Something crazy is going on here.
When I wrote in September about what we’re seeing at The Orchard Church, I was simply amazed that we had grown from around 250 in Sunday morning attendance in January of 2015 to around 350. We were getting very crowded on the weekends! At that time, we had just decided to take some immediate steps, and start to look longer-term.
Surely, we thought, the growth would taper off. Who ever heard of a church… A tiny church in a rural area… With the kind of rapid growth that we were seeing? Didn’t the church planting organizations all tell us that we should never expect to see more than 80 or so at a new church plant of our type in Gilmer County?
By October, we knew we needed to add more capacity to our Sunday morning worship environment somehow. We had come up with a plan for a video venue in the youth building, which could increase our capacity by another 60 or so during two services, but for whatever reason, we just couldn’t get it moving before Thanksgiving.
Then, December happened. During that month, we saw attendance top 400 people. Every. Single. Sunday.
Today, near the end of January 2016, I am simply amazed that (if you take out this past week’s “snow day,”) our average attendance is 448 for the month. That means we have seen nearly an 80% year-over-year attendance increase!**
Let’s just stop and think about that for one minute. Seriously. Where else do you see that kind of growth? Not in the economy. Not in your retirement fund. Definitely not in the church at large in America.
And here is the great thing. We aren’t just swapping sheep with other churches in our area. That has never been our goal at The Orchard. Sure, a few of us have come from other local churches, but the vast majority of the attenders and partners (we just added 19 more partners this week) are people who have been “un-churched,” or “de-churched.” That is, people who have NOT been in church for a long time, OR, people who have moved to the area and don’t have a church home here.
On Sunday, January 3, we baptized 12 people… That’s more than the average church in America will baptize all year long.
This is unquestionably the work of the Holy Spirit. HE is drawing people to Himself, and He is using us.
At a recent staff meeting, we just stopped everything, and asked “why is God using us right now?” As we talked, we discussed 4 distinctive characteristics of The Orchard Church that God is choosing to use right now:
Stepping TOWARD Our Community
We are a REACHING church. You will find us actively involved out in our community all the time. We have a highly visible presence at most of the downtown Ellijay events; July 4, Halloween, Light Up Ellijay, and others. We distribute food to hungry children all summer long. We provide clothing and school supplies to needy school kids. We stock the school clothes closets. We brought full Christmas dinners to dozens of families over Christmas. We don’t believe outreach happens at a nice event on our campus… We believe you have to GO OUT to REACH OUT. Yes, this is hard. It takes time. It is messy at times. But Jesus said that we are the light of the world. Why hide it under our bushel?
I frequently meet Sunday morning guests who discovered us by bumping into us at one of our downtown events, and thought they would try us out. Our community is beginning to see that we mean business here in Gilmer County, and their heads are turning to see what is really up here.
Personal Invitation
A lot of times, I will meet a Sunday morning guest, and ask “how in the world did you find us?” MUCH of the time, they tell me a story about a co-worker, a neighbor, a friend who enthusiastically invited them to just come give us a try. The invitation works!
Consistent Excellence
When you attend a service at The Orchard Church, you know what you are going to get. Our staff and volunteers all treat Sunday mornings as if it is the most important time of the week. You will always find hot coffee, donuts, warm, smiling faces, amazing children’s ministry volunteers ready to love on kids, a practiced band, and a relevant message. We believe God has given us gifts to use for his glory, so we do our best to leverage our gifts for Him with consistent excellence.
We Are A BODY, Not Just A Show
Here is the real thing… Once someone tries us out, they discover that for us, it really isn’t all about the worship style, the events, or the programs. Instead, they quickly get wrapped up in the most loving, caring group of people in the world. Before you know it, people at The Orchard have learned your name, are asking you to lunch, and inviting you to their life group. And once you’re in life group, you have really engaged with a new family. It changes you.
Clearly, God is using us. But, what is next? We simply can’t go on growing the way we are with the limited space we have. So, what are we going to do next? I will try to answer that question in part two, next week.
**Our January attendance average is a little misleading… In a good way, I think. Jan 3 and Jan 24 were, I think, non-representative Sundays. Jan 3 was still during the school holiday, and Jan 24 was the East Coast blizzard day. If you just look at the two Sundays between those dates, Jan 10 and 17, our attendance was actually 467, and 484, respectively. Those two may not be representative, either, but they are definitely very positive!