Small Groups as the Hub of Discipleship

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Dr. Warren Bird—author, researcher, and one of the most trusted voices in church leadership studies. Warren has co-authored over 35 books for pastors and church leaders, including Hero Maker, Better Together, Next, Resilience Factor, and his newest, Becoming a Future-Ready Church. Known for his deep data-driven insights, Warren has spent decades researching trends that shape healthy, growing churches.

What’s next for large churches in North America—and how are they shaping the future of ministry? How are they adapting after the pandemic? Are they thriving, struggling, or transforming in unexpected ways? Warren shares early findings from his newest national research study—The Large Church Survey 2025—which explores how churches of 1,000 or more are changing and what’s coming next for the future of the church.

• Exploring large church health. // Large churches have reshaped the landscape of ministry over the last fifty years. Yet following the pandemic, questions have emerged: Have they fully come back? Are they still growing disciples—or just attracting crowds? Warren’s latest study, available at bit.ly/largechurch2025, is designed to answer those questions by gathering data from churches with 1,000+ in-person attendance. The goal is to measure growth, transparency, discipleship, and community impact in a post-pandemic world.
• Cultural distrust of institutions. // Warren notes that many people today are skeptical of large organizations, including churches. Scandals, media coverage, and declining trust in institutions have fueled the perception that “big” means “impersonal” or “unaccountable.” Yet Warren argues that healthy large churches can be powerful forces for good—offering specialized ministries such as special needs programs, counseling centers, and community partnerships that smaller churches often can’t sustain.
• Early findings: community and young adults. // Although data collection is still underway, some surprising trends are already emerging. The second-highest area of growth since the pandemic has been churches’ service and impact on their local communities. Large churches are not retreating—they’re doubling down on outreach. Even more encouraging, the top area of growth is the spiritual response among young adults. Despite common myths, many large churches are seeing renewed engagement from people in their 20s and 30s who are hungry for spiritual depth and authentic community.
• The power of small groups. // One consistent trend across every five-year survey Warren has conducted since 2000 is the growing emphasis on small groups and teams. In the most recent data, 92% of churches give their highest priority to small groups as essential for discipleship and connection. Warren summarizes the insight simply: “You get bigger by getting smaller.” Large churches thrive when they help people move from rows to circles—building relational environments where faith grows deeper.
• Raising leaders from within. // Another major finding centers on leadership development. Among churches of 5,000 and larger, 92% report having a residency, internship, or formal leadership training program. The median number of participants per church is 15. This suggests that future pastors, missionaries, and ministry leaders are increasingly being raised up inside the local church rather than emerging solely from seminaries. Warren calls this a promising trend that could strengthen the next generation of church leadership.
• Comeback stories. // The data also reveals a surprising recovery among large churches. So far, 53% of churches with attendance over 2,000 report being at least 10% larger today than they were in 2019. Some have even doubled or tripled in size. At the same time, a smaller group continues to struggle to regain momentum—creating what Warren describes as a “K-shaped recovery” across the church landscape. These insights will help leaders benchmark where their church stands and how to plan for the future.
• A younger generation of leaders. // Contrary to the myth that megachurches are a baby boomer phenomenon, early data shows that the average senior pastor age has actually declined since the last survey. Many fast-growing churches are being led by a younger generation of pastors—some who planted their congregations and others who revitalized long-standing churches.

To participate in the Large Church Survey 2025 and receive the full results, visit bit.ly/largechurch2025. The survey takes about 20 minutes and is open until November 11, 2025. For more on Warren’s work, follow him on LinkedIn or explore his latest book Becoming a Future-Ready Church to stay ahead of emerging ministry trends.

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Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. We are honored to have a guest with us, Dr. Warren Bird today, who, what can I say about Warren Bird? He has co-authored 35 books for church leaders, but it’s more that, not that he’s just written a bunch of books. These are a number of the books that from my perspective are like the go-tos on their topic.

Rich Birch — Hero Maker on leadership development, Better Together on healthy mergers, Next on pastoral succession, ah Resilience Factor on effective leadership teams. And his latest is incredible: Becoming a Future-Ready Church on these eight emerging church trends. He’s not only an author but he’s also a researcher and the work that he produces, I think, is among the best that’s out there. His background is a pastor, seminary professor. He was a research director at Leadership Network and was the executive vice president of research at ECFA, the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.

