VALLEY FORGE, PA (ABNS 4/25/18)—Declining church membership across the nation has made church growth a hot topic of discussion at annual meetings and leadership conferences. But, how prepared is your church to grow? Nationally recognized fundraising expert and author John Zehring offers guidance on determining your church’s readiness for growth and provides strategies to make it happen in the Judson Press book titled, Get Your Church Ready to Grow: A Guide to Building Attendance and Participation.

Focusing on the true purpose of growth, to meet the needs of more people, Zehring’s emphasis is on growing attendance and participation rather than membership. Since there are no quick fixes and no easy answers for this, he proposes a commitment from church leadership and an investment of time and available resources.

Leaders can determine if their congregation is ready for growth by taking the quick and easy-to-use READY TO GROW? Quiz, which provides a roadmap based on the unique qualities of your church for implementing low-cost, moderate, and high-investment strategies for growth.

Get Your Church Ready to Grow also features practical tools for collecting research data through surveys, focus groups, and exit information, in order to guide decision-making and to identify areas of focus.

John Zehring is a retired pastor with more than 20 years of experience serving United Church of Christ congregations. He has also served in higher education, primarily in development and institutional advancement. He is author of twenty books, including the most recent, Beyond Stewardship: A Church Guide to Generous Giving Campaigns (Judson, 2016).

Founded in 1824, Judson Press is a publishing ministry of the American Baptist Home Mission Societies, American Baptist Churches USA. It is committed to producing Christ-centered leadership resources for the transformation of individuals, congregations, communities, and cultures.

American Baptist Home Mission Societies partners with American Baptists in answering God’s call to promote Christian faith across the United States and Puerto Rico to cultivate Christ-centered leaders and disciples, and heal and transform communities, by developing aligned action networks and programs.

American Baptist Churches USA is one of the most diverse Christian denominations today, with approximately 5,000 congregations comprised of 1.3 million members, across the United States and Puerto Rico, all engaged in God’s mission around the world.