If you haven’t heard the term, “transfer growth” occurs when church members move their membership from one church to another. Of course, there are times when this kind of growth is legitimate growth. At the same time, though, transfer growth can be problematic (see “10 Reasons Transfer Growth Can Be a Problem”). Given these potential issues, here are some ways I’ve seen churches limit transfer growth into their congregation. Read through them, and let us know your thoughts.
- Continually emphasize the responsibilities and accountability of church members. If church members and attenders hear expectations up front, those who aren’t interested in joining a church that holds them accountable will look elsewhere for membership.
- Require a membership class that includes personal follow up with potential and new members. In some cases, simply raising the bar for membership lessens the number of people who want to transfer to a particular church.
- Constantly challenge church members to invite their unchurched friends—not other believers—to the church. This approach takes intentional effort, as it requires saying, “Don’t invite your believing churched friends—get outside your circle to invite non-believers.” Few of us, though, differentiate much when encouraging folks to invite their friends.
- In general, discourage local transfer growth from the pulpit. That is not to ignore times when transfer growth from local churches is legitimate (e.g., when a church denies, ignores, or neglects the Word of God), but it is to say, “We don’t want to be a church that grows only by swapping sheep from other local congregations.”
- Genuinely follow up with each potential member’s previous church leadership. That is, these churches don’t just flippantly accept someone’s request for a transfer. They ask about a person’s commitment to the previous church before accepting him or her into membership. Often, this is a pastor-to-pastor conversation.
- Require a potential member to talk with his or her current pastor before requesting membership in the new church. Sometimes, that conversation clears up confusion and rumors, and the believer chooses to stay in his current church. At a minimum, it requires him or her to deal with any frustration or bitterness before leaving a church.
- Don’t release letters of transfer without honest review. The same churches that don’t admit persons quickly often don’t give letters of transfer easily, either. They take seriously their obligation to care for a church member’s walk with God—all the way to being honest with another church.
What other ways have you seen? What are your thoughts?
I posted a link to this article on my blog with links to a number of articles related to the topic of church growth from your blog. I also posted this comment:
“Church growth methodology in a number of ways is analogous to farming. Some farming methods may result in a bumber crop; other methods may result in a poor crop or no crop at all. But farming methods alone do not determine the end result – the quality of the seed, the quality of the soil, the amount of rain fall, the amount of sunshine, and other factors and ultimately God determine whether the harvest will be a bountiful one.
Some folks dismiss the church growth movement on the grounds that it gives too much credit to human effort for the growth of a church and does not give any credit to God for a church’s growth and promotes the idea that pastors can duplicate the results that other pastors have seen .simply by adopting their methods. I agree to a large extent with this criticism but believe that they also throw the baby out with the bath water. I see God as operative behind our efforts. I also see the church growth methods that we adopt to be like farming methods. We chose them based upon our knowledge of the soil, the crop, the climate, and so on and pick those that are most likely to work, using our God-given reason and the Holy Spirit’s guidance to make the right choices. We select the field, till the soil, plant the seed, tend the young plants but it is God who makes the seeds germinate and the young plants grow. The yield is also in his hands.” .