Models of Church Growth

["Doug Merchant"]

Any one know of any efforts to model the dynamics of local church growth?
Ive read some work that frames four typical growth stages (something like
"family directed", "pastor directed", "program directed", "corporate"). But
I havent found much on the structural mechanisms at play and nothing that
attempts to model the "limits of to growth" of a local church.

For example, as the church grows: incumbent members may drift away as they
lose their sense of collective identity; ad hoc communication channels
become strained; the Pastor may be less available for the spontaneous needs
of individual members; the "marginal quality" of seating and parking
decline. (As an aside, my church seems to be stuck in a continual
transition between pastor directed and program directed.)

Any thoughts?

Doug Merchant
From: "Doug Merchant" <dougm@eclipse.net>

[Bill Harris]

Doug,

There was an article on that some number of years ago, describing work
with a parish in the U.K., as I recall. I think it may have been in the
European Journal of Operational Research about 15-20 years ago.
Unfortunately, I seem to recall discarding my copy of the article in a
cleanup a while back, and I dont find it now.

I guess that doesnt help much except to say theres been at least one
such article. Sorry.

A quick search for church system dynamics on Google turned up
http://www.church-growth-modelling.org.uk/. It may have some stuff of
use to you (it had some stuff I want to read).

Regards,

Bill
From: Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com>


--
Bill Harris 3217 102nd Place SE
Facilitated Systems Everett, WA 98208 USA
http://facilitatedsystems.com/ phone: +1 425 337-5541

["John Gunkler"]

While not specifically addressing the growth of churches, there are some
"classic" articles on the multi-stage growth of organizations (in general)
that would apply quite readily to churches.

The seminal article (in my opinion), by Larry Greiner, "Evolution and
revolution as organizations grow," was originally published in Harvard
Business Review, Volume 50 (#4), 1972 -- and was reprinted in a book by
Steven Brandt, "Strategic planning in emerging companies," Addison-Wesley,
1981 (ISBN: 0-201-00942-0)

You might also get something from Robert Kazanjian and Robert Drazin, "An
empirical test of a stage of growth progression model," from the journal
Management Science, Vol. 35, No. 12, December 1989, pp. 1489-1503.

The descriptions of the stages of growth vary, but in general they all
describe S-shaped growth (in SD terms) and the more sophisticated ones
describe two potential "final" stages (depending upon strategic choices made
by the organization): a stage of decline (exponential decay or slower)
following the reaching of the natural limits of growth OR the initiation of
another S-shaped pattern of growth that breaks through the (former) limits
and strives for a new growth limit (in other words, the entire growth
pattern repeats itself at higher levels.)

I find these points to be most useful:

1. Organizational growth is well modeled by a "limits to growth" kind of
structure. I would pay particular attention to the early mechanisms that
can foster exponential growth; then to the way loop dominance shifts.

2. The whole point of a multi-stage model is that policies that contribute
to success in one stage are deadly in other stages. To take one example, in
the initial stage of growth (sometimes called the "formative" stage) it is
quite helpful to encourage risk-taking and innovation (trial and error)
until the organization discovers the "pattern of success" that can lead to
exponential growth. Once such a pattern is discovered, however, that kind
of risk-taking cannot continue without interfering with growth -- because in
the next stage (sometimes called the "normative" stage) what contributes
most to success is for the organization to become more and more efficient at
performing the pattern.

3. The descriptions of the "standard" growth stages, or phases, that I find
most useful in helping people think about their own organization are ...

Phase I: Formative -- finding a pattern that works; total dependency on
"market" wants and needs
Phase II: Normative -- working the pattern; near (and growing) independence
from the markets whims
Phase III:Integrative -- first recognition of limits to growth; need for
innovation and cooperation with former competitors
Phase IV: Transformative -- finding a new pattern that breaks through the
limits; bifurcating your efforts

although there are other useful ways of thinking about them.

John W. Gunkler
jgunkler@sprintmail.com

[Niall Palfreyman]

Doug Merchant schrieb:
>
> Any one know of any efforts to model the dynamics of local church growth?

