go ask the people living in the community. Don’t assume and waste God’s resources on anything less.

Use a simple three question survey, go and ask for specific needs. People will talk with you today. Until you know the true needs of the community, you cannot help them or show them that you care. Until you can show them that you care, you cannot win them to Christ. If you cannot win them, you cannot disciple them.

• How can we utilize the strengths within our church to impact for God the community around our church? Here is where you start putting together the answers to the first two questions. This can be an exhilarating exercise identifying the connections between the strengths of the church and the needs of the community.

Members begin to see that there is something already in their possession, some skill, ability, or talent that can be used to meet the needs of others – a great motivator for ministry.

God has placed in every church all that is needed to carry out the ministry for the needs of its community. Before your church plunges through the phases of decline, I pray you will right the course using the gifts and talents God has placed at your disposal. You have what it takes. Find your one specific feature, your niche to the community; go and fulfill your purpose doing what you can do best – This is where you will find your swing.

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

“We’re doing everything we can as a church and yet we are not growing. What is wrong?”

Before you can determine the explicit purpose of your church, you must understand what purpose is. When we look in the thesaurus at the word “purpose,” we find cross referenced words such as “intent” or “aim.” Your purpose depicts your intent, your aim, or your objective. A purpose validates the intent, extent (outward focus), and direction of the church.

What is the intent of the church? Is it to reach the community around you? Perhaps it is to send out missionaries or to take care of hurting church and community members? Every church has an intent. Most churches start out with a combined intent. However, over time, many churches lose the outward focused intent. It is prudent to say that if you asked church leaders or members, they will almost always state their intent is to reach the lost community. However, in declining churches, the actions of church members will demonstrate a different intent. Reaching the lost community has become only an expressed intent, not a genuine, tangible intent.

A purpose validates the intent, extent, and direction of the church. The extent of the church is the degree or level to which the church exerts energy and resources to fulfill its purpose. In declining churches, we often see the majority of energy and resources being funneled into maintaining the ministries of the current church body of members to the neglect of the community. The further a church sinks into the phases of decline the less genuine ministry endeavors are provided for those outside the church. The extent of our church becomes less and less.

It is important to know the intent of your church before you attempt to move forward in reversing decline in your church. Can the intent be revolutionized? It can if the church is willing. In a declining church this always requires change. Once you know and set the intent of the church aright (ministering to the lost community), it is important to set the bar for striving to achieve the explicit intent. To what degree are you as a church and as a church leader/member willing to commit to achieve the explicit intent of the church to fulfill the purpose of the church?

The purpose of the church is to fulfill the Great Commission. “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matt 28:19-20 (HCSB)

As a church you have a purpose. The question becomes; If there were no obstacles or barriers in front of you, what is the one thing you would be doing for God to fulfill your purpose – as a church?

Before you move on, this is a great time to pray. Pray asking God to assist you in seeing and understanding what His specific purpose for your church is and what is your individual part in your church in discovering the uniqueness of fulfilling that purpose as a body of believers. Ask God to open your eyes, mind, and heart to receive from Him what you have as a church failed to see or believe in the past.

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

We all – individually and corporately – have periods in our lives that necessitate rebuilding. The book of Nehemiah in the Bible is a great book to read, study and be encouraged through the rebuilding process. The book also demonstrates that when God is in it and we follow Him, the rebuilding is far greater than we could imagine.

An interesting fact about Nehemiah is that he did not pass the blame. He shouldered the responsibility, and he had not been in Jerusalem. It is very probable that Nehemiah was born in captivity in Babylon and very possible he had never been to Jerusalem. Even so he felt a great burden and passion for the city of his ancestors.

Too often people want to play the blame game, never taking individual responsibility for our situation. Those who play the blame game never get the rebuilding job done. Nehemiah refused to point fingers. Instead he shouldered the responsibility. Look at verses six and seven of chapter one.

 “let Your eyes be open and Your ears be attentive to hear Your servant’s prayer that I now pray to You day and night for Your servants, the Israelites. I confess the sins we have committed against You. Both I and my father’s house have sinned.
⁷ We have acted corruptly toward You and have not kept the commands, statutes, and ordinances You gave Your servant Moses.”

This behavior follows a rebuilder who has made an open and honest assessment and has identified with the needs of the looming situation. In our individual lives and in churches, people often want to blame the broken walls on other people. In churches I’ve noticed people often place the blame of current situations on past leaders and former members of the church. This may in part be true, but, when we fail to accept responsibility, we have fallen into the snare of failure. Falling into this trap keeps us from moving forward.

This point more than any other perhaps is what keeps men and women from being rebuilders. It is much easier to blame others for our broken-down walls and burned gates than it is to make an honest assessment and move forward with what might be uncomfortable rebuilding.

Nehemiah could have blamed others but he didn’t. His goal and focus was getting the walls rebuilt. This was the matter of highest importance. It was not about who did or did not do something in the past. It was not about what could’ve been or what once was. Nehemiah had a burden and a passion from God. And he would not be deterred. Nehemiah’s focus was on getting right the task before him today so God’s work would be glorified into the future.

