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The Big Deal

An estimated 1,000 Xenos leaders gathered from across Ohio were restless at the Friday evening kickoff of the annual Servant Team Retreat. NeoXenos sent 35 leaders who looked tired and grumpy when they arrived in Cincinnati. Suddenly the crowd was riveted by startling news, including student-age leaders.

"Calvary Chapel is the first church we've found where the majority of their growth was 'convert growth,'" Dennis McCallum? said in the opening speech. "Around 60% of their growth comes from salvations. The closest we've ever verified was Willow Creek, with 23% convert-growth."

Columbus Xenos sees 70% convert-growth, and NEO Xenos sees 80% or higher convert-growth. Typically more than 90% of the growth in Evangelical churches comes from people who transfer from other churches.

The Calvary Chapel discovery makes it possible to learn from another group facing similar issues arising from high conversion-growth, Dennis said. The long and costly search for such a ministry is yielding significant rewards.

It was refreshing to know Calvary is in strong biblical agreement with Xenos. Chuck Smith is actually a strong proponent of God's grace and able to dismantle the legalistic mind-set because of his upbringing:

The Growth Problem

The failure to reach outside the Christian community with the Gospel is widespread among churches, and this STR brought a sober reminder that NEO Xenos is certainly not immune from this frustration. Even Columbus growth has been declining for years, but their convert-growth remains unchanged.

Many efforts and innovations failed to revive their earlier growth, Dennis said. "This year I pretty much stopped looking at our stats."

"We know your pain!" one NeoXenos leader murmured.

From 1987 until the ministry at KSU began in 2001, NeoXenos growth was flat despite our efforts, plans, consultations, considerations, prayers and turnovers in leadership. But ironically, convert-growth still remained high, producing a "Growth Without Growth" phenomena (read "Hope in Failure").

Differences With Xenos

Although Calvary Chapel experiences similar convert-growth, Dennis pointed out significant differences with Xenos:

• It is a leader-oriented movement, where each church is largely driven by a Senior Pastor with an "advisory board" helping out. At NeoXenos we mandate plurality of leadership and a concensus, from DMT meetings to the Board of Trustees.
• They use a "Big Meeting" approach without home groups, so people are often involved sporadically and in diffuse ways. Xenos is more fellowship-driven, which obviously requires more teaching and leadership resources.
• They employ the "evangelism crusade" approach, like Billy Graham, relying on travelling, gifted evangelistic speakers such as Greg Laurie, "and you should check him out on the Web," Dennis said. "They told us, 'Most of our conversions occur when he comes to town.'" Xenos, of course, practices a more interactive, one-on-one evangelism, which again requires more resources and training.
• They are loose on church discipline. "Since there's no home groups, people don't know about each other much," Dennis said. Xenos teaches the need for Christians to "speak into" each other's lives and promote sanctification, what can get sticky at times.
• They practice poor accountability, Dennis said. He was surprised when Calvary's accountant said he didn't know what the current budget was. Similarly, "statistics and attendance are unimportant, because they believe size of the church shouldn't be a concern," Dennis said. They apparently practice no planning, have no specific goals and do not track budgets.

Wether these differences are weaknesses or strengths, "they are high in credibility," Dennis said. "The fact is, God is bringing people to them," meaning they have credibility with God.

In Part II of Our Report: Should we adopt the Calvary Model here?

Go ahead and leave your own impressions and ideas.