Hi Doug,

I dont know of any, but I find the topic _extremely_ interesting, and
Id love to hear from you if you have any luck in your search. I just
tried a search for +"system dynamics" +"church growth" on AltaVista and
came up with the following 6 hits, in case theyre any use.

All the best,
Niall Palfreyman.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Schedule
Wheaton College Missions and Intercultural Studies Department Planning
Schedule and Links. Below is a table indicating the availability of
courses...
URL: http://www.wheaton.edu/Missions/Schedule.htm
Translate More pages from this site

2. Awakening List Archives FW: Epidemics and Revival
Awakening List: Richard Risss distribution list for renewal and
revival reports. Awakening List Archives: FW: Epidemics and Revival
URL: http://www.renewed.net/awakening/0286.html
Translate More pages from this site

3. Leadership Development Ministries
Leadership Development Ministries. Staff | Leadership | Pathways | AIM
Conferences Cameo | Upcoming Events | Suggested Reading Suggested
Periodicals...
URL: http://www.gabaptist.org/ldm/ldm.html
Translate More pages from this site

4. Encounter Book Reviews 60:2
Welcome | Community | Admissions | Bookstore | Stewardship | Programs
| Encounter 60:2 Book Reviews. Preaching the New and the Now. By
David...
URL: http://www.cts.edu/Encounter/60-2_Reviews.htm
Translate More pages from this site

5. HotBot results: religion
Lycos Home | Free Web Access | Site Map | My Lycos Results for Search
within these results. Return Results: 10. 25. 50. 100. full
descriptions. brief...
URL:
http://hotbot.lycos.com/?MT=religion&TR ... A&LySrc=QC
Translate More pages from this site

6. Religious Links
Afro-Caribbean Religions. African Traditional Religion. African

From: Niall Palfreyman <niall.palfreyman@fh-weihenstephan.de>

[Jeff Bullock]

Dear Friends, I finished my doctor of ministry a year and one half ago on
church sytems. I build a model in STELLA using information from key
observers and then ratified the model by running it by informed church
leaders. If anyone would like a copy of the model, I can email it to them.
Similary, I am presently trying to outline a book where I will use some of
what I have learned over the years from modeling churches as well as some
other topics. Let me know.

Fr. Jeff Bullock jbullock@earthlink.net

[John Morecroft]

Doug,
Its a longshot, but you might be interested in a paper from the 1980s
by Roger Hall and William Menzies on a system dynamics model of a sports
club. The model describes the factors driving membership in a
long-established Curling Club in a western Canadian City.

Citation:
Roger I. Hall and William B. Menzies, A Corporate System Model of a
Sports Club: Using Simulation as a Aid to Policy Making in a Crisis,
Management Science, vol 29, no 1, January 1983, pp 52-64.

Regards,

--
John Morecroft
Associate Professor of Decision Science
Associate Dean of the Executive MBA Programme
London Business School

Tel +44 (0)20 7262 5050 x3252 Fax +44 (0)20 7724 7875
jmorecroft@london.edu

["Hayward J (SoTech - M & S)"]

Dear Doug

I presented a paper on systems dynamics models of church growth at System
2000 in Bergen. It is available on the CD of the conference, however a
revised version (with the diagrams in the right place) is available on my
research web site

http://www.church-growth-modelling.org.uk/

along with a few other related papers.

To the best of my knowledge there is no other work done on the subject. I
originally wrote the work as a mathematical model published in Journal of
Mathematical Sociology. They struggled to find referees to cover the
different subject areas. Recently I presented a systems dynamics version
(just causal loops) at the annual meeting for the society for the scientific
study of religion. I had a fair bit of interest in the results, but out of
300+ participants no-one who was using systems dynamics, although I did my
best to sell it!

My published models are based on epidemic models and are more applicable to
the wider church than an individual congregation. These incorporate limits
to growth and thresholds for extinction and revival. I have a number of
unpublished cohort models. I am currently working on a models that attempt
to explain "Kellys thesis" that conservative churches grow the fastest.

Regards

John Hayward
From: "Hayward J (SoTech - M & S)" <jhayward@glam.ac.uk>