Rich Birch — Warren, I am so glad to have you here. He’s also, one of the distinctions Warren has is he’s one of the few people that I’ve said, anytime you want to come on the podcast, you come on, we’ll make space. And so he reached out. Happy to have Warren on. Welcome. So glad you’re here.

Warren Bird — Wow, Rich, you just rattled all that off. It’s like my life story. I could do that for you because you are so articulate and and the impact you’ve had on me. I listen to your podcast very regularly. The consulting insights when I you and I are sharing a speaking platform and all. So I could have done the same thing for you, but thank you for having me.

Rich Birch — Oh, that’s kind of you. That’s kind of you to say that. And today we’re talking, you’re in the midst of one of the things I love about Warren, and and you might know this if you bump into him at a conference, he’s always working on some project. And he’s always wants to pick your brain about, Hey, like I’m working on this thing, got this thing coming up. And we were at a conference recently and he was talking about his latest research project. And so why don’t you talk to us about the study that you’re currently engaged in?

Rich Birch — And friends, I want you to stay tuned because we’re going I’m going to try to pull some early results out of Warren. This is the first place that some of these results have been talked about. So you’re getting an exclusive here, which is great, or a first because you’re listening in today. But what is this study that you’re working on?

Warren Bird — So Rich, the world of large churches—let’s let’s just say in-person attendance of a thousand and higher—you know, that was a big change in the face of the North American, actually the global church, the rise of the large church in the last 50 or so years. But now we’ve had the pandemic where large churches were hit the hardest, unless you were in like Florida or Texas, where they didn’t even participate in the pandemic. But the rest of us got hit hard.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — And and the question is, have they come back? And if they’ve come back, are they different? And then there’s that growing skepticism of, well, are big churches actually an asset or a liability? To what extent do they actually make their communities better? To what extent are they really healthy and vital versus, you know, are, are they an inch deep and a mile wide?

Warren Bird — What’s the level of financial transparency? I mean, you, you, you look at, you listen to ah headlines in the media and then they always have adjectives in front of the word megachurch, like rich megachurch or or something a even more disparaging. Well, how, how “rich” are they?

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — Do people give more because they go to a larger church and more important, you know, what’s the level of transparency and discipleship that’s there? And, and fundamentally what’s the bar of discipleship and, and what are churches who are exploding with growth, in particular, are they giving out free coffee or are, are they giving out Jesus in a way that’s resonating with the population around them?

Warren Bird — So it’s it’s time to explore and to say, well, what’s happening? And the best way to do it, i mean, we hang out at conferences, Rich, because I don’t want to just ask questions out of the top of my mind. I want to know what people want to know about their world, their peers.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Warren Bird — And I can put that in a question and find out from a bunch of churches and then come back to you and say, well, here’s the lay of the land. And more importantly, here’s what seems to be around the next corner…

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Warren Bird — …for churches that they are anticipating.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — Can you tell I’m excited about this project?

Rich Birch — Yeah, I was going to…

Warren Bird — Bit.ly/largechurch2025

Rich Birch — Great. that’s the That’s the link. We’re driving towards that today, friends. And you’re looking particularly for churches over a thousand is the is the kind of the…

Warren Bird — In-person attendance, yes.

Rich Birch — In in-person attendance.

Warren Bird — And that’s adults and children, all your campuses, every nose that’s there on it on a given weekend. You know, is it somewhere around 1,000 to up to 100,000? And it’s…

Rich Birch — All those people over a hundred thousand were asking you not to participate. Yeah, that’s great. That’s so, this is good.

Warren Bird — Well, that’s another story. Yeah I just interviewed the pastor of Africa’s third largest attendance church, and they would be more than 100,000 on a weekend across their campuses.

Rich Birch — Yes, it’s amazing. Amazing

Warren Bird — But that’s another story.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. So a couple things, just while we’re kind of establishing why this particular study. So there does seem to be this um undercurrent in the culture in general. I don’t know whether it’s just the church culture that’s like, it kind of looks down on large churches.

Rich Birch — In fact, I was at an event earlier this year of large church pastors where the vibe there for sure was like, and it’s one of these kind of like social things. They get all their people together. And it’s outside of they’re all from the same denomination, but it’s not run by the denomination. They just do it themselves. And the reason is, is because they feel like, oh, everybody else looks down on us.

