Four Unique Characteristics of Churches That Will Breakout in 2018

Where will your church be in a year?

Will it be unified, thriving, and reaching its community for Christ? Or will it be divided, struggling, and almost irrelevant to the community?

I have a watchful eye on churches that are “breakout churches,” meaning they have moved from struggling to thriving. I am seeing some specific traits common in many of these churches. And I see four of these traits to be unique and vital to the health of the congregations.

To be clear, these four characteristics are by no means an exhaustive list of traits of healthy churches. Instead, they are unique characteristics that became both the cause and the result of the breakout.

1. They increased their efforts to reach their communities by fourfold. These church leaders and members understood that the days of easy growth and cultural Christianity were ending. As a consequence, they increased their efforts, their spending, and their time by fourfold to reach their communities. And while the factor of four is not a magic number, something near that number was common among the breakout churches. Reaching and ministering to their communities became a very high priority.
2. They focused their congregations to pray John 17:20-23 as an ongoing prayer effort. Not all the congregations prayed Jesus’ prayer of unity specifically, but they did pray for church unity in one way or another. Many churches fail to have a gospel witness because of infighting, self-serving behavior, and tepid commitment. The breakout churches prayed,…