How Can I Help My Church to Grow? part 2

Part 1 (click here) 

In the first post of this series, we set aside the question of how you can help your church to grow, in order to first address an important preliminary question: Why do you want your church to grow? If you aren’t clear about the why stop here and start over again.

Assuming you have a good reason for wanting your church to grow (e.g. more pews to clean) then you need to answer a second preliminary question: What do I mean by church growth? This is a complicated question. Church growth can be measured by numbers. Increased numbers of members, attenders, and so on. Attendance and membership numbers are not insignificant. They can be worth tracking. However, our obsession with numbers can result in a skewed understanding of growth. People will often say to me, “Wow! That was a great service. There were so many people!” or “It’s too bad, so few showed” (Also, people often say to me, “That joke you told was the funniest I’ve ever heard…”). 

But what if I told you (insert meme here), that at the service with the high attendance, the music did not go well, the preaching was subpar, and, the large number of guest attenders were mostly ignored by the regular congregation? In this case, the “high attendance” service sounds less than successful, right? And what if I told you that at the service that was sparsely attended, a man who had been away from the church for years, had a quiet but meaningful spiritual experience (with simple music and preaching) leading him to begin to make some important life changes and to become active in that particular congregation? (Sounds pretty, good, right? So does my yodeling, btw). 

High attendance by itself doesn’t translate into individuals, couples, and families growing seriously in their faith. It also doesn’t translate by itself into outreach and difference making in the wider community (e.g. The Great Commandment, The Great Commission). There is growth in faithful habits (prayer, worship, service, etc.). There is growth in the fruits of the Holy Spirit (e.g. love, joy, peace, patience, etc. see Galatians 5:22-23). There is growth in understanding and living Christian beliefs and practices. There is growth in people giving the pastor gift cards to Starbucks. This is all church growth (Minus the gift the cards, that’s what we call a joke folks).

Now that you’ve answered the what you mean question and previously answered the why question, we can now move back to the original question: How Can I Help My Church to Grow? (While you’re waiting for the next post, you can clean the pews at your church. Fun, right?)

What about you? Why do you mean by church growth? Feel free to share in the comments.