Growth is important for any healthy organic system. Living things need to grow in some way or they will go into decline and die. Staying as you are is almost impossible. It requires a tightly controlled amount of growth, simply because you have to replace what you’re loosing at a perfectly balanced rate. This is almost impossible, so change is inevitable.
Church growth is a huge subject of discussion at the moment in the Church of England. It’s right at the top of the agenda for Dioceses and the National Church. For some it is a question of survival, while for others it is about fulfilling the God-given mission of the Church.
I’ve always been passionate about growing the Church, but there are many ways of tackling this agenda. Some of them can have destructive unintended consequences, while others cause more problems than they solve…
I think the key issue is that we need to understand growth in a healthy and balanced way. It is important to understand that growth can happen in terms of numbers, impact or depth/complexity.
As churches, we need to have growth in all three areas. If we only focus on one, we will become unhealthy and face serious problems…
Impact: It’s important for churches to grow in the impact they have on the wider-world. Serving the common good is part of the purpose that churches have. They are called to acts of mercy, kindness and compassion – reaching out to those in need and proclaiming the Kingdom in action not just in words…
But – merely seeking to do good things can be self-defeating. It can result in avoiding the question, “Why?” and a failure to recruit more disciples will ultimately result in a declining number of high-impact Christians. In other words, failing to grow in depth or numbers will ultimately result in declining impact.
Depth: It’s crucial for churches to grow in depth. They need to increase in theological understanding, reconciled relationships and the beauty of worship. This is part of what it means to be God’s people. We need to strive for ever greater quality in our thoughts, words and actions…
But – if we only focus on quality we will turn inwards and engage in conflict about what we do and what it means. We will lack the purpose that comes from service, and the hospitality that is required for discipleship. Effectively we will be increasing complexity without giving it space to expand. This is similar to the way that entropy in a closed system leads to collapse. Churches that focus on internal behaviour tear themselves apart through conflict and self-obsession.
Numbers: Growth in numbers is an important aspect of Church life. We need to increase the number of people who are working together to change the world. We also need to help new believers to grow in depth rather than fight with other people about what depth looks like. Jesus calls us to make disciples and we need to take this seriously…
But – if we just focus on numbers alone we will kill the Church. When cells increase in a living body without purpose or function we usually call this cancer. The new cells block the normal functions of the body as a whole and also prevent healthy cells from forming. In the same way we fail in our calling if we merely get more people to turn up, but fail to give them purpose in the world, or fail to help them develop as healthy well-rounded individuals.
I can think of churches or denominations that have gone into decline because they have sought to serve the world, but not grown disciples. I have seen churches tear themselves apart because they genuinely wanted to do things better. I have witnessed the damage that happens when a church grows without nurturing disciples. It can bring other churches down with it…
We need to grow the Church, but we need to do it in a healthy way. When we make plans for the future we need to think about how we grow – in depth, impact and numbers. We need all three.
