Editor's Note: The following is taken from Chapter 1 of Thom Rainer's "High Expectations."

Throughout the New Testament, those who were saved became active members of an existing local church, or local churches were formed and they became active in them.

Choose a typical Sunday morning in the United States. And on this typical Sunday, let us take a hypothetical visit to a church selected at random. The church is a Christian church; it may be independent, or it may belong to a denomination. Let us stretch our imagination a bit and make ourselves visitors from first-century Jerusalem, where the first Christian church is experiencing explosive growth.

While w are amazed at the world 2,000 years later and marvel at all of the technological advances, we are visiting for another purpose. Our brief journey into 20 centuries of future is made to see how the church is doing after two millennia. We have chosen a church in a relatively new nation called the United States.

Before entering into the church building for worship services, we are told that the church as 500 members. We are pleased that a typical American church has such a healthy numerical membership. Our pleasure, however, is quickly turned to despair when we enter the sanctuary. Our quick count of those present tells us that only slightly above 200 members are worshiping together on this typical Sunday. Where, we exclaim, are the nearly 300 who are absent?

We are further dismayed to discover that only 175 attended the time of Bible study that is called Sunday school. How could it be that only one-third of these Christians come together to study God's Word? We had originally expected to find all 500 members present, worshiping together, analyzing Scripture and doing ministry. We become physically ill to find out that less than 70 members of this typical American church are involved in ministry. We return to first-century Jerusalem with heavy hearts and a report that the future church is very unhealthy, perhaps even dying.

Indeed, the early Christians would have trouble imagining the plight of the American church today. But it comes as no shock to us 2,000 years later that less is expected of church members today than civic organizations expect of their members. We have dumbed down church membership to the point that it means almost nothing!

While I could offer some interesting possibilities to explain the pathetic condition of the church today, such an excursion would be beyond the scope of this study. Instead, we will examine churches that defy contemporary trends. We will look at churches that are both reaching and keeping people. We will see churches in which a large proportion of the membership is actually involved in ministry.

The Southern Baptist churches we studied were in various parts of the country and diverse in size. In subsequent studies, we will be examining churches from other backgrounds and even more diverse locations. Throughout this project, we are attempting to discern what is different and distinct about churches that not only reach people for the Savior but also keep them in active involvement in the church.

Eight Surprises

Our research team had certain expectations. Some of these expectations may better be called biases. But when I speak of surprises, I am speaking about results that are contrary to or rarely discussed in much of the church growth literature. In other words, some of the following results do not fall in line with the conventional wisdom in the field.

Long Pastoral Tenure is Highly Correlated to Effective Assimilation

The average tenure of a Southern Baptist pastor is just over two years. For all churches in the United States, the tenure is only slightly better at three years. But the average tenure of pastors in the high-assimilation churches is 9.83 years. The lower-assimilation church pastors had an average tenure of four years. Why would longer-term pastorates engender more effective assimilation?

The answer to that question will be more fully developed in Chapter 5, where we look at the profile of a typical pastor in a high-expectation church. For now, let us see some of the dynamics of tenure as it relates to assimilation.

Donald Sharp is the pastor of Faith Tabernacle Baptist Church, an African-American congregation in Chicago. The church averages about 400 in two morning worship services. The church is retaining 90 percent of the new members that have come into the church in recent years. The church is clearly a high-expectation church for its new and longer-term members. Expectations are set regarding new member classes, tithing, attendance, participation in Sunday School, and adherence to doctrinal guidelines.

Faith Tabernacle has transitioned to higher expectations because of the congregation's trust level of its pastor. Pastor Sharp has led the church through many changes, and the church has followed its leader who has been pastor for over 33 years.

Listen to one member's comments about her pastor as he has led the church through change: "Our pastor recognizes that through all changes there must be prayer. He often emphasizes principles used by Jesus in relating to people and to the congregation. His understanding of the Word of God characterizes the policies he refers to in leading our church through change."

Though new pastors can often implement significant changes in the "honeymoon" years of their ministry, some changes take time. Rarely will a church transition from a low-expectation church to a high-expectation church in a short period. Such changes require time, and they require the leadership of a pastor who is committed to see the church through these changes. We will develop this issue more fully in a later chapter.

Location is Not a Factor in Healthy Assimilation

Like the discovery we made in our earlier study of effective evangelistic churches, location is not correlated to assimilation. The churches that effectively closed the back door were found in open country and rural areas, in small towns and inner cities, in the suburbs, and in small- and medium-sized towns.

Mission Statements are More Important than Vision Statements

In this study we made a distinction between a mission statement and a vision statement. We defined mission as "the primary purposes in which all Christian churches should be involved; these purposes typically include worship, evangelism, discipleship, ministry and fellowship." We then defined the vision as something related to a specific church: "God's specific plan for a specific church at a specific time."

The majority of these churches felt it was critical for their members to understand the purpose of the church. The leaders were less concerned about knowing exactly what God had planned for the church at a specific time. More than six out of 10 churches responded that they had mission statements. But only four out of 10 churches had vision statements.

A pastor in Texas commented regarding a vision statement: "We are happily ignorant not knowing that we don't have one." His humorous point was stated in a variety of ways by other church leaders. While some found the articulation of a vision statement necessary to provide direction and resource allocation, the majority felt that a specific plan was too confining. They also commented that the vision is dynamic, that God's specific plans are ever changing. The leaders expressed concern that a vision statement might be obsolete by the time it was formulated and approved by the church.

Expository Preaching Can Close the Back Door

Although expository preaching was rated the highest single factor in our earlier study on evangelistic churches, we were surprised to discover that it was strongly correlated to closing the back door. Indeed in this study, expository preaching was second only to Sunday School among the methodologies that are effective in assimilation.

We defined expository preaching as "primarily explanation or commentary on the biblical text; expounds the central idea of the text; often includes preaching through a book of the Bible." Other types of preaching approaches that were stated in the study were topical preaching, thematic preaching, and narrative preaching. Each pastor estimated the percentage of sermons that reflect each of the four different styles:

• Expository - 61.3 percent
• Thematic - 19.7 percent
• Topical - 15.9 percent
• Narrative - 3.1 percent

Over and over again these pastors explained to us that Christians who are equipped to do the work of ministry are more likely to remain active in the church than other members. One of the most powerful type of equipping approaches is the teaching of God's Word through contextual preaching. As the Bible is taught in its context week after week through expository preaching, the Holy Spirit teaches the people and convicts them about their service and places of ministry. This form of equipping is also able to reach the most people, since the worship service is typically the point of highest attendance.

We asked the respondents to rank 40 different programs and ministries according to their importance in the overall assimilation process. Additionally, the churches could name factors we did not list. The responses were to be on a scale of one to five as follows:

Sunday School was rated the highest with an amazing average response of 4.91. But preaching was not too far behind with a response score of 4.40, and the great majority of the sermons preached are expository messages.

Douglas Criswell has been the pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Dayton, Ohio, for four years. In just one year, Sunday School attendance jumped from 80 to 150. The church is experiencing amazing growth, while effectively closing the back door. Pastor Criswell rated preaching a "five" (essential) in the assimilation process. He estimates that 80 percent of his sermons are expository messages.

How does he see the expository sermon to be an essential element in the assimilation process? "My sermons must lead people to growth," Pastor Criswell told us. "These messages help people find the ministry God has called them to. As a consequence, they get involved in ministry and become a vital part of the church as a whole." And that involvement means that the back door is closed. Those involved in meaningful ministry rarely leave the church.