Reversing decline and rebuilding will never be accomplished until individual responsibility is accepted by all involved. One of the great facts revealed in the book of Nehemiah is that it only takes one person to begin the rebuilding process. In this case it was Nehemiah. In my circumstances it is me. In your life it is you. You are the only one who can start the rebuilding process. Nehemiah was one man. But what a difference he made. He led this small remnant of Israelites to accomplish a feat that was humanly impossible. But it did not happen until one man, one rebuilder, started right.

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

Perhaps you have seen video clips in movies or on television shows of a steam engine train taking off from a depot. You hear the water boiling and see the steam rolling and at the right time the engineer pulls a lever, and you hear that steam being transformed into energy, energy to turn the wheels on the train. It is then that you see the wheels turn slightly and ever so slowly. The engineer pulls again, the engine bellows, and the wheels turn again slightly more, but slowly. Another pull, and the wheels turn a little more and slightly faster. The actions are repeated again and again. Each time the wheels move a little farther than the last. All the wheels turn simultaneously in the same direction. Each turn is faintly greater than the one before, each turn building momentum from the previous turn.

This process continues until the train is moving and generating speed and seemingly pulling its own weight. Momentum has kicked in and the train will continue to move down the track, headed for its destination. The wheels are now turning with ease. The engineer’s job now becomes maintaining the correct pressure on the boiler and as needed convert that steam into the energy needed to maintain the forward motion and speed of the train.

To reverse the decline in a church requires not one turn of the ignition, but a series of good decisions, each one building upon previous decisions. Like the steam engine locomotive, it takes time and energy exercised in the right direction. All of the train’s wheels are always pulling in the same direction. To get the train moving, each blast of energy is pushing the wheels in the same direction. Every blast is for forward motion.

As a church you must set the course and from that moment every decision made needs to be to move the church forward. You cannot go in different directions. The track is set and every move will be either forward or backward. To make one not so good decision or the lack of a decision to move the train forward only thwarts the momentum gained by previous actions and good decisions. To gain momentum is to make each decision with God’s wisdom and with the express intention and purpose to move the church forward. Each good decision will improve the church’s momentum until the church appears to be moving on its own as does the train. Every good, solid decision you make is fueling the locomotive of the church forward. It is helping gain the momentum to propel your church to be the church God desires.

The caution here is to remember the engineer did not stop or let off the lever creating forward progress. As the train moves forward, it still requires energy and power to arrive at its cruising speed and to maintain that speed. In the church there are always decisions to be made. There is always forward progress required. Good decisions require a team effort. It is imperative that you strive to have and keep the right people in positions of leadership.

Develop a process for making decisions that will positively impact the forward progress of your church. Who will be involved in the decision-making process? Who will be impacted by the decision? What could the decision impact negatively? What could the decision impact positively? How will your decision-making team come to a resolution? When will you know the decision is the right decision at the right time? Successful leaders realize they need not “yes men” but people with freedom to think, discuss, and debate the pros and cons of each impending decision.

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.

On the other end of the phone on this particular day was a state convention leader of a mainline denomination. He was calling to ask if I would speak with the leaders of a church in his state to possibly assist the church in a transition after the recent retirement of the senior pastor. Meeting with this group of leaders for about an hour, it was apparent to see this church had been making a series of injurious decisions for several years. The detriment of decisions is not always visible to those making the decisions.

However, just as success comes from making one good decision after another, likewise a series of bad decisions will lead a church through the phases of decline at an accelerated rate. This church had been in existence for many years and found itself in phase four decline. In their own words one major decision the church had made within the previous twelve months was made on the presumption of being the “savior” decision for the church. It was an act of desperation. The expectations were built on a model and a hopeful desperation grasp to keep the church from falling into phase five of decline, relinquishment of the ministry.

I agreed to meet with a team of members from the church and met with them on several occasions over the next three to four months. Entering into the third month I asked if I could share an observation. The agreed. Beginning with the decision made a little more than one year prior, I reiterated several decisions they had made over the previous five years. I stated, “You made that decision based on one you had made 18 months prior that caused more decline than before, and you made that one based on a previous decision 3 years ago, correct.” Again, they agreed. I walked them through four or five decisions that had been made in the past five years. I closed with this question, “It appears that you have been making (as a church) bad decisions for five years, doesn’t it?”

One lady who had been with the church for more than twenty years snapped back quickly, “Oh no, you’re wrong…” My mind immediately kicked into gear thinking, “I’m going to have to explain this a little more and walk them through this series of decisions again.” However, I was pleasantly surprised as she continued, “Oh no, you’re wrong, we’ve not been making bad decisions for five years. We’ve been making bad decisions for at least twenty years!” As I had walked them back through the decisions that had been made, she and others were able to relate and understand the detriment of the series of decisions – enough to realize it did not stop where I stopped.

We do not need to grasp for the latest and greatest technique or program. To dig out of phase four of decline, we do not need the newest methods. What is needed is to follow a methodical process that leads the church back to its first love and reaching people for Christ. Considering and implementing the concepts is only the beginning. Church leaders and the church body must be committed to following the designed course of action to effectively reverse the decline in the church. A church does not reach stage four in one week. Neither will you dig out in one week. Reversal comes one step, one good decision, at a time over a period of time. Each good decision is based on the previous good decisions.

How is your decision-making process? Do you use any outsiders, for a different perspective, an unbiased objective observation?

George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.