If you're starting a church, and you don't understand this, you will become discouraged VERY QUICKLY! All of us tend to think unrealistically when it comes to church growth. We think that if our church is healthy it will grow every week. It won't. Another thought is, "If everyone who attends brings just one friend a year, we will double by next year this time." This never happens.

The way most churches grow is in spurts. Thankfully, "growth spurts" aren't difficult to predict because they happen in sync w/ the school year calendar. What I mean is that when schools are full-force in session... churches grow! When schools are not in session (June-Aug), nearing a break (Dec), or towards the end of the school year (May), churches typically do not grow.

So, for most of the country, the two seasons of growth are Sept-Nov and Jan-April (I list Sept first 'cause I'm thinking of the school year calendar). Now here's the big question: How will you be PROACTIVE in your planning to ensure you are best prepared for these growth seasons? Here is how we do it at Great Lakes:

• Just before a natural growth season, I spend one or two Sunday mornings mobilizing as many attenders as possible to become volunteers so that we are ready to welcome more people.
• We send out a minimum of 50K mailers to the community just before each of the 2 growth seasons.
• We STOPPED sending mailers at Easter 'cause it happens right before the "summer slump" and it's a waste of resources. Nelson Searcy, the church planting guru, will disagree w/ me on this... but I've got statistical proof to back up what I'm saying.
• The topics we tackle during the growth seasons are extremely practical (relationships, parenting, dealing w/ the past, etc).
• We rarely spend money during non-growth seasons (advertising, adding additional equipment, etc). We save everything for the growth spurts that naturally occur.
• We proactively get ready for growth. For example, this fall we're adding another adult auditorium, adding two new kids rooms, overhauling the check-in process to make it faster, etc. 
• Our kid's programs plan BIG Sunday morning events during natural growth seasons (ie - Back to School Bash).