Rich Birch — So why is that? Why do you, why is it that we seem as, as Christians to kind of, I don’t know. It’s like we, we, we look at these large churches suspiciously. Why, why do you think that is?

Warren Bird — A lot of reasons. The probably the biggest reason is the cultural distrust of institutions, church included. And and that’s all the major institutions.

Warren Bird — Somehow we think, and I’ll just use a wild example, that going to GoFundMe where there’s zero accountability that my money is going to be better used than in an established non-profit or Christ-centered non-profit or church or whatever. And it’s like, really? But that’s the tenor of the culture.

Warren Bird — And there have been enough scandals that the media has highlighted that people like, okay, yeah, you’re raising money for the church van, for the youth. I mean, that’s a great idea, but i you know do I have any confidence that that’s what’s happening? That’s just on the money side. There are so many other factors that influence the distrust in large organized religion.

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true. You were saying about the, you know, when you see any scandal write ups, if the something goes sideways at a church, they talk about a rich megachurch or an affluent megachurch or a whatever.

Rich Birch — The other thing that bugs me in those reports is they always talk about, well, you know, they have rock and roll band. And like they they kind of talk about some of the stuff we do as if it’s like, well, that’s the reason, the only reason why people are there. So interesting stuff.

Warren Bird — Yeah. So, so Rich, let me put this in context.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — I am all for every single church, whether it’s three people, 30 people, 300, 3000, 30,000, whatever.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Warren Bird — If they are making disciples of Jesus Christ…

Rich Birch — Amen.

Warren Bird — …and even more so if they are making disciple-makers of Jesus Christ.

Warren Bird — Now, when a church is explosively growing and it’s genuine, I’m just thrilled by it. Because large churches have the opportunity to do things that other sized churches don’t.

Rich Birch — Right.

Warren Bird — Like let’s say special needs ministry that that often is very volunteer intensive and sometimes staff intensive and may require a certain room. You know, it’s a a quiet room or or ability to do things structurally with your facility that just not every church can do. But but large churches can. So I’m trying to zero in on, okay, every church size can do something well.

Warren Bird — And actually the survey at bit.ly/largechurch2025 is part of a series that’s going to compare against every other size. So for example, the average pastor age, or the average pastor tenure, or the average, whatever. We’re going be able to do across all sizes. I’m doing the very large church size and, and I’m, that’s, that’s what, that’s the size that’s hardest to get good data on. And I’m bullish on the outreach, on the impact on their communities.

Warren Bird — In fact, let me let me leak one early finding.

Rich Birch — Sure

Warren Bird — We gave 15 things where we said, what has, have these changed since the pandemic?

Rich Birch — Right.

Warren Bird — Have they increased, stayed the same, and gone down? The number two vote at present is our service and impact on our local community.

Rich Birch — Interesting.

Warren Bird — Wow, that’s such a positive thing…

Rich Birch — Right.

Warren Bird — …especially for large churches.

Rich Birch — That’s amazing. You know, one of the things in in the coaching I’ve done with churches, we talk about magnetic community service as a key piece of an invite culture that people want to be a part of a church that is not only making a difference, but they want to be seen as being a part of of a church that’s making a difference, so that I can invite my friends to come be a part of that.

Rich Birch — And it’s interesting, as I’ve talked with some large churches about that, you know, we’ll talk about this particular area. And they’re like, oh, we’ve never thought of that as like ah a way for us to reach our community. They’re like, it just seems like the thing we should do. And I’m like, no, you should be inviting first time guests to come and do that to be a part of. But that’s cool to see. Now, so what you said, number two, what was number one? Yeah, I’m going to try to milk more of this out of you here of these things, if you don’t mind saying.

Warren Bird — Very exciting. Very exciting. It’s the spiritual response by young adults.

Rich Birch — Interesting.

Warren Bird — Wow. In other words, the the people that we’re able to impact as a church who are young adults, we have seen a clear increase in the spiritual interest of that group. Wow.

Rich Birch — Isn’t that interesting? We’re seeing that in in a number of places, right? That that this is bubbling up.

Warren Bird — And that’s another thing about large churches. They are disproportionately bulging in not only the the children, Next Gen, but also in that 20-somethings age is is usually a sizable percentage of of, especially, newer large churches.

