Brian Orme writes about some ‘old wives tales’ about church growth. The first one he hits strikes a little nerve with me. :)
Read this and tell me what you think. Do you agree with Brian?
If growth and a bigger crowd is “always” the result of obedience then some of the OT prophets will have some serious explaining to do.
Of course, if you’re not growing—or you’re declining—I think it is cause to evaluate what you’re doing, but it’s not a given that something is always “wrong.”
God could be doing something different—more Jeremiah and less Peter.
Also, while we’re at it, let’s stop using the Acts 2 passage as a normative prescription for every church today. It’s an amazing description of something special God was doing in history to launch his church, but it’s not a church growth manual. A casual reading of the NT will show churches of all different shapes and sizes, and never once is there a declarative statement that the church should be growing faster than it was—more obedience, yes; helping the poor, yes; staying true to the Gospel, yes; practicing the Lord’s Supper and baptism, yes.
I guess the bottom line question here is: Shouldn’t ALL healthy churches be growing (not just in discipleship, but also through new converts)?
To be honest… there’s a huge part of me that says… if your church is not growing… something IS wrong. It could be a ton of different things.
(And please don’t bash me… I think there are a good number of GROWING churches that aren’t healthy; and growth should not, by any means, be the ‘be all end all’ criteria for determining health.)
But… really… shouldn’t your church be growing?
What do YOU think?
Todd
I tend to agree with the idea that healthy things grow and reproduce. However, I can see instances when that was not the case. For example, when a new leader comes on board and the vision changes, the church may experience a big dip in attendance. Sometimes you have to excavate before you are ready to rebuild. But I believe that church leaders should remain in a pro-growth posture. Leaders who’s actions are not pro-growth are usually just short-sighted and self-preserving. The church is a growth organism and we need to be careful not to shy away from that reality.
The Kingdom of God should be growing as a result of the church. There are many factors that go into a particular church growing in attendance. But every church should be growing the Kingdom. The rural small town church may not ever be a church of thousands but these effective churches can and often are behind the church of thousands getting started. I have also seen churches, that because of facility issues, growth came slow but they kept giving their members to start other churches.
The only factor of church health is not attendance but the church should be able to point to how the Kingdom of God is growing as a result of the church.
OK, I’ll weigh in. This hits a sore spot for me, so I’ll try to be nice about it. Blunt, but nice.
First of all, thanks for asking the question.
Second, my answer is “False”. Butts-in-the-seats attendance is neither the only measure or the best measure of a church’s health or growth, any more than height is the only or best measure of a person’s health or growth. But numbers are the only measure we’ve used in the western church for several decades.
As the pastor of a small church, I have to say that the insistence on numerical growth is frustrating, and at times, demoralizing.
80% of us are small. Always have been. Always will be. Telling us we’re failing because we’re small is like telling 80% of the world’s restaurants that they’re failing because they’re not the size of The Cheesecake Factory. It doesn’t help us get better. It just makes us want to give up.
Instead of telling 80% of us that we’re failing, let’s figure out how to help that 80% be great, healthy, small churches. It is possible. I know. I pastor one.
My church is healthy, innovative and growing. It’s too complicated to go into the details of how we’re growing in this comment box, but I think we need to start seriously looking at other ways of appreciating health and growth in small churches.
Thanks for the chance to rant. I feel better now.
Well said Karl. Too much pressure is put on smaller churches to be a mega church that will never be a mega church in size (because many of them are rural churches). Build healthy people. People are the Kingdom of God not buildings, ministries and denominations.
Thanks David,
Although it’s not just rural churches that are meant to be small. I pastor a small church in Orange County with people and megachurches all around me, but people come to my church for the personal touch that they don’t even get from their neighbors. I think some churches are destined to be smaller because it suits their mission and calling.
I think some communities are better served to have 10 churches averaging 200 than one church of 2,000. But I’m definitely in the minority on that idea.
A church must be always growing, if not in numbers then in depth. Maybe if your congregations strives for maturity, numbers will follow.
Well said Karl…..
This is a sore spot for me because I was sent from a large, growing church plant to start another church 60 miles to the south. The church I started (and still pastor) is not growing any where near the rate the “mother church” did and honestly, I often feel like a failure. We’ve seen dozens of baptisms over the last 6 years. We’ve seen lives changes, the poor and homeless cared for, orphans and widows helped and in everything we are doing our best to glorify God in every aspect of existence.
