• Programs add activity. Process creates direction.
  A program is an event or a ministry. A process is the path a person follows from first visit to belonging, growing, and serving.

The research backs this up. For Simple Church, Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger studied 400+ churches and compared "vibrant" churches, those with at least 5 percent growth in worship attendance for three consecutive years, against churches that weren't growing. Simple churches tended to be vibrant and growing, while complex churches tended to stay stuck. Notably, churches crowded with programs were often not growing, even when individual programs were successful. And the first mark of a simple church was clarity, which they defined as "the ability of the process to be communicated and understood by the people." In other words, a process only works if it's communicated.
— Rainer & Geiger, Simple Church (2006) Church Is Simple. No, Really - CT Pastors

• Most people aren't saying no. They're not being asked.
  Barna found that 39% of Christians are not engaged in discipleship at all, while only 28% are fully engaged, meaning both being discipled and helping someone else grow. The reasons are telling: key reasons for not making disciples include not being asked (24%) and simply not having thought about it (22%), and when asked why they aren't in two-way discipleship relationships, 38% said the option hadn't occurred to them. That's not a commitment problem. It's a communication problem.
  — Barna Group & The Navigators baptist news

• Churches think they're doing better than they are.
  In an earlier Barna study, 52 percent of recent churchgoers said their church "definitely does a good job helping people grow spiritually", yet less than one-quarter of Christian adults (23%) are currently being discipled by someone. Without a clear process, it's hard to see the gap.
  — Barna Group, The State of Discipleship barna

• The community is more open than we think.
  "Unchurched Americans aren't hostile to faith," Lifeway's Scott McConnell said. "They just don't think church is for them." Almost two-thirds of the unchurched (62 percent) went to church regularly as children, and most quit because they got out of the habit. How a church reaches out matters: half say a personal invitation from a friend or family member would be effective, compared with 23% for a postcard or TV ad and 18% for a Facebook ad. And what you invite them to matters too. About two-thirds would attend a church meeting about neighborhood safety, and about half would join a community service event, while only 35 percent are interested in a worship service if invited.
  — Lifeway Research & Billy Graham Center (2016)