A 'sticky' church

Larry Osborne talks about why his church is 'sticky' - that is, it keeps the people it gains.

We work hard to minister to the people we have. We want to serve their spiritual needs incredibly well and do it in a way that their non-Christian friends can easily understand. As a result, they tend to spontaneously invite their friends and co-workers. We've never had to ask or persuade them to do so. They just do it.

We've also learned to slam the back door shut by providing opportunities for people to develop deep and long-term spiritual relationships. Rather than trying to pretend that everyone can care for everyone, we've created lots of relational pods where people are velcroed together by the kind of authentic friendships that can only be found in smaller and more stable settings. And these kinds of relationships have proven to be incredibly sticky.

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I’d also regularly take a gut check to make sure that I haven’t fallen into the trap of viewing the people I have as tools to reach the people I want to reach. If we aren’t caring for the ones we already have, why should God send any more our way?

Osborne has more to say about small groups in particular, and also throws in a little plug for his new book, Sticky Church.