Thursday, October 23, 2014

Church Growth Is Not an Exact Science


It’s easy to spot an unhealthy church that won’t grow.

Lack of vision, inadequate systems, poor planning, unfriendly people and more will doom a church to irrelevance very quickly. Spotting such churches is obvious and easy, especially for anyone who has spent much time in pastoral ministry.

It’s much harder to spot a church that will grow. Or a healthy church that may not grow.

Take the examples of Church A and Church B.

Both churches are doing everything they should do to promote growth. They’re healthy, vibrant, and contextually valid. They have Godly leaders, enthusiastic volunteers, a compelling vision, challenging, but doable goals… everything needed for a healthy, growing church.

Sure, they each have their problems. No church is perfect. But the problems are minor.

Church A grows.

Church B doesn’t.

Pastor A holds seminars on how to grow your church like they grew theirs.

Pastor B calls goes to Pastor A’s seminar to find out what Church B is doing wrong. Pastor B comes home with a list to work on. They work on the list. It doesn’t help. Read more

See also
Forget Being Culturally Relevant – Let’s Get Contextually Real

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