I once belonged to a denomination who adopted as their yearly mission statements “reversing the Arrow”. The arrow they were talking about was in reference to the graphs that showed the decline in membership and attendance in their churches. So they spent a year doing everything they could to see this arrow change. Change is what they got, after a drive to change worship styles, introduce technology, increase marketing, putting on more events and concerts, there was indeed change, the arrow changed the next year as there was a slight increase that year, then there was change again a few years later when the Church decided to abandon Biblical values for popular values, the arrow pointed almost straight down. This Church asked a fatal question “how do we get more people to attend our Churches”. This is the wrong question. This question has driven the Church for the past several decades, and while this question has caused some Churches to grow into “mega-Churches” it has not grown the number of disciples, it has not actually grown the Church at all.
This movement, called “the Church growth movement” came about with a movement at Fuller seminary in the US. Professor Donald Macarvan wrote a book on Church growth. Now, his emphasis was on disciple making through being missional. This is positive and Biblical Church growth. However, this renewed emphasis caused many of his peers to embrace the cause of finding ways to grow the Church. One of his colleagues wrote a book which endorsed “Church growth at any cost”. Meanwhile, we had the rise of Norman Vincent Peale’s Church which endorsed a liberal progressive theology mixed with new age positive thinking spirituality and the rise of Robert Schuller and Billy Graham whose successes were largely reported in terms of numbers and size of crowds. There was also a move started in Florida called “Christian Growth ministries” which took Schuller’s emphasis on leadership and recreated the Shepherding movement which was a church growth movement that focused on the power and authority of leaders both in the Church and in government. The founders of this movement would later attempt to shut down the ministry as it had become too controlling and unbiblical, however the influence had spread by this point. In 1973 before they had come to this realization the team at Christian growth ministries had given lectures at Fuller Seminary where their influenced would be melded into the Church growth movement.
What came out of this was the modern Church growth movement, which is one of the most common movements among the church today. The movement is guided by these principles;
1: Possibility thinking (based on Norman Vincent Peale’s power of positive thinking). This comes with an emphasis on big long term planning and goal setting for specific goals mixed with new age positive thinking.
2: An emphasis on visionary leadership and authority or on being pastor lead. This arises out of a call for the efficiency that comes with only having a small amount of people in authority positions. Many churches have done away with congregational meetings and with giving decision making authority to elders and deacons. In his book “your Church has real possibilities” Schuller writes that Church decision making should be left to full time professions and their ability to make decisions should be “unchallenged”. This paved the way for the shepherding movement to get involved and has made a rebranded of the shepherding movement called “apostolic Alignment” common among Churches.
3. The use of modern marketing strategies or any strategy that works in getting more people into your Church.
4. A focus on impressing those outside the Church or seekers. This means that Churches use buildings, technology, etc, to appeal to non-Christians.
5. Avoiding controversial subjects. The emphasis is on positive sermons that appeal to those outside the Church and avoidance of anything that might make people feel uncomfortable or challenged intellectually.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I believe this movement was born out of a genuine desire to see the great commission carried out. It came out of a knee jerk reaction to the decline of many Churches in the 1970’s. If people were leaving, the knee jerk reaction was to ask the question “how do we get them back?” A simple reading of John chapter 6 would have shown that this is not the Biblical question to ask as Jesus had the same problem but didn’t ask that question.
The movement says that the point of our Church should be to attract people into our worship time or our programs where they will hear a leader within the Church share the good news with them and they will respond in the worship space or program. This movement flips the directional command in Matthew 28 on its head. Jesus says “go” and this movement says “come in”.
The principles above can be summed up into two main goals; getting people and keeping people. People become a commodity. The success of a Church is measured by the number of people sitting in the pews on a Sunday morning.
The Church growth movement is an answer to the question “How do we get more people” and to that end, it works! Churches that apply Church Growth Movement principles grow in number, But after 40 years of this being the model for most of the Church, we can safely say, it has not furthered the great commission. The growth in some Churches is not actually growth in the body of Christ as per the number of disciples. The growth that most mega Churches are seeing is something called “transfer growth” which is not growth but people from one Church transferring to another. The fact is, is that the number of those people who profess in Jesus Christ in western nations is on the decline, despite many Churches adopting the principles of the Church Growth Movement.
