Perpetual Church Growth

June 8, 2006 by Kevin D. Hendricks

This is part three in a continuing series, Is Church Growth the Highway to Hell?

The Out of Ur blog from Christianity Today has an interesting post about Jim Collins (author of Good to Great and Built to Last) and how to define the success of a church. Collins argues that while the intangibles are the goals of a non-profit like the church, you can often measure those through tangibles, like attendance and offerings. The Out of Ur blogger isn’t so sure:

Perhaps there is truth to the growing or dying organism analogy. But something in me doesn’t want there to be. Somewhere inside of me wants to believe that attendance can be going down and God might still be blessing our community. I want to believe that giving can be decreasing but lives could still be changed.

Businesses are Obsessed with Growth
I’m sympathetic to this claim. Being a small business owner, I’m overwhelmed at the constant cries for growth within the business world. The business world is obsessed with growth. A business is not considered successful unless it continually grows. But for a business that means getting larger and larger, profits growing year after year after year: $50,000, $100,000, $250,000, and up and up.

But does my business need to grow that much every year? A certain amount of growth is necessary, but I don’t need to triple my profits. It’d be great if I did, but I’m also not eager to triple my workload.

I’m tempted to apply the same logic to the church, but I don’t think it fits. I think growth is still important for a church. I’m happy if my business plateaus at a sustainable level where it provides for me, and generates enough new income to keep going. But has God called the church to plateau? I not sure there’s room for that in the Great Commission.

Peter
June 8, 2006

I’m sympathetic with both sides. Three points: (1) There may be seasons of fruitfulness and of testing. It is critical to have a theology that allows for suffering as part of the Christian life. Jesus told us to expect it. Faithfulness is more important. (2) A data point. Our church dropped a large chunk of members a couple years back for assorted reasons. Now, I can confidently say that we are healthier and more united as a church than before; many who left were discontented. Other corporate issues were revealed and dealt with. God is doing new and fresh things among us. There is new excitement for mission and discipleship. (3) Demographics are a factor for growth. I live in a transient area, so people are always moving through; while my church gets new people regularly, our numbers do not necessarily go up. And what if you’re living in an area whose population is declining? Growth is good, but it is not everything.

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Peter S
June 8, 2006

I think that growth is incredibly important for a church. However numeric and monetary growth are not necessarily the types of growth that God desires. He’s said that over and over in His word.
The example that comes to my mind is Soul Survivor (I think that’s correct) in England. They had fantastic growth, but it was all because of the band. They cut the band so they could become healthy and numbers dropped while spiritual growth happened. After an appropriate amoust of time, the band came back, starting with the song “Heart of Worship”.
Are the measurements of offerings and attendance important? To an extent. If all you concentrate on are those numbers and you don’t look at how lives are changed as people deepen their relationships with Jesus, you’re missing the point.
This has been an interesting post. I look forward to reading more about this and see some other points of view.

Dan
June 8, 2006

I like this discussion too.
One thing that keeps tickling the back of mind is church planting. If growth means just more butts in the pews, maybe that isn’t growth. Maybe that is fat. But if a church essentially stays the same numbers wise but is constantly reproducing by planting churches — of whatever variety — then that would be true growth, I think.
Growth isn’t necessarily a byproduct of living organisms, but reproduction is.

Doug
June 8, 2006

I think that the term “growing” is often times confusing for pastors…or even lay-people. Often times certain types of growth that is measurable can be counterintuitive to certain goals that are set…or to a place that God is taking our community.
It seems to me that we shouldn’t want “growing” churches…we should want HEALTHY churches. This allows for a whole new way of looking at goals, success, etc. Do healthy churches grow in numbers? Yes. Do they grow 100% of the time, every Sunday, every month every year? No.
I have to honestly believe that if we are more concerned with the health of our church (and growing numerically is definitely a part of health), the numbers follow. It gets back to the whole, “do we want converts or disciples” argument. We want to develop healthy people…they will bring more people.

glenn
June 8, 2006

This a great series of helpful posts, Kevin.
Please keep them coming!

skuhn
June 9, 2006

Remember, the church is the entire body of Christ…not just an individual brick and mortar building. If a church of 100 is growing the body of Christ through outreach and missions without ever seeing a large increase in their numbers, is that not still growth?
Whenever someone talks about church growth, I like to remind them what Paul said…”I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase.” And as we know…God does things in His own time. All we need to worry about is planting, watering and making sure the seed lands on good fertile ground. God takes care of the rest.

kevin
June 9, 2006

skuhn, who said you had to have large growth? Growth is growth, whether it’s one soul or 100. I think growth is also not always simply numeric (as many have hinted at the comments and I’ll be addressing in a future post).
I’ve seen someone else use the same verse you’re using, and they same to be saying that all we’re supposed to do is the work of watering and planting and let God worry about everything else. That sounds great, but doesn’t Jesus also talk a lot about bearing fruit? I think there should be some balance there. I can’t do evangelism and not care about the results because there should be some sort of fruit. If I don’t see any fruit, maybe I should try something different.

Kevin,
If you plant and water you will bear fruit, but sometimes you may never see the fruit that you bear.

Dan
June 13, 2006

Another factor in all this is impact for the kingdom and on the community. So your Sunday attendance may stand at 100, but what impact are you having on your community? Perhaps you have small groups meeting throughout the week and they are growing and multiplying as they draw people into fellowship in neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, etc. But that hasn’t yet shown up in your Sunday once-a-week attendance. That’s still growth.
I don’t think sitting in pews and writing checks to missionaries is what Christ had in mind when he gave us the Great Commission. It’s better than nothing, though.