Yesterday I got frustrated while reading Tony Morgan’s latest blog post.
But it wasn’t Tony’s fault.
Tony Morgan is the founder of The Unstuck Group and he’s starting a new series on growth strategies for churches of different sizes.
In the first sentence, he warned his readers that "several of you probably aren’t going to like this series of articles." Why? Because “the Unstuck Group wants to help churches get healthy and grow. The fact that I’m going to write about strategies to help grow your church, though, will certainly offend some people.”
As soon as I read that, I got mad. Not at Tony, but at a toxic environment that makes it necessary for him to spend most of this initial blog post preempting the opposition he will inevitably receive simply for writing about church growth.
As a supporter and encourager of healthy small churches, I wasn’t frustrated that Tony will be writing about church growth. I was frustrated that he felt the need to defend himself over it.
Let’s Hear from All Viewpoints
If you're a church growth proponent, you must be against small churches, right?
And if you love and support small churches, you must be against church growth, right?
Wrong.
And wrong.
But those opinions persist. Frustratingly so.
This is the reason I gave The Grasshopper Myth the subtitle Big Churches, Small Churches and the Small Thinking that Divides Us. Because this kind of small-minded thinking needs to stop.
Tony Morgan and I have different approaches to church health and growth. Tony focuses on helping stuck churches grow. I focus on helping small churches get healthy. We need both.
I don’t know Tony, and I haven’t read any of his upcoming blog posts yet, so I have no idea if I’ll agree with his advice, but that’s beside the point.
Even if I disagree with specific points, there’s no reason to get upset at him for writing about church growth.
Read What You Need
I don’t write about church growth. But it’s not because I’m against it. It’s because I’ve never been good at it.
Tony Morgan writes about church growth because he and the Unstuck Group are good at it.
Big or small. Healthy or unhealthy. We can all get stuck. As Tony wrote, “It’s possible to grow a church that’s not healthy. It’s also possible for healthy churches to get stuck.”
He’s right. That’s why, when my church gets stuck I lean on the wisdom of guys like Tony.
If you want ideas on innovative leadership from a small church perspective, read my stuff. If you want to read about church growth, read Tony’s stuff.
Both strategies are needed at different times in a church’s life. So neither of us needs to defend ourselves for having a different perspective.
Thank God We’re Different
There are all kinds of ways to look at church health, growth and kingdom impact.
As long as you
- Put Jesus first
- Emphasize discipleship
- Promote healthy churches
- And pursue kingdom growth
I want to hear what you have to say.
Your approach will be different than mine. If it wasn’t, we probably couldn’t help each other very much.
Certainly, we can have a healthy interchange of ideas. And sometimes that will mean writing about our disagreements. But there’s no need to jump all over each other just because we have different role to play in the body of Christ.
If someone else’s approach to church health and growth doesn’t work for you, you don’t have to use it. Just move on.
Do what God is calling you to do and let others do what God is calling them to do.
No one should have to defend themselves for that.
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