by Rich Birch: The scene is set. It’s a Sunday morning, and the band is cranking through the second of a four-song set. You loved the latest Hillsong or Bethel song and things are moving in the right direction. However, at the back of the room is an individual you’ve seen before: the person who loves to say, “It’s too loud.”

Over the last 20 years of being a part of growing churches, I’ve noticed a constant din of people who complain about how loud church can be. Whether the music is blasting during worship or a speaker is simply turned on, these folks find a problem with the volume on any given Sunday. However, I’ve also noticed that churches that are growing and making a difference tend to run at a loud volume—it’s not an exception.

The reality is that if your church uses contemporary music to connect with and build up your community, chances are you’ve heard complaints about the volume.

I recently connected with executive pastors and leaders at some of the fastest-growing, most influential churches in the country to find out exactly how loud their weekend worship services are. As you can see below, a trend emerged: each of these churches tends to run loud volumes in their main auditoriums. Here’s a list of eight churches along with their speaker volumes in A-weighted decibels:

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Source: “It’s Too Loud!”: Responding to Volume Critics at Your Church

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by Rich Birch: How do you know if you aren’t attracting enough people to your church?

If your church has plateaued or is in decline, is the problem that you’re not attracting enough visitors or that you aren’t keeping those who are already attending? What signs will lead you to discover the problem?

The debate between front door problems and back door problems in church leadership has raged for years. Before we move ahead, let’s set some working definitions for what we mean by front door and back door:

The front door: Our ability to attract new visitors to our church.

Every growing church needs to attract a healthy flow of new visitors on a consistent basis.

The back door: Our systems, approaches, and community that enable people to stay at churches long term.

Growing, healthy churches have consistent methods for helping first-time guests become active parts of the community; however, how does one diagnose the problem between the front door and the back door?

Over the years of talking to vast numbers of church leaders, I’m convinced that we all naturally consider growth problems at our churches as back door problems. We got into ministry because we wanted to care for others, and we are typically community-minded individuals. Therefore, we think that if we just get more people plugged in, our churches will grow.

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Source: 7 Early Warning Signs That Your Church Has A “Front Door” Problem – unSeminary

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