{"id":825948,"date":"2024-05-09T05:00:21","date_gmt":"2024-05-09T10:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/?p=825948"},"modified":"2024-05-08T11:12:48","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T16:12:48","slug":"the-real-story-behind-transfer-growth-and-churches-a-twenty-five-year-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-real-story-behind-transfer-growth-and-churches-a-twenty-five-year-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"The Real Story Behind Transfer Growth and Churches: A Twenty-Five-Year Analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-preview\"><p>Transfer growth occurs when someone moves his or her membership from one church to another within the same community. In this article, I posit that most of church growth in the last twenty-five years has been via transfer\u2014mainly from smaller churches to larger churches. But first, I want to analyze more deeply <i>what<\/i> defines transfer growth and <i>why<\/i> it occurs.<\/p> <h5>What Is Transfer Growth?<\/h5> <p>Growing a church should be a spiritual exercise through obedience to the Great Commission. God has not changed His mission in the last 2,000 years. Seeking and saving the lost is still the priority. Every church on the planet is called to accomplish this objective by making disciples. Statistically, however, churches grow in one of four ways.<\/p> <ol> <li style=\"list-style-type: none;\"> <ol> <li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Conversion growth<\/b> occurs when a church assimilates new believers into the congregation who were previously not part of the body of<\/li><\/ol><\/li><\/ol><\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block-login login-toggle\">Already a member? <a href=\"#\">Log in<\/a><\/div>\n\t\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block-content\">\n\t\t\t\t<h2>Unlock premium content!<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Get access to all Church Answers premium content from our expert contributors plus many other membership benefits.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<h3>$9.97 per month<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Unlimited access<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/join\/\" class=\"button\">Join Now<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-preview\"><p>Transfer growth occurs when someone moves his or her membership from one church to another within the same community. In this article, I posit that most of church growth in the last twenty-five years has been via transfer\u2014mainly from smaller churches to larger churches. But first, I want to analyze more deeply <i>what<\/i> defines transfer growth and <i>why<\/i> it occurs.<\/p> <h5>What Is Transfer Growth?<\/h5> <p>Growing a church should be a spiritual exercise through obedience to the Great Commission. God has not changed His mission in the last 2,000 years. Seeking and saving the lost is still the priority. Every church on the planet is called to accomplish this objective by making disciples. Statistically, however, churches grow in one of four ways.<\/p> <ol> <li style=\"list-style-type: none;\"> <ol> <li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Conversion growth<\/b> occurs when a church assimilates new believers into the congregation who were previously not part of the body of<\/li><\/ol><\/li><\/ol><\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block-login login-toggle\">Already a member? <a href=\"#\">Log in<\/a><\/div>\n\t\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block-content\">\n\t\t\t\t<h2>Unlock premium content!<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Get access to all Church Answers premium content from our expert contributors plus many other membership benefits.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<h3>$9.97 per month<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Unlimited access<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/join\/\" class=\"button\">Join Now<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":825975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"0","publish_post_category":"1","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,195,175,177,178,14796,18058,176,187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-825948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-answers","category-conflict-and-people-problems","category-grow","category-lead","category-membership-and-assimilation","category-monday-wednesday-featured","category-premium","category-revitalize","category-smaller-churches-and-communities","membership-content","access-restricted"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Real Story Behind Transfer Growth and Churches: A Twenty-Five-Year Analysis | Church Answers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Transfer growth occurs when someone moves his or her membership from one church to another within the same community. 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