Every church must be a Community church. Every church must make impact in her immediate community. A one to five kilometers radius is the ministry area of the church. This is her Jerusalem which she must win first before going to Judea...

Image is everything! Your image, like a smoke or odour will always go before you and reveal your true identity. The growth of a church depends largely on the image the church projects.

Some church leaders seem to forget that thought the church a spiritual entity, yet she is also a social institution. As a social institution, she is being closely watched and monitoring by the society. The church is held in high standard and people lose faith in her when she appears not to be living up to godly expectations.

To have power and impact the society, the church must strive to maintain a good and positive image. A church with a good image naturally attracts people and a church with bad image repels people. How people see your church matters a lot.

The Book of Matthew 16': 13-16 shows to us that Jesus was concerned with the image He was projecting. He asked what and how the public perceived Him and also how the disciples perceived Him. Not that He was looking for the approval and applause of men, far from it, but he was concerned about projecting the right image to the people.

This is because, once people's perception is wrong and faulted, it will adversely affect the way they receive the message and the truth He brought. The church that is serious, about her growth must take a cue from our Lord. How the people sees the church matters a lot.

The kind of image the local church is projecting in the Community will go a long way in shaping her growth and future. What unbelievers are saying about your church matters a lot - they will make or mar the church. Surprised? But very truthful. You have no control over their thoughts, but how they view the church due to how the church has comported herself will form their opinions about the church.

Our research has uncovered the fact that unbelievers do tell each other the kind of churches they should attend. While they recommend one church to one another, they hinder and prevent their friends from attending some churches based on their opinion of those churches. So if your church has created a negative image for herself in the Community, you can be sure you will have a hard time experiencing growth there.

On the other hand, some local churches have never given their image a single thought. They are not known in their locality. They project no image and have no positive or negative image about themselves. They exist in their Community but they are not leaving or making any appreciable impact there.

The church must partake in community development projects, repair roads, dig boreholes and serve the community in whatever capacity that is not ungodly

Dynamic growth requires that you must be known for something. You must project an image. Your host community must identify your church for something. Your identity must be clear and unambiguous. For example, you can be known as a miracle centre, prayer centre, healing sanctuary, deliverance arena, blessing centre, family church, solution centre, teaching church, power centre and etc.

What you are known for must be what is happening in your church. When people come to your church and God repeatedly do spectacular works in their lives, they will carry it to others and that will be the nickname of your church.

People must see your church as a place where God will meet their needs. The news must spread far and wide about God's doing in your place and that will reinforce the image of your church. Many who will not come to church today will come when they want their needs in the area your church specializes in to be met by the Lord.

Your image will form peoples' thinking about your church. If they think positively of your church, then you will attract a crowd. If they think negatively about your church, then you will remain stagnant and decline.

If outsiders don't think at all about your church, then your growth will be put in abeyance. If you are doing nothing to place the consciousness of your church in the thinking of people in the Community, then you will never see good growth.

When your church is lost, unknown and unheard of in your Community, how then can you experience growth? Even, if people are coming from long distances, yet, the church has no future, if she is unknown in her immediate Community.

Every church must be a Community church. Every church must make impact in her immediate community. A one to five kilometers radius is the ministry area of the church. This is her Jerusalem which she must win first before going to Judea, Samaria and the uttermost part of the earth.

Churches that are doing practically nothing in their immediate communities and yet are trying to win the world are disobedient unto the Lord. So long the planting of the church in such community is as a result of the leading of the Lord, that church must become a Community church.

A Community church in the sense that eighty percent of members of the church must be people from the immediate community. The first Century church affected Jerusalem, her immediate community very well before God sent her to other areas.

Churches that fail to win the people of their community are failing God and the people. If every church can function as a community church, winning and affecting people positively, many people will be won for the Lord than the present situation.

The fact should not be lost that one reason why so many churches have not really become a community church is because they have no good image there. At one time or the other, crisis of alarming proportions such as scandals, moral lapses, quarrel, infighting, financial impropriety and tribal sentiments had rocked the church, leading to splits, break away and forming of rival congregation in the same community.

Churches that build on wrong foundation of crisis, fighting with land owners, taking over other peoples' properties unjustly and duping members of their hard­ earned money in the name of seed sowing and joint property development will have a hard time convincing people that they are genuine and real.

These unfortunate scenarios had led to the bad image of churches in the community. Don't be deceived, whatever goes on inside a church always finds its way to the ears of people in the community and they will either help or hinder the image of the church in the community.

Churches that build on wrong foundation of crisis, fighting with land owners, taking over other peoples' properties unjustly and duping members of their hard­ earned money in the name of seed sowing and joint property development will have a hard time convincing people that they are genuine and real.

Pastors that are messing around with women and having disobedient wives and children will make people to think negatively about the church. Pastor's wives and women of position in the church who are not living right will create bad images for the church in the community and effectively kill off the growth potential of the church.

Churches that have the mentality of 'us against them' in their approach to issues in the community will only earn themselves image that will work against them in the future. Good community image starts from the pastor. He must see himself not only as the pastor of the local church but also the pastor of the whole community. The community must be his parish.

The church must also be involved in community projects that will enhance her image and shows that she cares. She must partake in community development projects, repair roads, dig boreholes and serve the community in whatever capacity that is not ungodly. A church can create a good image for herself by sticking to the truth of God's word, living by Scriptural examples and by not tolerating sin and evil.

Any pastor that has behaved in an ungodly way to lower the good image of the church must be transferred or resigned. Retaining such pastor is a pointer to the community that the church is not ready to repair her battered image. Churches that desires dynamic growth on continuous basis must find means to make people think of them, and positively too!

Dr Francis Bola Akin-John President, Church. Growth Services Inc. Visit his website at www.churchgrowthafrica.org