The statistics are clear: new services equal new growth. If you begin a new worship service, chances are approximately 80 percent that within the next year your total attendance, total giving, and total number of visitors will increase.

Plenty of hazards, however, lurk along the way. Knowing the location of these traps could well spell the difference between success and failure.

Explosives to sidestep

My organization, Church Growth, Inc., recently conducted a five-year study analyzing churches that added a new worship service. Here are the traps we found pastors needed to avoid.

Danger #1: The pastor leaves. If a pastor actively supports the addition of a new service, and the right strategy is followed, that's when the chances of success are approximately 80 percent. But if the pastor leaves in the midst of the process, the success rate drops to under 5 percent.

Danger #2: The pastor is not fully behind the new service. The pastor of a Lutheran church in Ohio was not convinced that the benefit ...