The blossoming of a church depends on more than one kind of nutrient.
Why do churches grow? In the midst of all the conferences, seminars, and books on the subject, I sense that Christian churchmen are overlooking some very important matters. If we continue to ignore certain indispensable conditions, the result may be a short-range, artificial church growth that will explode like a tense bubble. To achieve long-range, real church growth, we must grapple with those underpinning aspects of church life that allow the people of God to outlive any one personality or method.
The conditions I am about to enumerate always surface as matters of discussion and crisis when a church approaches certain growth plateaus. Another term for these plateaus might be “growth ceilings”- points at which a church ceases to grow any further without some major effort.
Often a church appears to pause numerically as if it were wrestling with the practicality and desirability of breaking through to the next growth level. This period of congregational doldrums is often characterized by depressing board meetings, quiet conversations in homes and church hallways about “What’s gone wrong with our church?” or “I can remember when everything seemed to be going so well, and we were growing every week.”
What is really happening, however, is that the church is facing whether it has the faith and energy to break through a natural growth ceiling. Many churches fail to take the steps needed, and they flatten out at that plateau. Later they may move into a state of slow decline both in numbers and vitality.
The first plateau is when a congregation reaches a regular attendance of 150 in its major services. A second plateau is attained at 450-500. Still a third appears somewhere in the range of 950-1,000.
There seem to be some practical reasons for these three plateaus, and at each level they appear to be quite similar. Only magnitude is different. To break through a ceiling demands certain decisions on the part of a congregation. Usually those decisions revolve about more building space, additional pastoral staffing, and a subconscious willingness to allow more people into the church fellowship than any one person will ever be able to know personally. Any one or a combination of these three things tend to threaten the best of us as church members, and our quiet reluctance to spend more money, relinquish control, or associate with virtual “strangers” makes us uneasy.
The tendency, therefore, is to put off dramatic decisions. Often-as a result-the decisions are made anyway, for not to decide is actually to decide to stagnate. Overcrowded space, overloaded pastors, and people reluctant to make new relationships will kill a church faster than anything else.
Having broken through a plateau or ceiling, a church usually begins a steady growth trend toward the next ceiling. There the same kind of trauma sets in again until people feel certain of themselves and God’s leading. It appears that once a church makes bold enough decisions to break through the third successive ceiling, unlimited growth tends to happen in regular phases.
I am convinced that a large majority of the following conditions must be in force within a congregation, or whatever growth there is will be forced and probably temporary. To be sure, a church can grow on the singular strength of a charismatic personality or a local situation in which there is an influx into the community or a kind of momentary programming fad. But is this the kind of growth we wish? Certainly not! We seek honest, long-range growth in which disciples are being shaped in the image of Jesus Christ.
Condition 1: Building for Growth
A growing congregation has somehow made a decision that it will project a ministry to its people built not on the present but the future. This means that it builds structures, hires pastoral staff, and sets in motion programs based on anticipated growth, not actual growth.
To program on the basis of actual growth is always to be at least one to two years behind the momentum. Unfortunately, most churches wait, for example, to hire a minister to youth until the youth have arrived, perhaps growing up through the ranks of preschool and children’s departments. Suddenly the leadership panics, realizing it needs more professional ministry for its young people. But where to find someone? That may be a six-month project, followed by four months of bringing the person to the staff, followed by six to nine months of stabilization. Too much time has been lost for effective work.
The same, obviously, could be said about buildings and programs. Building for growth in terms of staff, space, and strategy is an act of faith. But as in the mõracle of the fishes, Jesus fills only those nets that are out of the boat and in the water. A church wishing to grow builds space, staff, and strategy today for tomorrow’s needs.
Condition 2: Structural Renewal
When a jet plane crashes through the sound barrier, it sets up an aerodynamic tension. Engineers tell me they must design an airplane for this possibility. Many churches are based on a constitutional and programmatic structure put together when they were one-fifth their present size. They wonder why growth is not taking place, and the answer may lie in the fact that yesterday’s configuration makes them incapable of crashing the growth barriers. A larger church requires centralized policy making but decentralized policy implementation.
Unwilling to share the responsibility for significant ministry, a small group at the top can seriously entangle a church’s capacity to conform to change. John Gardner, in an article on organizational renewal, said that a growing organization reviews its constitutional and strategic structure annually with an eye to changing virtually anything that limits growth and efficiency.
Today a church should be willing to change anything except its doctrinal distinctives. It should be prepared to conclude any program the minute it does not reach its expected potential. And it should be prepared to put into action anything wise leaders feel can work to achieve biblical objectives for the health of the believers.
Condition 3: Subcongregations
The instant a church pushes through a ceiling of 150, it consists of at least two or more subcongregations. These are groups with an affinity-geographical location, similar tasks within the church structure, or shared similarities of age, education, or professional interests.
The choir of a church can be a subcongregation. Sunday school teachers, youth staff workers, and the evangelistic calling team are subcongregations. So is the young married group and the senior adult class. The point is this: the larger a church becomes, the more subcongregations will appear. They are the basis of fellowship for each believer. When someone says, “The church is getting so large I don’t know everyone,” the answer is simple: “No one has to know everyone; just make sure you are a member of a subcongregation. No one can relate to more than forty or fifty people anyway, and the subcongregational structure allows for relationships within a large church.” The Jerusalem church was obviously a large church, and its subcongregations met “from house to house.”
With subcongregations, the size of a church becomes irrelevant. The old debate about the virtues of small churches and large churches is quite meaningless. Our attention ought to center on whether or not there are subcongregational groups to which anyone can attach himself.
Condition 4: Diversified Staffing
Growing churches must give serious attention to the multiple-staff concept. Many churches wait far too long to implement this. Only after the pastor has begged and cajoled, only after he has worked himself into exhaustion is the congregation willing to respond.