Rich Birch — I was just with the church a couple weeks ago and they were talking about—and they’re a large church—and they were kind of thinking, they were like, I would say disparagingly about their own ministry. And they’re like, you know, young people just don’t want large churches. They they want a small, intimate thing. And I challenged them on that. Now I’m looking forward because when the study comes out, I can give them an actual stat.

Warren Bird — Okay, okay, Rich. I’m going to tease another finding then.

Rich Birch — Yes. Okay.

Warren Bird — Because this I’ve I’ve sat and listened to your… And and tell tell us the name of the title of your latest book where you talk about different growth strategies.

Rich Birch — Yeah, Breaking Breaking the 200 Barrier or 2000 Barrier is the this the title of the book I’m working on.

Warren Bird — Wow. Okay. So so this survey that I’m doing actually has been done every five years since the year 2000.

Rich Birch — Okay, yeah.

Warren Bird — And it’s fascinating to see the same question, the answer every 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020, just before the pandemic, and now 2025 after the pandemic.

Warren Bird — And one of the questions is, it’s an agree/disagree statement, that how important are small groups or teams for the Christian formation and discipleship in your church?

Warren Bird — And the when it was first asked many years ago, it was right at 50%. Every single survey, it has inched up. And the last survey, it was 89%. And I thought, well, we’re not going to top that because you don’t get 90 or more percent in any survey.

Rich Birch — Wow. Of anything.

Warren Bird — But the responses so far, 92%…

Rich Birch — Wow.

Warren Bird — …give the highest rank to small groups, which translated is: you get bigger by getting smaller. And that intimacy that you were reflecting on, that’s what where people thrive. That’s the hub of discipleship. And that’s essential for the larger you get to know how to do that well. Plus, of course, that’s where so many of your lay leaders are developed and everything else.

Rich Birch — Yeah. And and we, on ah from a practitioner point of view, we know that um like large churches have to get good at that. Like you have to get good at moving people into smaller communities. You’ve got to figure out how, you can’t, people will come for whatever you’re doing on the weekend, but they will not stick and stay long-term.

Rich Birch — they They have to find a group of small, you know a small group of friends that they’re connecting with. My parents, most of their, ah my dad moved, I think, 23 times in his career, moved a lot and went to a bunch of different churches. I think like 18 different churches or something over the years, and mostly small churches. I’ve mostly worked in large churches.

Rich Birch — And if I’m honest, they would never say it this way because they love me and they’re good parents. I always felt like they kind of looked down on the large church thing. They’re like, I don’t know. I don’t know. They, at one point we’re moving to Louisville, Kentucky.

Rich Birch — And I said, you got to go to Southeast, at least try going to to Southeast and check it out. Just check it out for one weekend. They ended up getting connected there, stuck and stayed, loved it. And they would say too, and it’s a massive church, probably like it’s up there, top single digit, the largest church in the country, somewhere in that range. And it it they would say to this day, that was the church that they felt the most connected at, not the church of 200 people. You’ve we’ve got to get really good at that for sure.

Rich Birch — Any other findings that are kind of interesting for us to kick around?

Warren Bird —Yeah, what I did, Rich, before the surveys, I got a whole bunch of people together who work with churches and say, tell me what you think might be on the horizon that I can test for.

Warren Bird — And one of the things Ithen worded questions to test for is are, is the locus of where future pastors, leaders, missionaries are coming from, is it is it less from the seminaries as points of origin? You know, I’m going to go to seminary and try to figure out what God has for my life. And more happening there in the local church. And and just for an example, if you take all the churches of 5,000 and higher in attendance that of ah have completed the survey so far, and you ask, do you have a residency program or equivalent? (And I give them a whole bunch of words because everybody calls it something different…)

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — But designed to train future church leaders.

Rich Birch — Right.

Warren Bird — So far in the findings, 92% have said yes.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Warren Bird — And then when we said, okay, if yes, then how many people during the course of 2025 are you training? And the median is 15.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Warren Bird — Now, that doesn’t mean just really large churches are doing it. I also checked for 2,000 and up, 1,000 and up. And they’re all at different levels doing some kind of of serious ministerial training.

