Chuck Lawless on Theology and Church Growth
As long ago as the early 1970s, Dean Kelley showed in his book Why Conservative Churches Are Growing that congregations with a clear belief system were more likely to grow. Kelley’s work spoke of “strong” beliefs more than conservative doctrines and included “churches” that are hardly orthodox, but he did show that belief matters.
Thom Rainer’s works, including Effective Evangelistic Churches, later confirmed that finding. In fact, Rainer’s studies have shown that churches that grow by reaching non-believers have a theology that is best described as conservative and orthodox. The bottom line is this: theology really does matter if we want to grow biblical, healthy churches.
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