So what is the solution? Where do we go from here? Sometimes changing our thinking is like removing a bandaid, it hurts. Not only do we have to change our thinking but we have to re-examine our libraries and use discernment when viewing some of the most popular Contemporary books and media sources. Most, likely we have to change our practices and even the way we speak. But we don’t have to find a new method. We don’t have to put the “Church Growth Movement” behind us and go looking to develop a new model. We have one true model found in the Bible.
So let’s consider the following.
This movement, called “the Church growth movement” came about with a movement at Fuller seminary in the US. Professor Donald Macarvan wrote a book on Church growth. Now, his emphasis was on disciple making through being missional. This is positive and Biblical Church growth. However, this renewed emphasis caused many of his peers to embrace the cause of finding ways to grow the Church. One of his colleagues wrote a book which endorsed “Church growth at any cost”. Meanwhile, we had the rise of Norman Vincent Peale’s Church which endorsed a liberal progressive theology mixed with new age positive thinking spirituality and the rise of Robert Schuller and Billy Graham whose successes were largely reported in terms of numbers and size of crowds. There was also a move started in Florida called “Christian Growth ministries” which took Schuller’s emphasis on leadership and recreated the Shepherding movement which was a church growth movement that focused on the power and authority of leaders both in the Church and in government. The founders of this movement would later attempt to shut down the ministry as it had become too controlling and unbiblical, however the influence had spread by this point. In 1973 before they had come to this realization the team at Christian growth ministries had given lectures at Fuller Seminary where their influenced would be melded into the Church growth movement.
What came out of this was the modern Church growth movement, which is one of the most common movements among the church today. The movement is guided by these principles;
1: Possibility thinking (based on Norman Vincent Peale’s power of positive thinking). This comes with an emphasis on big long term planning and goal setting for specific goals mixed with new age positive thinking.
2: An emphasis on visionary leadership and authority or on being pastor lead. This arises out of a call for the efficiency that comes with only having a small amount of people in authority positions. Many churches have done away with congregational meetings and with giving decision making authority to elders and deacons. In his book “your Church has real possibilities” Schuller writes that Church decision making should be left to full time professions and their ability to make decisions should be “unchallenged”. This paved the way for the shepherding movement to get involved and has made a rebranded of the shepherding movement called “apostolic Alignment” common among Churches.
3. The use of modern marketing strategies or any strategy that works in getting more people into your Church.
4. A focus on impressing those outside the Church or seekers. This means that Churches use buildings, technology, etc, to appeal to non-Christians.
5. Avoiding controversial subjects. The emphasis is on positive sermons that appeal to those outside the Church and avoidance of anything that might make people feel uncomfortable or challenged intellectually.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I believe this movement was born out of a genuine desire to see the great commission carried out. It came out of a knee jerk reaction to the decline of many Churches in the 1970’s. If people were leaving, the knee jerk reaction was to ask the question “how do we get them back?” A simple reading of John chapter 6 would have shown that this is not the Biblical question to ask as Jesus had the same problem but didn’t ask that question.
The movement says that the point of our Church should be to attract people into our worship time or our programs where they will hear a leader within the Church share the good news with them and they will respond in the worship space or program. This movement flips the directional command in Matthew 28 on its head. Jesus says “go” and this movement says “come in”.
The principles above can be summed up into two main goals; getting people and keeping people. People become a commodity. The success of a Church is measured by the number of people sitting in the pews on a Sunday morning.
The Church growth movement is an answer to the question “How do we get more people” and to that end, it works! Churches that apply Church Growth Movement principles grow in number, But after 40 years of this being the model for most of the Church, we can safely say, it has not furthered the great commission. The growth in some Churches is not actually growth in the body of Christ as per the number of disciples. The growth that most mega Churches are seeing is something called “transfer growth” which is not growth but people from one Church transferring to another. The fact is, is that the number of those people who profess in Jesus Christ in western nations is on the decline, despite many Churches adopting the principles of the Church Growth Movement.
So what is the solution? Where do we go from here? Sometimes changing our thinking is like removing a bandaid, it hurts. Not only do we have to change our thinking but we have to re-examine our libraries and use discernment when viewing some of the most popular Contemporary books and media sources. Most, likely we have to change our practices and even the way we speak. But we don’t have to find a new method. We don’t have to put the “Church Growth Movement” behind us and go looking to develop a new model. We have one true model found in the Bible.