Warren Bird — So this is pipeline, pathway, whatever you want to call it, that, you know, from to use the phrase of another church, starting with the irreligious person who comes and and finds a vital life-changing forgiveness relationship with Jesus Christ. And then if gifted, there is just no lack of steps you can take toward leadership if God’s calling should continue in that particular way – all the way towards a ministry residency, towards doing something vocationally full-time.

Rich Birch — Wow, that’s incredible, 92%. That’s shocking to me, that’s surprising. That’s incredible for churches over 5,000. I wonder, one of the things I’ll look forward to when the study comes out is seeing how that gradiates with churches that are say at 2,000.

Warren Bird — Right. And and that’s what we’ll do in the report.

Warren Bird — For those who take the survey, by the way, they get the report first and…

Rich Birch — Yes. What is that link again?

Warren Bird — …and and but wait, there’s more. Those who take the survey get an exclusive webinar where we unveil it and do Q&A with us and special guests like Sam Chan there. And and and we’ve we’ve got a whole bunch of people lined up who are going to kind of ask the tough questions of the data. And again, it’s at bit.ly/largechurch2025.

Rich Birch — That’s great.

Warren Bird — And so, and so participate and then be the first to get these wonderful reports that we’ll do.

Rich Birch — You know, that’s interesting because I, you know, I’m always looking for what are the behaviors at a kind of certain level of church that changes as they become larger. And um that’s actually that book I’m working on, that really is what it kind of is is based around. And one of them, there’s these eight different things that I’ve i’ve just seen. And and so I’m out talking to other church leaders. And one of them is they go from reactive volunteering to proactive volunteer growth. That like a church of a church of 800 or a church of 500 is like, oh, we need people for this. But then to really break that 2000 barrier, churches have to, they move to, or we see them move to, okay, actually we see that moving people into places of their gifting, their what’s kind of best for them. And also trying to find a way to create more space for more volunteers is a behavior that we see.

Rich Birch — I wonder if in this one, as churches go from 2,000 to 3,000 to 5,000, there’s like, it’s just kind of that behavior even just extended all the way up through the kind of staffing experience where it’s like, hey, we’ve got to develop our leaders from within. That’s that’s amazing. That’s that’s incredible.

Warren Bird — Yeah, it’s to me, it’s exciting.

Rich Birch — Oh, for sure.

Warren Bird — It’s it’s just thrilling to imagine the impact because frankly, last weekend of the people who went to a Protestant church, at least in the United States, um somewhat around half or more went to a large church.

Rich Birch — Interesting.

Warren Bird — And it’s where you cut do the cutoff for what becomes large. But this is a a small number of churches, relatively speaking…

Rich Birch — Right.

Warren Bird — 320,000 U.S. churches. And at least in the megachurch department, 2,000 and higher, they’re only like 1,800 or so. And then when you go into the thousand range, it it adds a chunk more churches. But this is a disproportionate number of churches. And if they get leadership development right, um the impact, the ripple effect to bless all churches and all communities has great potential.

Rich Birch — Well, and this, absolutely, this has been um so much of the work that you’ve done over the years, which I think has been such a blessing to so many churches, is you have mined out these insights, these, that but then have become resources that then all of us can apply regardless of our church size.

Rich Birch — So even down the road when the when the study comes out, if you’re not a large church, this would be a great study for you to read, to but to to to learn from.

Warren Bird — Yeah. Yeah, and we will make it available to the public…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — …but it’s just those who take the survey at – did I mention it: Bit.ly/largechurch2025. And it closes for those who may be listening to this later: November 11th, 2025. That’s your cutoff for midnight, that night…

Rich Birch — Midnight.

Warren Bird — …whatever your midnight is.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Warren Bird — U.S. churches take the survey. So, but Rich, you know, let me just tell you some of the questions we’re asking.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Warren Bird — I’d love to get your feedback on, for example.

Rich Birch — Okay, sure.

Warren Bird — First, the stereotype of a megachurch, for example, is that they have this colossal sanctuary like like Lakewood Church, you know, the seats 16,000. But the reality is typically the largest venue, and we’re asking this, but I haven’t looked at it for this survey so far, is about 1,400, which means, you know, you have multiple campuses, multiple services and so forth.

Warren Bird — Which leads to the question, is the is the spiritual commitment, is there any relationship between facility size and the amount of volunteering, giving, or anything else? Are there factors that proportion with the size of your largest worship venue? We’ll have some numbers on that, but Rich, do you have any predictions?