But we are not seeing explosive growth like I had expected. I can point to several factors that impede our growth – mainly my own leadership capacity – but as far as I can tell it is not because of sin or other issues within the church.
I wonder if “church growth” needs to be measured over longer periods of time? We seem to be in a season of sowing but not yet reaping. Even within our short life as a church I’ve seen times of sowing and times of reaping (on a much smaller scale than some of the mega-churches that make the news).
While I don’t make excuses for my need to grow in my leadership capacity and continue to develop leaders around me, I do wonder when we need to learn contentment with numerical growth. I know I am not content with where we are at, but I also know I can easily slip into an arrogant spirit if we saw a huge growth spurt this month.
I have thought a ton on this subject and really don’t have a definitive answer yet, but I am really learning more about God and myself in the process. I hope my church is too…
Too many churches are growing because they are offering some kind of “entertainment” that is free and fun on Sunday mornings. I don’t think growth and health are necessarily in the same circle.
Living, healthy things grow. If they do not. Something is wrong. However growth occurs in different ways, at different rates, and is not always observable. If a church is not growing numerically (reaching lost people) something is wrong, but it may or may not be the pastor, leaders, or congregation. It may be something very different. God is the judge. We should never excuse or be satisfied if we are not obediently sharing the Gospel. But we must remember that “God gives the increase” and leave the currently visible results in His hands. Some “growing” churches may not be experiencing conversion growth, but growth at the expense of other churches, or through unBiblical means. Again, we must not excuse a failure to seek to reach lost people or think that we are capable of judging what only God truly understands.
Let us keep in mind also that the Bible calls the Church the “body of Christ”. Just as in a physical body, growth is cyclical and time-dependent. Children grow quickly when young, but a point is reached where growth decelerates and transitions to emotional and physical maturity. Growth is also a function of resources. Finally – sometimes fast growth is BAD, like when a tumor develops. As Pietrosquared pointed out, too many churches provide an atmosphere of exciting entertainment, and end up with a large number of shallow Christians (at best) or unbelievers who “feel better about themselves” at worst. In the end, we have to trust that God knows how to build His church – we just need to be faithful.
No matter how you slice it if a family is not adding members it will go extinct. One of the evidences of biological life is reproduction. Foot washing, great potlucks, strong relationships are all good but the mission is pretty stark: “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel, baptizing them and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you , and Lo, I am with you to the end of the age. If we think that being stuck on “teaching them all that I have commanded you” is sufficient then I am reminded of another comment Jesus made when he said, “Why do you call me Lord and do not do what I say?”.
Hey Todd, appreciate the discussion
I do think there are instances where numerical growth (attendance) isn’t growing, but the church can still be healthy. It could be due to tough soil, a difficult season that requires more prayer than action, members leaving but new converts replacing them, a leadership transition or even a restart–however, if we’re referring specifically to new believer growth–I do think that’s a must for ongoing health.
So, to some degree, I think it depends on what you’re counting.
It is true that if something is healthy then it will grow. But, it is also true that if something is healthy then you cannot always see the growth.
Plants that bear fruit have periods of rest wherein they do not produce fruit for a period of time. The lack of “visible fruit” doesn’t mean that it is unhealthy. One must wait until the growing season of fruit to tell whether the plant is healthy or not.
Flowers are generally the same way. A tulip bulb grows a flower in the spring then the flower dies and falls off. But, if you dig up that tulip bulb, one would see a little sprout beginning to grow. That sprout will grow during the winter and bloom in the spring.
The church is an “organism” (just as plants and flowers are organisms). One can’t always see where the growth is occurring because of the fact that we are talking about something that is “spiritual”. And, you can’t see “spiritual” all the time.
Jesus said, “My Father is always at work and I work also” (John 5:16). We must trust that what Jesus said is still true. God is always at work around us. Therefore, we must ask Him to show us where He is working and how and where we need to adjust our lives to join Him in what He is doing. (Henry Blackaby, “Experiencing God”)
By the way, there are all types of “growth” in the church: membership, maturity, ministry, and missions. (Rick Warren).
good stuff!
Thanks!