Nick Poole

This week I’m going to be writing a few posts on the topic of Assimilation.  This is an area that many churches are very weak in, but this must become a priority if a church is going to grow. Now the ultimate goal is not growth for growth’s sake, but connecting new people to the church for the sake of discipleship and advancing God’s kingdom.

A church’s assimilation process is taking people through the various levels of commitment to a church.  Rick Warren outlines them as follows:

• Community (Unchurched Individuals)
  
• Crowd (Regular Attenders)
• Congregation (Members
• Committed (Maturing/Involved Members)
  
• Core (Lay Leaders)

The goal of a church is to create movement through these levels. Assimilation addresses the movement from the first level, Community, to the second level, ‘Crowd’.  This is where new attenders become regular attenders.

To begin the formation of an assimilation process, you want ask yourself a few questions to establish your CONTEXT.

• What is your guest to regular attender ratio?
  (From Fusion by Nelson Searcy)
  • 3:100 – Maintaining Church
  • 5:100 – Steadily Growing Church
  • 7-10:100 – Rapidly Growing Church
• What are the primary types of visitors you anticipate having? (your target: middle class adults, lower-middle class adults, young adults, youth, etc.)
• What is your end goal? (Is it regular attendance, membership, leadership, or something else?)

Now that you’ve identified your CONTEXT, tomorrow we’ll dive into the next steps of assimilation with CREATION, COLLECTION, and CONNECTION.