Rich Birch — Well, um so I’m looking forward, this could be one of those areas where I have been giving bad advice, but I have I have been saying for a long time, 15 years, think smaller rooms, more more services, more campuses, rather than you know fewer.

Rich Birch — And um the logic, I the reason why I say that is like, let’s say you take, um like my friends at Flatirons, they have 4,000 seats in their in their biggest room. You only, “only”, you only need maybe five or six people on the worship band. um You know, and that room only has, I think there’s, I think there’s only four entrances to that room. So you’ll only need maybe eight people to actually be like usher greeter people at the door.

Rich Birch — Man, I want to see way more volunteer engagement than that. I want to see, you know, for 4,000 people to only have, say, a dozen volunteers, man, that’s that’s like the wrong kind of efficiency. I’d rather go the other way. Let’s have a smaller room. Let’s have eight rooms of 500 where then now we require a whole bunch of more people to be involved to make it happen, which is then going to drive all kinds of the other positive behavior around inviting and them being leaning in more, all of that.

Rich Birch — So I would say, I think there’s a sweet spot. I think, you know, it’s, well, and I’ve heard that 14-, 1500 number before. I think it’s, you know, 500, 1000, somewhere in there. There’s like this interesting sweet spot. If I was going to guess, I would think as it goes dow… as it goes up, that kind of engagement and some of those participation numbers go down over a certain number. So that’s my prediction. We’ll see.

Warren Bird — All right. Rich Birch predicts. We will you see what happens. All right. Let me ask you another one, Rich.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — There are a lot of definitions to the attractional model. And there are a lot of questions of people saying, you know, is the attractional model, they use strong words like dead.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — But but is it lessening? And if so, what is replacing it? And we’ve asked enough different types of questions about involvement and, you know, where’s your front door, primary front door, and that most newcomers come and all, that I think we’re going to be able to tease out which churches are strongly attractional and and how strongly they’re growing, versus which churches are not and how strongly they’re growing. And which churches are doing other things like, let’s say, community service emphases, justice emphases – how that impacts growth.

Warren Bird — Do you have any prediction as to where you think it’s going to land when all these listeners of yours in large churches take the survey at bit.ly/largechurch2025?

Rich Birch — Well, you got me on a bit of a high horse. I’ll try and I’ll try not to preach about the death of the attractional church, but I can say, so ah last year, I turned one of those numbers on my birthday that had a zero at the end that started for me to think like, okay, I’ve been in this for a long time. And one of the things that I’ve noticed in the people we serve is I do think when I started 20, 30 years ago, you could do things that were classically attractional. Like, and and we would have never said, we’re trying to entertain people. Like we were more spiritual than that. We would have never said like, put on a good band, be funny, have like a standup comic, do… Like we wouldn’t have said that. Although those were all the things we were trying to do.

Rich Birch — And I actually think that worked, but I actually don’t think that works anymore. Because the people that we’re serving has changed. I’m convinced that the people that are coming in our front doors in every zip code in the country is more unchurched today than it was 20 years ago.

Rich Birch — And so people are coming, they’re pushing through some sort of cultural resistance to be there. They don’t just stumble into church like they used to. Even…

Warren Bird — Right. They’re choosing church over…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — …any number of other things they could have done on a Sunday morning.

Rich Birch — Yes. And they’re…

Warren Bird — And they’re coming find God.

Rich Birch — Yes, they’re coming with actual questions. Like they’re like, I, my marriage is falling apart. My life is not doing well. Who is Jesus? Does any of this make a difference? And so, you know, the classic attractional model I would think is in decline. And that comes from someone I’ll introduce myself in situation where listen, I came from the attractional church movement. That is my background. That is my heritage. But I, that I think model has has shifted.

Rich Birch — Now, It’s not like we’ve moved to repulsive church. It’s not like that works. We don’t want our churches to push people away. But I, but I, I, and I do think that there has been, I don’t know if you’re teasing this out as well. I have also noticed, man, a lot of our worship services, they look a lot similar.

Rich Birch — I’ve been in, I think 22 churches in the last year where I’ve been like there on a Sunday in a church. Most of those churches north of 500, less than, well, guess there’s a bunch that are quite large, but north of 500. And it’s interesting how we’re, a lot of us are doing a very similar kind of participatory raised hands, come to the front, get prayed for – that, whatever you call that. That sure is a great band. And there is somebody that’s like, they know what they’re doing from a communications point of view, all that. But there there seems to be, I don’t know whether that’s just me, but it seems like there’s more homogeneity in the church and than I maybe even realized was there. I’m I’m not sure.

