A pastor friend of mine used to say, "Of course (insert megachurch pastor here) has been successful, he started a church." And my response was, "Don’t kid yourself, it’s much harder to start a church than to lead an existing one." People simply underestimate the enormous challenge of starting a church from scratch.
I’ve said many times, every new church is a miracle of God. That means, if your new church survives, it will truly be a miracle. This was confirmed with a recent study of 2000 churches that started between 2001 and 2006. Here’s what they found out: the average new church has 40 people after 1 year. After 4 years, the average new church has grown to have 80 people.
At The Connection Church, God has done something extraordinary from day 1! When my family moved to Kyle, we didn’t know anyone here. It still blows my mind that the people in our area were so receptive that at our first service, 145 people showed up. I’m still not sure where they all came from, why they’d show up at an elementary school for church, and why most of them came back. I believe it’s because not only did they show up, but God showed up as well. When He has freedom to change lives, people want to be a part of that. We all want our lives to count for something and make a difference.
Another study showed that the average church baptized 8 people in 2006. I did a checkup and found that we have baptized exactly 100 people since we started in 2004! That’s 100 people going public with their faith to say, I’m choosing to follow hard after Jesus Christ. Again, that is not normal.
TCC has grown by 210% in our three years. I’d like to buy stocks with that kind of return. God didn’t call us to be average or ordinary. We’re not going to waste our time or energy on something we could do on our own strength without God’s power. This is a God thing!