How many church plants survive?
What’s the survival rate of church plants? For years I’ve been hearing, “80% of church plants fail.â€
See: What about the church planting failures?
No one can name the source of the 80% failure rate estimate. Ed Stetzer can name his source for an estimate of about 33% closure rate after four years. It’s a comprehensive study of over 2,000 church plants in the US between 2000-2005. Around two thirds of the churches planted were still in existence after four years.
The average size of those churches after four years? Just over eighty.
You can download the full report: Church Plant Survivability and Health Study 2007.
Many thanks to Ed Stetzer and the North American Mission Board.