So let’s consider the following.
- What is our goal? Our goal is to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them… Let’s not get that confused. Our goal is not to get more people into our pews on a Sunday Morning. It is not political or cultural authority. It is not to create, restore, or maintain culture. It is not to keep the building up. It is not to show how good, rich, healthy, or pious we are. It is simply to make disciples of all nations.
- How do we do that? I intentionally left out part of that command above. It says we should “Go, make disciples ….” How do we make disciples, we stop making strategies and over thinking and we simply go out and talk to people about Jesus.
- Whose Church is it? Our language is ripe with the language of division, yet Paul says have no divisions. He says don’t say I am of Apollos or I am of Paul, so now we say I am of Luther, I am of England, I am of Wesley, I am of Calvin, I am of so and so Ministries of the apostle so and so. And we talk about “My Church”. There is only one Church. So we need to stop marketing “My Church” or “my Pastor’s Church” and start marketing Jesus.
- Should the Church be attractive? Jesus says in Matthew 10 that you will be hated by everyone on his account. He says in Matthew 7 that the way is narrow and few will find it. Part of that command in Matthew 28 is to teach all that Jesus taught, but when Jesus taugh in John 6 everyone walked away because the gospel he was teaching was contrary to what they believed. The Gospel is not a popular message, foolishness according to the world.
- Is the teachings of the Church controversial? Of Course. We used to call Christians to go out and share the gospel, to serve others, to do ministry. Now if you turn on most tv pastors all you hear about is the call for Christians to get more stuff, more power, more money, more health, more happiness… for themselves. Sure this is attractive, but it’s not the call of the Church. If all your Church teaches is how to get more stuff for yourself, then who is the God they are worshipping, the stuff, you, or the God of the Bible whom you should be serving.Is our task to get more of God or more money, Jesus says you can’t serve both.
- Was anyone in the Bible ever invited to “attend” Church? No…
- Did any of the New testament preachers do most of their preaching behind a pulpit? No…
- Did the early Church do street preaching or market place preaching? Yes. Today however this is often frowned on. In fact, I say this about I myself, even after going to seminary and being a minister for almost ten years have no idea how to do this. In my vast collections of books and media on the Church I only have one source on how to do the thing that the early Church did most often, preach in public.
- Should our teachings be difficult? Yes. The Gospel addresses sin and calls people to repent. This is not always comfortable or positive. If we are only teaching what is comfortable we are being the false teachers warned about in 1 Timothy 4:3.
- Genuineness is important. If we believe in “Church growth at any cost” then people become a commodity. We lose genuineness in our interactions with people and suddenly we find ourselves care about, taking interest, and speaking to people not because we are genuinely caring about them, but because we want to invite them to Church. Then once we get them there our focus becomes on keeping them there rather than actually loving genuinely.
- Can a small poor church be effective? Yes. In fact, in Revelations Jesus writes letters to the seven Churches, 5 out of those seven letters were to Churches who needed rebuke and correction. He only commended two Churches who were doing the right thing, The Church in Smyrna was one of them. Jesus says I know you are poor and afflicted.
- What is Biblical Church Government? Deacons according to Acts 6 are men charged with the day to day ministry of the Church. Elders likewise are then given the task of focusing on Spiritual matters of the Church.Apostles are, as per the Biblical witness and the very definition of their name, those who are sent out. Apostles in the Bible never stuck around and built and controlled a single local Church. What is absent from the Bible are CEO’s, heads of staff, directors, etc. The leadership models of the world are fallen worldly models, the Bible gives us great direction in this. The new testament Church is not reliant on a single visionary leader, but on a plurality of spirit led and spirit gifted believers, the royal priesthood working together.
- Where is the Church? It’s interesting, if you look at the Churches in revelation you see that each letter is addressed to “the angel of THE church IN …” Paul letters are addressed to “The Church in Ephesus or Corinth…” He’s not writing to people who meet in an individual Church building under a particular brand. If that’s true today that means that the Church in our community is all the true believers in our community no matter what Church they go to. If we change our view to this, then our view of Church growth will also change. It will mean when a Christian comes from one Church to another there is no Church Growth. When a person comes to true faith in Jesus Christ in another Church, we should count that a blessing even if they worship in a different building at a different time. ( we can talk about the difference between the visible Church and the true Church another time).