Warren Bird — Well, at least…

Rich Birch — So that’s what I would say.

Warren Bird — …homogeneity in terms of experiential. And I think the pandemic, one of the silver linings is churches said, we need to distinguish what the value is in coming in person versus watching.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — And and you you can’t be hugged on on the… And and please don’t anyone hear me as disparaging the incredibly wonderful outreach by ah the the Internet that so many churches have with their digital ministries. But but to come in person, I can be hugged. I can I can be prayed over in person with somebody holding my hands to pray. I can tactilely, you know, take the Lord’s Supper, communion, whatever you call it, in person, in a way that that’s in community…

Rich Birch —Yeah.

Warren Bird — …that I just can’t do online by myself, even even with my family. And that’s that’s one of the many pulls for people coming back. And I’m hoping in the survey to learn a little bit more as to what is drawing people today in different aspects of a increased hunger for God.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I can see I can see that how, you know, there’s been a shift around that. And and again, super intrigued to see what comes out of – is there was there one last question that you, listen, you get to actually shape the questions that you’re like super intrigued. You don’t have to reveal the early results, but like you’re really looking forward to, I know that’s like picking which is your favorite children, I understand. But like, you know, are there any any other questions that you’re really hmm super intrigued to see what comes out?

Warren Bird — Yeah. It’s just the whole idea of the comeback. I, we ask people, what was your worship attendance in 2019? Which would be, remember the pandemic was March of 2020. So this is well before anybody had in inkling of what was to come. And ask, what is the attendance in-person today? Total noses. And and to wonder, because the larger the church, typically, as I mentioned earlier, the the harder you were hit during the pandemic and the and the slower often you were to do the comeback.

Warren Bird — So have they regained to where they were? And what is, first of all, so far 53%, limiting just, let’s say to megachurches, 2,000 and higher, 53% have come back at least 10% more than they were in 2019.

Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.

Warren Bird — But some have spectacularly, dramatically come back…

Rich Birch — Right.

Warren Bird — …three times the size, two times the size.

Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.

Warren Bird — And and I want to isolate those off. And there is a small group, but it’s still a definite group that has not. And they’re taking the survey.

Warren Bird — And if that’s you, please take the survey.

Rich Birch — We want to hear from you.

Warren Bird — Because we want to say, OK, what’s happening in those churches that’s different from those? So so we’ll look across the spectrum of comeback. But if someone said, nope, the era of the megachurch is dead.

Warren Bird — Oh, oh, oh. And the era of the people said, oh, megachurch is just a baby boomer phenomenon, you know, with pastors just getting older and older. And, you know, so far, the average pastor age is considerably younger, senior pastor, than when we did the survey five years ago…

Rich Birch — Interesting. Interesting.

Warren Bird — …which says there’s a whole new generation, at least enough of that generation of younger church planters or otherwise that are becoming large churches.

Warren Bird — And I say church planters because from our survey five years ago, 82% of megachurches, 2,000 and higher, reached their size under the leadership of their current and founding pastor, same person. So I’m sorry, that’s a misstatement. Under their current pastor, the majority of which are founding pastors.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Warren Bird — But many people come into a church that’s 100 years old and you know for 100 years ministered effectively as a community of 50 to 75, and then just exploded under one pastor.

Warren Bird — So um all that to say, I’m excited by the reaching of young adults, by the the apparent getting younger of the age of the leader and the explosive growth of some. And I haven’t correlated the explosive growth ones with the average age of the pastor, but we will do that.

Warren Bird — And the more people who take the survey, the more I’m able to slice and dice in that way. So please, before November 11, 2025, take the survey. It’ll make a difference and it will pay you back big time in terms of data informed, wisdom that the Holy Spirit uses to help you make wise planning and strategic decisions.

Rich Birch — Well, the thing, friends, we really do want you to take this survey. You really should be tracking along with Warren. And, you know, he does just such great work. And this is going to be a valuable resource. I know it’ll be the thing we’ll be chewing on for a long time, probably for the next five years until the next one comes around. And then we’ll be thinking about that one. So super helpful.

