Choose Your Route   >   Life cycle and stages   >   Your Congregation's Place

Spiritual Strategic
Journey

Congregational
Redevelopment
Tutorial

Home Page

Start Here!

Initial
Considerations

Choose Your Route

Routings

Coaching
Redevelopment

Coaching
Development

Choices

Glossary

Resource Guide

Site Map

Choose Your Route: Life Cycle and Stages

Your Congregation's Place on the Life Cycle

For a graphical view of the ten stages, see my chart, The Life Cycle and Stages of Congregational Development.

To determine your congregation's place on the life cycle, gather a representative group of adults from your congregation. A good number would be at least 21 people or 21 percent of the average number of active, attending adults present on a typical weekend for worship.

Present to them a 20 to 30 minute overview of the life cycle of a congregation.

Ask them to individually answer the following questions on a prepared written form:

• At what stage of the life cycle is your congregation today?
  
  
• What is the evidence of this stage?
  
  
• Describe the characteristics of Vision in your congregation. (For more about Vision, see my article, Congregational Vision.)
  
  
• Describe the characteristics of Relationships in your congregation. (For more about Relationships, see my article, Congregational Relationships.)
  
  
• Describe the characteristics of Programs in your congregation. (For more about Programs, see my article, Congregational Programs.)
  
  
• Describe the characteristics of Management in your congregation. (For more about Management, see my article, Congregational Management.)

At the bottom of the form ask them four demographic questions.

• What is your year of birth?
  
  
• How many years ago did you first join or connect with a faith-based congregation?
  
  
• How many years ago did you join or connect with this congregation?
  
  
• How long does it take you to travel from your home to this congregation’s facilities for worship on a weekend day?

Then lead them in small group and large group dialogue concerning their answers to these questions.

Generally a majority of the participants will choose one of the ten stages as the one that best represents the congregation’s current location on the life cycle.

One exception that often occurs is when a congregation is in the Retirement stage. At times, some persons—who are at least 60 years old, for whom it has been at least 40 years since they first joined or connected with a congregation, and who have been a member or connected with this congregation for at least 20 years—will declare that the congregation is in Maturity. But persons who do not share all three of these characteristics are more likely to say the congregation is in Retirement. If there is a large group affirming each of these two stages, it is likely the congregation is in Retirement.

Seek to develop a consensus as to the life cycle stage of your congregation that is most passionately held by the largest number of people.