Do you?
Do you think it matters whether or not your church is growing?
As a general statement I truly believe that growth is a sign of health and a sign of changed lives.
Granted, I think we all know anybody can draw a crowd with a good style and easy message. However, if you are doing well in your ministry, over a long term, you will see growth.
How we measure and understand that growth is important. Let me give you a couple of scenarios:
- A church that grows from 50 people to 5,000 people in five to ten years (I know of five or six churches like this) that have proper teaching, biblical preaching, and are wholly orthodox in belief.
- A church that maintains a general number of members and families but is constantly planting new churches and sending members out on mission.
- A church where the members are about getting and going rather than sitting and soaking. I think horizontal growth is just as important as vertical growth and you can have both. Ultimately you have to look around and ask whether the people showing up every Sunday are moving from passive observers to active contenders.
- A church that sees a consistent number of new members coming in, perhaps 5-15% growth, over a long term. This is a sustainable, long term growing context.
I think these are four examples of healthy growth in a church. When we grow we find ourselves having more opportunities for ministry to others. Growth is a dynamic movement of the Holy Spirit that draws others in while equipping and sending scores out.
Luke2427 said:
Some will likely get "super-spiritual" here and say something to the effect of "SPIRITUAL growth, not numerical growth is what matters."
I contend that it is exactly that attitude which is killing many churches and negatively affecting THE Church's capacity to impact this culture.
I've heard this a lot of people, usually in dying churches or non-growing churches. Its a hard sell and I wouldn't want to be making it. Usually we find that people that talk about quality instead of quantity (when they should be able to talk about both) might have the capability to see growth happen.
I remember a friend who went into a medium sized Baptist church in Missouri that had cycled through five pastors in 15 years (not a good trend.) They had stayed at that number even as the community around them was growing. My friend knew there was something holding the church back and through several leadership decisions, altering their methodology in some areas, and bringing vision he released the cap on the church and they began growing quickly. They've almost tripled in four years. He's a great pastor and a great leader, but you wouldn't think of it if you heard him preach. God honoring, God submitted leadership changes things.
Luke2427 said:
There are some circumstances where growth is impossible- but it ought to always be important to us.
The Great Commission is about the global conquest of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We need to invade our communities with the love of Christ preaching the Good News, healing, helping and bettering them until we can raise the banner of the Lordship of Christ in victory over those communities.
I disagree with two things here:
1. Growth isn't impossible in any circumstance, but we can agree that exponential growth is untenable over a long term.
2. The Gospel isn't about conquest (that is a power of this world model) but is about transformation. We are changed people because of grace, but because of military or political or even social might. Sustainable growth in churches begins in the heart, not on the influence a tongue or personality.
Too many ministers take a backseat to growth because they are afraid of what it means. Auto-pilot is an easy way of life.
That said I will concede several things:
1. As I mentioned this idea from some leaders that we need to see exponential growth over decades doesn't work. Every ministry grows through ups and downs. You will not see growth in some years as the same as others.
2. Some leaders get so enamored with growth they will sacrifice their staff members to achieve a worldly number. This has happened to me. A senior pastor of one of my first churches had a number he wanted to hit attendance wise. We weren't making it after two years and he fired half of the staff one Monday. That isn't healthy or God-honoring growth.
3. Numbers do matter to me...however, when I evaluate them I try to see them as a tool among many to understanding situations and contexts. If we see a sudden drop off in a group or ministry after a season of growth, that is worth investigating further. Sometimes, though, our people vote on over-programmed ministry by just disengaging. This happened recently in our ministry. So we just shut the program down and moved on.
4. If we lay out a prayer-bathed, Gospel-breathed, God-led strategic vision based in ministry to people and not feeding the ego we will see growth. However, growth begins with humility. Just my thoughts.
