It Is Time to Stop Celebrating Church Transfer Growth

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Church & Ministry
Transfer Growth
Church Growth
Church Attendance

“my concern is that there exists a celebration culture of transfer growth that is not healthy. I will elaborate, but first, we need to define the ‘good’ growth, conversion growth.” - Church Answers

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Discussion

Profile picture for user Bert Perry
Bert Perry
Tue, 04/09/24 10:32 am

Transfer growth can be the shift between churches because one church's leadership is bad--this is akin to my leaving the Methodists 36 years ago because of their failure to be faithful to the Bible in many ways. On the flip side, there is a more noxious version of transfer growth, where I've seen people actively undermining church leadership, and leaving with more or less "I'm not coming back until such and such is gone."

Obviously there is a great deal of discernment needed, and a great deal of humility in asking "why is this an issue?" But with a lot of what went on with COVID, I'm seeing a huge amount of malignant church transfers, and the recipient churches should not necessarily be happy to get these new members.

(and then, yes, there are a fair number of malignant churches out there that deserve to be abandoned.....again, charity & humility, etc..)

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.