Good Growth
We just returned from another trip to Texas to visit my daughter’s family, including our grandkids. There is enough time between our travels, and the kids are so young that we can see the difference in their size each time. Since they are currently only 2 and 5 years old, we would have great concern if we didn’t see growth. And given their extraordinarily tall parents, we expect a lot of growth! So imagine if they were still the same size five years from now. That’s cause for alarm!
Grandkids are not our only focus of growth expectations. For example, my wife is growing a salsa garden. She wants to see progress in the size and health of her tomatoes, green chilis, chili peppers, and basil. As with most living things, if they are not growing, they are either dead or highly unhealthy. So far, so good. But stunted growth is a good reason to diagnose and treat the problem causing it. We don’t celebrate halted growth in plants or people.
Does Christ expect the same for the local church? Absolutely! Jesus called for and expected His disciples to pursue the expansion of His Church. As with other growing things, a healthy church should grow. We should not rejoice when a church’s growth pauses any more than we do in people and plants. Churches that have experienced a lack of increase over an extended period are likely unhealthy. Can small churches be considered healthy? Yes, but if they stay small, it might be time for a health screening. Unless they exist in such a small community, they ran out of people!
Conversely, just because a church grows doesn’t mean it’s healthy. Some of the largest mega-churches in the world are purveyors of unbiblical teaching and practices. They grow for the wrong reasons. When a church becomes focused on pleasing people, pursuing the latest trends, and adding to the numbers at all costs, it is a recipe for an unhealthy, albeit growing, church.
Some have reacted to the unhealthy large church phenomenon by considering it noble to be and remain a small church. They may even promote the impression that large churches must be less spiritual because of their size. But spiritual, healthy, and numerically increasing churches are possible. Not just growing through transfer, but transformation.
It may seem obvious, but the key to growing healthy churches, even large ones, is to do what Jesus said: make disciples. That’s not a clever formula or new, slick paradigm that attracts seminar or conference attendees, but it’s what healthy churches do. It’s also what the church did following its inception. And it grew fast!
The Church began with an incredible explosion of growth. Peter preached a sermon, and 3,000 responded with belief, repentance, and baptism (Acts 2:41). Through gospel fellowship, the Church was established and continued to grow. It looked like this:
Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2:46-47)
Some say we shouldn’t be concerned about “numbers.” Yet, numerical growth in the description of the first local church is portrayed as a positive thing. Of course, an increase in numbers is important. But the individuals within the church must grow. Not the kind of physical growth we look for in our grandchildren, but the kind of growth God looks for in each of us: spiritual growth. When there is true discipleship, spiritual growth, and godly health founded on Christ, a church’s numerical growth will follow. Healthy sheep produce sheep.
“I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”
—Matthew 16:18