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Church Growth Modelling

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Modelling Church Growth using mathematics & computer simulation.

Moriah Chapel, Loughor, Wales.
In 1904-5 Moriah chapel was the centre of massive church growth in Wales through a God-sent revival.

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John Hayward

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New Website

The church Growth Modelling Website has moved from this old site.

The web address is still the same:

Go to https://churchmodel.org.uk/

Same content, better design, mobile friendly

Feedback and Church Growth

Feedback happens when an action results in an effect, which then in turn influences the original action. "The more in church the more conversion, thus even more in church!" Well not quite! Many people in church do not contribute to the conversion process. Nevertheless other forms of feedback are at the heart of church growth, reinforcing loops driving growth, balancing loops restraining it.

First order feedback, those with only one stock in the loop, control the conversion and leaving processes in church, if conversion involves the direct action of people. See the basic feedback blog. If conversion is indirect, perhaps through resources such as Sunday Schools, or the action of people generate hindrances to growth, such as institutionalism, then feedback is second order or more. Then growth may inadvertently turn to decline. See second order feedback blog

The Models - Quick Guide
Limited Enthusiasm Model.
Church grows through the activity of enthusiasts who alone are responsible for the recruitment/conversion of unbelievers into the church.
Congregational Models.
Applied to the individual congregation only. Designed to assist church leaders.
Limits to Church Growth Models.
Models to illustrate barriers to church growth.
Sociological Models.
Based on theories in the sociology of religion.
What is Church Growth?
The discipline that analyses why churches grow and decline.
Sociology, Methodology, Mathematics, Computer Simulation.
What's New?
Latest additions to website
Self Enhancing Resource Model
Agent-Based Model of an Epidemic
Growth & Decline of Welsh Presbyterians
Turchin's Model of Imperial Expansion
Blog
Informal articles:
Billy Graham, Church Growth & Revival
Rise and Decline of Western Civilisation
Modelling Secularisation
Why Revivals Stopped in the UK
Church Growth - It's a Disease!
Enthusiasts are "contagious Christians"
Revival threshold
extinction threshold
Limited Enthusiasm - Revival
Understanding the dynamics of revival by analogy with the spread of a disease.
Revival growth threshold - how a small number of enthusiasts can make a big difference.
Church of England Decline
Limited enthusiasm with demographics applied to Church of England attendance data
What will it take for the church to survive?
Limits to Church Growth
What limits the growth of congregations? Lack of demand, lack of supply by the churches?
A variety of models to explore possible limits to church growth.
Renewal
Limited enthusiasm with inactive believers renewed.
Renewal not evangelism is key to church growth.
Critical mass.
1904/5 Welsh Revival & Spiritual Life
Application of the Spiritual Life model to the last big revival in Wales.
Religion is modelled as a disease of variable infectiousness depending on the spiritual life of the church, spread by enthusiasts.
Under the Bonnet
What is "modelling"? What lies underneath a dynamical model - the technical details that get it to work?
Overview of modelling methodologies.
Introduction to system dynamics & agent based modelling.

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Church Growth Modelling