Is Church Growth The Best Way To Make More Disciples In Your Neighborhood?

In addition to “how can we break through to the next size level?” we need to ask “is bigger really better in this situation?"

Because I minister to small churches, I’m often asked, “aren’t you worried, that by supporting small churches you’ll be encouraging churches that could grow, to stay small instead?”

Yes. That is a concern. One that I’ve addressed in Small Church Essentials, and in several posts including, Small Churches Are Not a Problem, a Virtue or an Excuse.

But I also have a question of my own. One that’s almost never considered. Namely, “aren’t you worried, that by promoting individual congregational growth, you’ll be encouraging churches that should stay small, to get bigger instead?”

That question is so foreign to us it almost feels wrong to ask, doesn’t it?

Before we go any further, let me state again that I’m not against church growth. I very much support it as an essential element in fulfilling the Great Commission. But true church growth isn’t just churches getting bigger, it’s the increase of Christians as a percentage of the population.

“How do we make more disciples?” is a far better question than “how do make our churches bigger?” When pressed, virtually every pastor I know would agree that disciple-making is what church growth is all about. But when we assume that addressing the church growth question will also answer the discipleship question we have our priorities backwards.

But we almost never consider the questions in that way. Instead, we make assumptions. And there may be no bigger assumption being made in church leadership today than this...

We assume that growing a bigger church is a better way to make disciples without ever asking if this is really true. Read More