8 Predictors of Church Growth: Understanding the Rainer Predictive Index

by Thom S. Rainer Founder

We cannot predict the mysterious work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus reminded us that “the wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is growing, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit” (John 3:8, NLT). Church growth is never a formula. It is never a guarantee. It is always, at its core, the gracious movement of God.

But we can learn from the patterns of how the Spirit has worked in churches across generations. We can observe the conditions that often accompany spiritual renewal and numerical growth. And we can pay attention to the practices that consistently place a church in the path of God’s activity.

That is the purpose of the Rainer Predictive Index. It doesn’t replace prayer or dependence. It simply highlights the factors most strongly correlated with growing, healthy congregations.

When these predictors are present, churches tend to flourish. When they are absent, churches often decline.

1. Has at Least Three Outreach Efforts a Year

Growing churches do not drift into evangelism. They schedule it. They pray for it. And they engage their people in it. But an outreach effort is not simply a big event, a seasonal festival, or a service project in the community. Those activities have value, but they do not become evangelistic unless members intentionally invite and connect with potential guests.

That personal invitation is the hinge on which outreach turns. When a church mobilizes its people to pray for others, invite others, and follow up with others, the results are far more consistent and far more transformative.

We have seen this pattern repeatedly, especially as churches adopt The Hope Initiative. What began as a simple tool has become a mainstay in…