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.

Blue Grass United Methodist Church, located on the outskirts of Evansville, Indiana, is the oldest United Methodist congregation in Vanderburgh County, dating back to 1824. Blue Grass has a long rich history that begins with Circuit Riders, but the congregation refuses to dwell on its past successes. Instead, it has chosen to be faithful to what God is calling us to do today to prepare us for a fantastic future.

Over the past 15 years, Blue Grass has experienced tremendous change. From one traditional worship service to three contemporary and one traditional service. From 130 in worship to 430 in worship.  From 250 members to over 600 members. From four staff members to twenty, including, our pre-school ministry.  From three acres of land to thirty-three acres.

We are located in one of the growing areas of the county. We have been positioned in this location for 185 years to receive the growth that has finally reached our once rural community. We were once dubbed the “best kept secret” in town and have become one of the most known churches in the area.

This did not happen overnight or by chance. During the past fifteen years, we have been intentional in our efforts. We have challenged ourselves to believe that we are here for those who are not yet here. So, our rallying vision is, “To seek and reach our world for Christ.”

Doug Heiman

Here are some of the key factors that we would attribute to our growth:

1. God.  For some reason God has chosen to bless our efforts and give us an increase.  We realize that all of our efforts are absolutely futile without the presence and power of Jesus Christ at work in our midst through his Holy Spirit.
2. Prayer.  We have prayed for growth. We have prayed for young families with children to connect with us. We celebrated 20 births in our congregation this past year.
3. Vision. One of the key steps we did in the first couple of years was to prayerfully establish purpose, vision, and core value statements. We developed statements that we could rally and organize around. They weren’t mere words on paper. We talked about them. We planned around them. The leadership and the congregation adopted them. The main gain with such a focused vision is that it creates a purpose-centered environment not an individual preference-driven one.  (This is always a work in progress!)
4. Staff/Lay leadership. God has brought to us some significant leaders who have the creativity, gifts, and willingness to lead in extremely effective ways.
5. Marketing. We came up with a motto that we believe fits our congregation extremely well that is used in all our marketing. “A Home for Your Heart.” Our pre-school ministry even uses it in their name. The pre-school has been a tremendous entry point for young families into our congregation. In fact, when we began praying for more families with children, one of our members was led to open our pre-school ministry. It is an intentional ministry of the church to reach families for Christ. Another piece of marketing that seemed to really connect with the community was strategically placed billboards that used our motto along with pictures of church families. For the past 10 years, we have hosted an annual Neighborhood Party that is free for all who come. This draws many new families to our campus. We have taken Easter services off campus to expand our seating capacity and to extend an invitation to the community.  We have received some tremendous free press as a result of theme-based services.
6. Mission. For 10 years, we have hosted a weeklong youth-focused workcamp where UM churches all over Indiana come to Evansville to do a tremendous amount of good for local homeowners who don’t have the ability or means to do simple repairs on their homes. This has been a tremendous opportunity for our whole congregation to be involved in ministry to serve, not only those in our community, but the campers who are part of the week-long experience. Feed My Starving Children, Operation Christmas Child, mission trips, and financial support of various mission efforts are ongoing to further drive home the vision of the church.
7. Small groups. We have developed a culture of small groups. It has taken many years to go from a few groups to a majority of the congregation being engaged in spiritual growth through a variety of groups that are offered at various times through the week.
8. Worship. Our worship experience includes very gifted, spirit-filled musicians and singers. We have key persons who carry out creative elements within the worship services to help connect the biblical message to daily life.
9. Openness. The congregation has been open to leadership taking them to places they never thought they could or would go. For the most part, they have embraced some difficult changes for the larger good of reaching the world for Christ.  We have been able to maintain our long time members as we have stretched ourselves to reach many new followers for Christ.
10. Generosity. We have been blessed by timely gifts, estates, and offerings to be able to do ministry without extravagance, but with sufficient resources to accomplish the mission well.

Bottom line, I am blessed to pastor a congregation who is passionate to see Christ lifted up!

Doug Heiman, Lead Shepherd – dwheiman@aol.com

Blue Grass UMC website – http://www.bluegrassumc.org