This is part of a series of interviews with pastors of churches whose attendance has grown 20% or more in 5 years. We hope this series will be a resource of ideas to help increase worship attendance at your church.

Jesus said to the world, “Come to me,” but to the Church he said, “Go…” For the last 50 years it seems that many of us have become confused over the distinction.

Sometime in the 1960’s, it was almost as if the United Methodist Church determined that everyone who wanted to know Christ would simply come to the church. So most churches sat and awaited the influx, tending to the tasks of institutional maintenance and congregational care rather than going out into the world. In the past 50 years the population of our country has increased by 58%, while our beloved denomination has shrunk by more than 40%. If you love this great denomination you can’t help but ask, Why? Simply stated, even though Jesus said GO, we’ve simply waited for people to come. And they haven’t.

Eight years ago the Lee’s Summit United Methodist Church (The Summit) chose to venture out in faith. After intense prayer, this 143 year old church returned to our Wesleyan heritage, reclaiming the dynamic tension that holds in delicate balance the personal piety that John Wesley articulated, coupled with the commitment to social engagement that he exemplified. The shift has absolutely revitalized our congregation. Here are a few examples of the changes.

Realizing that worship trends throughout the country had shifted, we launched a new worship initiative and invested the resources necessary to provide excellent, thematically holistic, engaging worship in both contemporary and traditional styles. We now offer 5 services per weekend, 3 being contemporary. The Contemporary services have fueled our growth, with attendance now 2 to 1, contemporary to traditional. Passionate host teams set the tone for radical hospitality in all our worship experiences. We don’t do blended worship as it seems to satisfy no one.

Jim Preisig

The church also shifted from institutional maintenance to missional engagement in the world. We forged a partnership with the local elementary school with the highest poverty level, creating and funding a Cares Committee of teachers who are on the front lines in the fight against poverty in our community.  We have raised almost $100,000 to equip the Cares Committee with the resources to meet the desperate needs of the children, but we also send teams of volunteers into the school each week to mentor the children. We offer a summer lunch program that provides a free lunch to children through the summer. We also staff the food kitchen in Kansas City, and have become one of the primary supporters of Lee’s Summit Social Services. We now deploy mission teams around the country to places of crisis. Annually, we send a medical and work team of 30 to 40 people to Nicaragua to care for the sick and build homes for the homeless. In the past 5 years we have raised over $300,000 to lift people in the slums of Managua out of abject poverty.  These projects have had a phenomenal impact in the world, but the greatest impact has been within the hearts of our own people.

Perhaps the most dramatic expression of our commitment to go into the world was the decision to relocate from our present downtown, 3-acre site and to purchase 43 acres of land for our eventual relocation. We expect to break ground on a new facility in four years. The new church site will provide enlarged worship facilities, enhanced space for children and youth, and adequate parking to accommodate visitors and guests who respond to our outreach. In short, the relocation will enable us to have an even greater impact for Christ in the world.

The examples listed above are just a broad smattering of the changes implemented in the last 8 years. If you are in ministry within a local church, you already know that movement in a congregation inevitably engenders friction. People often resist change at Church because they equate places and practices with their faith in God; consequently, they fear the insecurity and fight the uncertainty that arises during transitional times. Most churches refuse to change simply to avoid the inevitable conflicts, and then find themselves trapped within a dying church culture that is irrelevant to a changing world. Resist that impulse – it is killing our churches.

At The Summit, we have navigated through the conflicted times by remaining focused on mission, vision and values. Today, the church is unified and energized, eager to embody the Great Commission and truly go out into the world! We cannot wait to see what God has in store for this great Church!

Jim Preisig, Pastor – jpreisig@every1church.com

Church website: http://every1church.com