Rich Birch — This is great. It’s interesting that whole thing you were talking about. i have I’ve wondered, I heard, this is probably two years ago on the economic side, they talked about the K recovery in some industries, that there were some that have done quite well and then some that are doing not so well. And just intuitively, that has been my experience as I’ve talked with church leaders, that there are still, like there are people that COVID is in their rear view mirror and they’re like, man, we are just like we’re up and to the right. Things just are going. But then there’s some church leaders that are still like licking their wounds and are like, man, this just is, we’ve not been able to recover and it’s not, it’s not going well.

Warren Bird — Well, and and for some, you know, the the prime industry in their city tanked during the pandemic…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — …and there’s there’s been a massive departure. Or there was a leadership a change or there was, you know, something else that that could explain something that thwarted or or considerably slowed their growth and rebuilding impact.

Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah, so good. So give us that link again and the timeline. Just so just give us a whole blurb.

Warren Bird — Yeah, I might not have mentioned it before, but it’s bit.ly bit.ly/largechurch2025. That’s all one word. And between now and November 11th, 2025, and please don’t wait till the last, but I mean, you can, but but we’d love to have you be part. And we’d love just to bless you back with all kinds of helpful ah guidance and information and benchmarks and ratios and everything else if you’ll participate.

Warren Bird — This will be, assuming we continue the way we are the largest ever study…

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s right.

Warren Bird — …of large churches in the United States.

Rich Birch — What, how long does it take if i’m if I’m preparing to sit down to do it? How much time should I set aside?

Warren Bird — Okay. The average is just under 20 minutes. That’s a big ask.

Warren Bird — However, on the opening page of the survey, click here to get a PDF. Many people hand it to their admin and say, hey, there are certain numbers, things you fill those in and I’ll fill in the rest and then you can key it in for us or whatever. So so um while it is asking a very knowledgeable person to to give input. It’s often shared around the office. But that 20 minutes, up to 20 minutes will pay you back big time…

Rich Birch — Yeah, 100%.

Warren Bird — …in in the feedback you get.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I just I just referenced that because I know you got to set time aside. This is not like…

Warren Bird — Yeah and and I know that people have survey fatigue everywhere you go. You’re asked to take a quick survey, which is really not quick. And so I’m just being upfront and telling you what the average is.

Rich Birch — Yeah, no, it’s good. And it’s super valuable, friends. And this this will help not only your church, but will help shape so many churches. We want to learn from you. You know, that’s really what this podcast is, trying to learn from other churches. This is a great thing.

Rich Birch — Warren, where do we want to send people online if they want to track with you, um if they just kind of want to be in the the greater Warren Bird cinematic universe?

Warren Bird — I am full time as a church researcher and writer. I probably post the most on LinkedIn. I’m pretty easy to find there to follow me. And and Rich, thank you for mentioning different books. And um that’s the most joyful thing that happens is somebody reads like “Becoming a Future Ready Church,” the latest book that Daniel Yang and Adelle Banks and I did, and then writes me an email. Just Google me. I’m easy to find. And says, I have a question or I’d like to tell you a story or whatever. So that’s the way to get even more connected with me.

Rich Birch — Well, it’s an honor, privilege to know you, even for folks that aren’t watching the video. There’s Mike Slaughter’s book, “Unlearning Churches”, over your corner. And that literally was a book I read when it first came out years ago, and it shaped my own thinking. This is the thing that I was thinking this as we were preparing. I know I said this at the beginning, but I want to honor you with this. Your books are for sure the ones I recommend the most, like “Better Together”, “Hero Maker”, “Multisite”, “Church Road Trip”.

Rich Birch — Like there’s a bunch of books that you’ve had your hand in, “Next”, that I’m always like – literally today, I was like, someone was talking about succession stuff. And I was like, well, you should buy “Next” first. Like before you do anything else, buy “Next”. That’s the book you should buy and go through that. And then, you know, think about your next steps from there.

So and they have that consistently with your work. So you do such good work. Thank you so much, friend. So glad you’re here. And let’s get a bunch of people to do your survey. Take care.

Warren Bird — Rich, you’re a good man. I always go out of my way to hang out with you or if we’re at a gathering together to sit down at your table or to be in your session. So keep up the great work and I look forward to the next time our paths will intersect.