Research from Dr. Thom Rainer, president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources and co-author Eric Geiger, executive pastor at Christ Fellowship in Miami, Fla., has put the power behind the punch of their groundbreaking book. It essentially suggests the key to church health and growth is not measured best in program attendance, but in movement from one program to another in an upward climb characterizing discipleship. This is "Simple Church."
"I'm passionate for discipleship," Geiger told Church Central during a break at a recent Simple Church conference held near Louisville, Ky. Geiger said his main interest in writing the book and in speaking at conferences nationwide in the months since the book (B&H Publishing Group, June 2006) was released was to help churches to be more effective in disciple-making.
"The vast majority are not," Geiger said. "Simple Church is about developing a process for making disciples."
Not the next church growth model
However, Geiger told the audience of about 270 church leaders—most affiliated with the Kentucky Baptist Convention—that Simple Church was never intended to be the next greatest church growth idea.
"We never intended this to be a new model," he said. He cautioned leaders about renaming their programs or changing their lingo in order to accommodate a new church growth method. Instead, he said, churches should look at the growth of their people.
"We're actually talking about looking at the fundamental systems of our church and how do we move people to spiritual transformation," he said.
Geiger recounted his research methodology, saying that in interviews and data collection from 417 churches that had grown five percent for three consecutive years, the definitive simple churches owned a strategy for spiritual progress.
"It wasn't that they just did less to do less, but they had a very strategic process for discipleship," he said. This is the simple element for church ministry design. But, Geiger admitted that part of the appeal of a Simple Church is a pause in the hectic pace of modern life and a space in the influx of over-information that characterizes the world of the 21st Century.
Paring programs to the essentials
Simple Church encourages church leaders to pare down programs to only the essential pieces for moving a person along a path of discipleship. However, during his teaching Geiger repeatedly cautioned leaders to avoid quickly slashing programs. Instead, he said the point is to strategize ministry around discipleship, creating progress from an entry level point such as Sunday morning worship, and moving on to a small group or Sunday school, then to ministry or service and evangelism.
It is the natural progression of discipleship clearly defined, articulated and measured, Geiger says. This is producing vibrant, growing churches. He writes, "Churches with a simple process for reaching and maturing people are expanding the kingdom."
In contrast, Geiger writes, "Many of our churches have become cluttered. So cluttered that people have a difficult time encountering the simple and powerful message of Christ. So cluttered that many people are busy doing church instead of being the church."
Geiger and Rainer write that the result of busyness is church leaders managing programs rather than making disciples.
Geiger's seminar and the book guide church leaders through the four basic elements of creating a simple church: Clarity, movement, alignment and focus.
Simple. Right?
Avoiding the quick fix
Angie Ward, a contributing editor at Leadership also attended a Simple Church conference and published her thoughts on the new phenom this month on LeadershipJournal.net, cautioning church leaders not to confuse "simple" with "easy."
She wrote: "My fear is that the difficulty of the process will get lost on readers who are looking for a quick fix for their ministry. … It's one thing to chop a bunch of programs in an effort to simplify. It is another thing entirely–and far more difficult–to create a culture where simplicity is the prevailing mindset. … The philosophy is simple. The process is not."
Geiger expressed a similar fear, cautioning those attending his seminar about cutting programs. Of course, for very small congregations, cutting programs will not be the issue.
"Small churches feel relief about Simple Church," Geiger told Church Central. With the emphasis on reducing programs, smaller churches are relieved of pressure to have more programs, he said. New churches are also at an advantage if they are interested in implementing a Simple Church philosophy—something Geiger said is much easier to do from the ground up.
However, Geiger said he has also consulted in a church of 8,000 where the natural tendency to complexity necessitated many changes in order to simplify. The key to that, he said, is church involvement and approval.
"There's going to really have to be some buy-in. It should be ‘our' process, not ‘my' process," he said.
Complex path to simplicity
Accomplishing that may become complicated. In answer, Geiger offers church consultations through a group called Ministry Advantage. "We are now able to provide ongoing coaching to pastors after the conferences," he wrote on his blog.
He also offers church leaders a survey to determine how simple their churches are. It costs $10, but you may want to take a look. The answers could surprise you.
