A healthy church has high member engagement in church that shows people have become passionate about church life and ministry. Churches without passionate people will begin to decline.
This post is part of a series looking at the five essential components of churches with healthy leadership culture. The posts are:
- Discipleship Pathway
- Community Clarity
- Member Engagement
- Administrative Excellence
- Leadership Effectiveness
What is Member Engagement?
Member Engagement in church measures the commitment of members, as shown through their attendance, connection, involvement, serving and giving. It reveals any need for strategies to increase the involvement and buy-in of attendees and turn them from fringe, to fans, to followers.
Why is Member Engagement important?
Engagement in church is important because the church is people, so it is critical for leaders to not only know who is with them, but what that looks like.
What does healthy Member Engagement bring to a church?
- Increase in people being discipled, which impacts serving, giving and potential leaders.
- More people are aware of and taking ownership of the mission, vision and values.
- Increased number of people to help serve ministries
- Increased number of people willing to take leadership roles
What happens if Member Engagement is lacking?
Low levels of engagement in church could mean the church does not have people excited about the church or its direction, and that there is an apathy or ‘Sunday only’ mentality. A pattern risks developing of declining attendance, serving, or giving.
What helps develop Member Engagement?
- Ministry feedback consistently involves volunteers, and not just senior leaders and staff.
- A culture of empowerment, i.e. most ministry opportunities are volunteer-led.
- Staff and senior leaders are accessible.
- Leaders proactively seek out ministry initiatives and ideas from members.
- Six-monthly ‘business meetings’ providing relevant pastoral and financial updates.
Key Questions
How healthy is the Member Engagement of your church?
Is it member-focused, as in, there is clear thinking and action-focused towards those people who are with you?
Is it engaging, as in, informative, exciting and beneficial to your people?
What Next?
- Discover how the health of your current engagement impacts other areas of your church in my FREE Church Health Check.
- Learn how I help churches like yours clarify their unique engagement processes by going here.
- Consider my book ‘Keys to Church Health’ which looks at this area, and other related topics in greater detail by clicking here.
- Review the other Keys to Church Health by going here.
