Why Are the Number of Church Consultation Requests Increasing?

If I counted correctly, Church Answers has received 41 consultation requests from churches in 20 states in the past few months.

The churches represent 23 denominations, while the rest are non-denominational.

The congregations cover the continental United States: Missouri, California, North Carolina, Colorado, Georgia, Washington, South Carolina, Alabama, Wisconsin, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Indiana, New York, West Virginia, Florida, Connecticut, Louisiana, Texas, and Arizona. We are not surprised that North Carolina is our number one source of church clients. We are surprised that New York is number two.

We would be close to 50 states if we counted individual coaching of pastors.

We began in 1988 as Church Growth Visions. I did three consultations that year.

We then became the Rainer Group before we became Church Answers.

I would not be surprised if we are soon on a pace of 100 consultation requests a year, plus thousands of specific questions we answer each year. My best estimate is over 3,000 per year. We know that about 250,000 churches get information or resources from us every year.

What Explains the Surge?

It is easy for us to explain this surge. We can tell by the consultations we do and the questions we answer. Here are the five most common reasons we get when a pastor or other church leader requests a consultation:

1. 1. “We are not reaching people any more. We used to count on transfer growth from other churches, but that has evaporated. And we were never very good at reaching lost people.”
   2. “COVID was a wake-up call. We lost 60 percent of our attendance in one year, and we have yet to recover.”
   3. “I think we have staff and lay leaders who aren’t on the same page, but we don’t know for sure.”
   4. “I don’t want to go the rest of my life playing church games;  we need to make a difference in our community, but we are just going through the motions.”
   5. “We can’t find a pastor. It’s never been this difficult in the past.”

Some form of these five comments explain nearly 80 percent of our consultation requests. And the number of requests continues to grow.

Our Response

Though we really can’t scale church consultations financially since most of them need a human touch, Church Answers has made a commitment to increase our efforts in this area. It may not make good business sense, but we believe it makes good Kingdom sense. Here is our response:

1. 1. We will make ourselves available for church consultations more than ever. We currently have more consultants on staff than we’ve ever had. I, personally, will devote more of my time to church consultations.
   2. We will add to our consultants from our own certified church consultants. Hundreds of persons have become certified through us. For example, I received a consultation request today from a church in a Midwestern state. I will ask one of our certified consultants from that state to help us. We need more trained consultants to help us with the demand. Check our consultation certification here.
   3. We will utilize the digital world as much as possible, but we know an in-person consultation is most helpful. In the consultation request today, the pastor and I decided to go the hybrid path. We will send two consultants for two days on site, but we will do the rest digitally. His church could not afford it otherwise.
   4. We will ask unashamedly for churches and Christians to provide financial support to churches that need consultive help but can’t afford it. Please consider making a donation today to Now Go Network, our non-profit sister organization. We would greatly appreciate a one-time donation. We would appreciate even more a recurring donation. All of the donations go directly to help churches. No one is paid at Now Go Network. We are all volunteers. Here is the link to give.
   5. We will help your church. We hope to be able to help any church that needs help. Let us know if we can provide a consultation for your church. Contact us here.

Paul would commend churches to help one another. This admonition at 2 Corinthians 8:14 is but one example: “Right now you have plenty and can help those who are in need. Later, they will have plenty and can share with you when you need it.”

Nothing is more beautiful than seeing members of the body of Christ, the local church, work together for the good of all.

And nothing is more beautiful than seeing churches help one another.

That is our vision at Church Answers.

Even more, that is our passion at Church Answers.