A good formula for multiple staffing is this: In addition to a senior pastor, a staff pastor of some kind must be appointed for every 200 regularly attending persons. Staff pastors offer a church specialized styles of ministry: youth, children, music, administration. Usually a church responds to the most critical need on the surface. Youth is one example. The greater hidden need in many churches may be in the area of administrative coordination. A sensitive and prayerful leadership will-in conjunction with the pastor-determine the need for staff and build a staff well ahead of the panic moment.
Five small churches must each have a preaching minister who does everything else required of a pastor. One large church can employ five specialized pastors, each providing a special kind of service to a large segment of the church family. This fact should not be easily overlooked; it makes a big difference in confronting the many needs today.
Condition 5: Pursuit of Excellence
As a church grows larger, it needs to make sure that participants in major services sing, read, and lead at the highest possible caliber. Allowing unqualified people to carry out leadership functions simply because “everyone ought to have a chance” cannot work in a large church. If reasonable excellence cannot be achieved, the person in question should be exposed to other opportunities in which his or her gifts can be better used and appreciated.
The question of excellence is frequently confused with Hollywoodism. I am aware that I shall never convince all the skeptics on this one, but the fact is that a growing church has newcomers each week who are making long-range decisions on first impressions. They are confronted with excellence every day of the week in entertainment, business, and community. The work of God cannot be represented by anything less than the standard to which the culture is accustomed. Shabbiness in preaching, music, administration, and programming will quench a growing church’s momentum very quickly.
Condition 6: Systematic Pulpit Ministry
Long-term real church growth rests heavily on a systematic ministry of preaching that feeds people. Basically, it is a ministry that comes from one preacher. Over a long period of time, it cannot be shared by a team of preachers (although there are a few unusual experiments across the country that speak to the contrary). I am convinced that most American churches demand a one-man pulpit ministry that systematically teaches the Word of God.
Churches can grow for a period on the basis of attractive programs; they can momentarily benefit from the work of specialists being flown in for special functions. But long-term growth depends upon whether or not the senior minister can preach well enough to feed the inner spirits of worshipers.
The preaching must be biblical in base, applicable to life, and confrontational in terms of requiring a constant series of decisions about personal living standards and relationships. People need to know how they should live and how they should cope with the pressures crushing down upon them each week. Where there is a pulpit giving honest answers to real-life questions based on exposition from God’s Word, there will be growth.
Condition 7: Full-Spectrum Education
Growth in numbers must be accompanied with total commitment to church education. This is not just Sunday school, although it begins there. And it is not education targeted only at children, although it includes them. It is education aimed at every human being in the church, beginning with four-week-old infants, who are brought to a warmly lit and comfortable nursery to gain their first impressions of church, to the most aged member sitting in a class on Bible exposition.
Full-spectrum education includes classes and learning experiences for new Christians as well as mature Christians. It provides a curriculum in which all parts of the Bible and Christian doctrine are examined. And it offers practical courses on ethics and ideas, where Christianity challenges the modern world view.
Full-spectrum education implies not only a massive effort toward good teaching, but it demands that no reasonable costs be avoided to provide the most comfortable and effective learning facilities. Long-term real growth cannot happen without everyone involved in Christian education.
Condition 8: Disciplined Membership
When I speak of a disciplined membership, I am talking about at least two things: membership that is not cheap, and membership that compels involvement.
A growing church sets high standards for anyone wishing to identify with the church family. It makes every wise effort to ascertain a person’s personal relationship to God and God’s people. It tests integrity through interviews, classes, and confrontations with the needs of the church. Short-term artificial growth can be achieved by making membership a simple matter, but long-term growth cannot happen unless the quality of members is ensured.
An involved membership is also part of discipline. Members should be expected to contribute at least four things: their loyalty to the major services of the church, their willingness to use their spiritual gifts when called upon, their financial gifts on a proportionate basis to God’s blessing in their lives, and their positive and encouraging support of church leaders. Growth cannot happen without this.
Condition 9: Relational Emphasis
No church that is relationally cold will grow for very long. This condition begins with the pastor, who must show a sincere and honest love for people. If he is genuine in his love and capable of expressing it, the effect will be contagious. In a world that tends to exploit and dominate, people crave to be loved. When they find it in a church fellowship, they wish to be part of it.
Warmth can be easily engendered in a large congregation as well as in a small one. But it begins with the leadership. The relational emphasis must pervade the church program, emphasizing the family structure and meaningful friendships that support people in times of need.
Growing churches must find ways to break people down into small caring groups-perhaps different from subcongregations-where immediate attention can be given when a person faces a need caused by sickness, death, or professional difficulty. With such a relational emphasis, no one will ever feel lost, unneeded, or unloved. Growth demands it.
Condition 10: Bold Decisions
Church growth is ultimately accomplished in a climate of faith. No church has ever been blessed by God’s Spirit if it restricted its decision making to the obvious and “safe.” Faith demands the willingness to take large risks, which aren’t really risks at all. As the disciples put nets into a sea seemingly bereft of fish, so the church is called upon by God to make bold moves to which God can respond with power and approval.
Bold decisions are not stupid ones. They are not the result of one person who wishes to build an organizational monument to himself. Rather, they are the believing decisions made by a prayerful leadership of men and women of faith who are trusting God for great things. Bold decisions are made by people who are not totally sure of the results, but they know their church belongs to the Lord, and where he leads it will be his concern. They step forth in faith, and God responds.
Where these conditions prevail, the plateaus of growth are easily passed. The church grows more significant to all of us as society becomes more anti-Christ. We cannot wait another moment; we must bring these conditions to pass that more might hear, that more might be won to Jesus Christ, and that, churches everywhere might grow.
Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
